It was just a boat ride, but God turned the experience into something special.
To be honest, the circumstances made the event more than a boat ride. The place was the Sea of Galilee early on a January Saturday morning. The water was almost still, and a light fog hung over the mountains, which surround this spot of Christian history.
I was there with eight other editors of state Baptist papers, all guests of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. The ministry wanted us to experience Israel for ourselves and report to our readers what we found.
Saturday is the Sabbath in Israel, and it was a lazy kind of morning. Our guide had to make special arrangements for us to board the boat around 8 a.m. for our 45-minute excursion.
The boat could accommodate about 100 people on a busy day, but this morning, it was just us with a two-person crew. For the first few minutes, we sailed along the northern shore. The guide pointed out a V-shaped cut in the mountains that allows wind to whip down to the water, which is below sea level, and create the violent storms for which the lake is famous.
We sailed along the Capernaum shore on the north side of the sea, by the elevated rock where tradition says Jesus restored Peter to fellowship following the apostle’s denial of the Lord, along the base of the hills where Jesus fed the 5,000 and by the mountainside where He preached the Sermon on the Mount. So much of Jesus’ ministry was concentrated in this small geographical area, and one could see many of the important sites from the boat as it slowly plied along the water.
When the boat stopped, a crew member dug out fishing net to demonstrate the methods of first-century fishermen. When his first cast yielded nothing, he gave in to the urgings of our group to cast his net on the other side of the boat. But unlike the disciples, the net came back empty a second time.
The boat turned and headed back for shore. I was alone in the bow of the boat sitting on the rail. It was then I heard the sounds of Baptists’ national anthem, “Amazing Grace.” The song was coming from the speaker system on the boat. The crew plays songs appropriate for whatever religious group or language group happens to be on the boat. For us, the first song was “Amazing Grace.”
That was when the experience ceased being a tourist event and turned into worship. “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me!” God’s love made known in Jesus Christ for me — that is an overpowering reality. And that love was lived out in the places before my eyes, even on the water on which I was sailing.
The day before, we had been in Nazareth and visited the churches built over the sites where tradition says the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. We had passed through Cana, where Jesus performed His first miracle. Now we were on the Sea of Galilee surrounded by so many places identified with important events in Jesus’ life.
The reality was overpowering. This was not like reading about the places where these events happened. It was not even like looking at pictures of them or listening to descriptions of others who had seen them. I was actually here. I was seeing these places firsthand.
The outlines made by the mountains against the morning January sky are the same outlines Jesus saw. The gap in the mountain is the same one that let in the storm Jesus calmed.
The waters into which the crew member cast his net are the same waters fished by Peter and James and John.
Even the road our bus followed from Tiberias to the kibbutz is the same ancient path Jesus and others followed as they journeyed along the shore of the sea.
Seeing a church built on every historic Christian site was not what I had in mind for my trip to the Holy Land, but even that could not lessen the impact of the moment. I was where Jesus walked and taught, where Jesus lived out “amazing grace … to save a wretch like me.” All I could do was praise God and thank Him for Jesus.
And I thanked Him for that moment and for being in that place where so much of Jesus’ life was lived.
One of my editor friends saw my face and my tears as I sat alone. He came over, patted my shoulder and said softly, “It is a special place, isn’t it?” I appreciated having a friend sensitive to God’s work in my life.
The boat ride ended a few minutes later, and the day continued, an eventful day, a good day filled with visits to some of the sites mentioned above, hikes through architectural ruins, a drive along the Golan Heights and more.
But the lasting memory for me will always be the boat ride. More specifically, it will be that moment during the boat ride when being where Jesus lived out His “amazing grace” brought a new sense of reality and thanksgiving to my heart. Thank you God for that moment.
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