Page 13 - Holyland Magazine - 2010 Edition

JESUS TRAIL
the land through your feet, pull
your Bible out of your backpack
on a hilltop overlooking a fertile
valley or the Sea of Galilee, and
meet the gracious and warm
people of Galilee, will change your
life forever.
The “classic” Jesus Trail is a four-
day experience. The approximately
40-mile trail begins, where else,
but in Nazareth, Jesus’ boyhood
home. After a view from the top
of the city, possibly the “brow of
the hill” (Luke 4:28), you’ll
continue through the Galilee
Mountains getting to know
“Annunciation Land,” the hills and
dales that were the backdrop to
Jesus’ life and works. The trail
heads down the mountain to
Sepphoris (Zippori), the “big city”
of Jesus’ day, built by Herod
Antipas (Luke 13:32), where you’ll
visit the antiquities, including a
theater built around the time of
Jesus and magnificent mosaics.
The first day’s hike continues up
to the modern-day village of
Meshed. Then it’s over the ridge
and down to another modern
village – this one with ancient
antecedents and a beloved Gospel
story to tell – Cana, the site of
Jesus’ first miracle. This is where
your first day’s hike will end,
because you’ll be staying overnight
and enjoying real village hospitality of the busiest highway junctions
with a local family.
” (Deut 6:5-7)
At left: Trail cofounder David Landis looks
down on the Sea of Galilee from Arbel cliff.
Photo: Anna Dintaman. This page: Above:
American hiker Ben Reed on the Horns of
Hattin with the Arbel cliff and snowy
Mt. Hermon in background. Below: A stretch
of actual Roman road along the trail. Photos:
David Landis, courtesy of the Jesus Trail
The next day the trail continues
through a tranquil swath of Galilee
pine forest and down to the valley
where tradition says Jesus and the
hungry disciples picked grain on
the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1). If talk
of hungry disciples has you ready
for a mid-morning snack, take it
out of your backpack as you rest
on a rock. While lightening your
physical load, you’ll discover your
mental and spiritual backpack is
filling with new pictures that will
forever bring the Bible alive –
there are those very same wheat
fields, interspersed with olive
groves, the surrounding hillsides
dotted with pomegranates, figs
and carobs. For a little extra
energy you can even pick a few
carobs off the trees, like John the
Baptist did as described in
Matthew 3:4 (you’ll learn that the
“locusts” that John the Baptist
ate were the fruit of this tree, not
grasshoppers as some say!).
A highlight of Day 2 is a stretch
of the ancient Roman road that
Jesus may have trod more than
once between Nazareth and
Capernaum (Matt. 4:13, Luke
4:31). One of the truly amazing
moments of today’s walk is when
it dawns on you that this historic
gem of a road, laden with spiritual
meaning, is just out of sight of one
in Galilee, with its traffic lights,