This
is a quick draft of the sermon from Sunday, April 12th. Sorry about some of the rough spots and
abbreviations (N is north, S is south, E is east, W is west). I know this is difficult to understand without
the maps and photos. I hope I’ll be able
to add them some time.
CREDIT: This is one of the lectures developed by Dr.
Jim Fleming and the staff of Biblical Resources in Jerusalem that we would give
to Christian tourists when they first arrived in Israel as a general
introduction to the land. We sometimes
call this the 5-4-3-2-1 lecture.
The
Bible is like the script of a play or film.
By reading it, you can get a good sense of the plot. You can appreciate much of the dialogue. But you have to rely on your imagination to
fill in the details. That's fine if
you're reading a story of events in your own country and your own
generation. It’s easy to understand the
customs and the setting of your own time and your own people.
But
what if the story takes place far away, in a distant time and culture, with a
different language and people? Your
imagination will paint a picture--but that picture will be quite different than
the reality. You will miss the point of
strange customs and sayings. And you
will misunderstand some of the actions. This
is the problem we have when we read the Bible:
the action is in Israel in the Middle East, thousands of years ago, in
the Hebrew (or Greek) language, and among a Semitic people and society very
different than our own.
Even
the animals may be different than we imagine.
So, for example, we read about sheep in the Bible. What’s the picture that comes into your
mind? In America and Australia, we have beautiful
white sheep, and so in our Christmas cards, naturally, we show white
sheep. But in Israel, the sheep are
actually a tan color with dark markings.
Many Christmas
cards show the shepherds on the hills looking down at Bethlehem in the valley
below. But actually, Bethlehem is up on
a hill. In America and Australia, the sheep
graze in beautiful green fields, but in Israel, sheep graze in the desert,
which can be a dangerous area (Psalm 23).
You
see the problem we have with the Bible.
We have vivid impressions when we read it, but they’re often
incorrect. How can we solve this problem? One way is to visit Israel—either in person,
or by means of photos as we will do today.
Here, in Israel, you’re no longer just reading the script, but you’re
much closer to seeing the actual film.
1) To accurately understand the Bible, we must
understand the original scenery: the
land itself. It’s mostly the same as in
Bible times—the same mountains, rivers, and valleys, are all pretty much in the
same places as they were then. There’s
the same climate. The same native plants
and animals (many of them). Even many of
the towns can be found in the same places with the same names. This is why we sometimes refer to the Land of
Israel as the Fifth Gospel: we can learn
about the Bible by studying the land.
2) We must also understand the original characters
in the Bible: the people. The Jewish people are here (again), after
being gone for almost 2,000 years.
Hebrew is a living language again.
And ancient lifeways, customs, and agricultural practices have been preserved
among local Arabs and among the Bedouin people.
3) We must become familiar with the original
props: the archeological discoveries: the remains of buildings, pottery,
jewelry, weapons, even clothing, and writing.
And the bones of the people themselves.
In a
carefully made film, the setting is important to the plot: it's not accidental that the action takes
place in a particular time and place.
This is especially true here in Israel where the scene changes can be so
dramatic: From snow-capped Mt. Hermon in
the north to the barren, rocky deserts in the south; from the forested rolling
hills of Galilee to the sun & fun Mediterranean coastline—and all within a
few miles of each other!
The theme
of God's selection, both of the land and of the Jewish people is mentioned over
and over again in the Bible, beginning with Abraham in Genesis: your descendants, in this
land. So a key question to keep in mind
when we study the Bible is: Why? Why this land? Why this people? Why the time period in which the events take
place?
5 VARIETIES
Israel
is a place of great geographical variety, more than any other this size in the
world. So I’d like to talk about this by
describing Five Varieties in the land of Israel:
1) The
first is GEOLOGICAL VARIETY: This includes a huge gash in the landscape called
the Rift Valley (or the Aravah
in Biblical Hebrew): This is part
of the longest rift system on the face of the earth. It’s known as the Syrian/African rift, and it
stretches all the way from Armenia to Mozambique. 90 degrees along the
circumference of the earth.
This huge
rift was created by earthquakes, earthquakes that continue right up until today. There are hundreds of earthquake fault lines
all over the area. The reason for this
is that two crustal plates are pressing up against each other right here: the Syrian and Mediterranean plates. The plate on the W is going S, the one on the
E is going N.
Did
you know, there’s also a rift valley in Taiwan?
It was created in pretty much the same way.
In
Israel, there’s a small earthquake every day or two that can be measured by instruments. That’s about 250 earthquakes a year. About six of these can be felt without
instruments. On the major fault lines,
there is an earthquake above 6 or 7 on the Richter scale every 100 years or so. The last major earthquake was in 1927, which
means the next big one could be any day now...
For
example, at Jericho, which is down in the Rift Valley, you can feel all 6 of
those earthquakes every year. So they
have a saying in Jericho when you build a new house: Don't paint for the first 10 years--let the house
settle down a bit, and then paint over the cracks.
This
is the context for Joshua's conquest of Jericho: an earthquake that caused the
walls of Jericho to fall down. Or the huge
earthquake in the time of King Uzziah (Amos 1:1). Zechariah mentions an earthquake that will
happen at the return of the Messiah, that will split the Mt. of Olives in two (Zech.
14:4). And of course there was the earthquake
at the crucifixion of Jesus, that split the veil of the Temple (Matt. 27:51); and
then again after the resurrection (which was probably an aftershock after the other
earthquake).
There
are also volcanoes along the rift, like this one, the Horns of Hattin, which is
the only volcano W. of the Sea of Galilee.
And to the E of the Sea of Galilee, huge black basalt flows by the sea
and up in the Golan Heights—which is why there are so few trees here. There have not been any recent eruptions, but
there is lots of underground heat. This
is what provides the heat for the hot springs that can be found by the Sea of
Galilee, and also down by the Dead Sea.
These
hot springs were popular back in Jesus’ day, too. At that time, there were fancy Roman baths
here. They attracted sick people from all
over the Roman world (the water is very helpful with rheumatoid and arthritic
conditions). Is it just a coincidence
that God put Jesus with a healing ministry right in this area where all these
sick people were coming?
2) Another
kind of variety found in Israel is variety in ELEVATION: from the depths
of the Rift Vally/Aravah to the heights of the Hill Country on either side. This dramatic change in elevation has naturally
divided this area into two different nations, as it is today, with Israel and Jordan
on either side of the Rift Valley. In
ancient times, it was Israel on the W with Ammon, Moab, and Edom on the E.
The lowest
point in Israel is more than 400 m (1,300 ft) below sea level: that’s at the surface of the Dead Sea, the lowest
point above water on earth.
The highest
point is 2,800 m (9,200 ft) above sea level:
that’s Mt. Hermon at the northern tip of Israel. It’s snow covered about half of the
year. So between Mt. Hermon and the Dead
Sea is change of more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) in elevation over a distance of only
about 240 km (150 m). That’s a big
change.
The Sea
of Galilee is also below sea level: about 210 m (690 ft) below sea level. It’s the only freshwater lake in the world
below sea level.
The Hill
Country on either side of the Rift Valley/Aravah rises up to 900 m (2,950 ft)
above sea level. That’s a change of more
than 1,000 m (3,000 ft) on each side of the rift valley. So Israel is really a large, flat tableland
cracked by violent earthquake activity. Because
of this, going from the central hill country to the east is a steeper descent
than going west to the sea.
This
variety in elevation creates five major regions that run up and down the
country like the fingers on your hand:
1) Coastal Plain, 2) Shephelah (Low lying hills), 3) Hill Country, 4) Rift
Valley (Aravah), 5) Eastern Plateau.
3) This variety of elevation in turn creates a variety
of CLIMATES.
The prevailing
winds are from the west 300 days out of the year. They’re most noticeable in the afternoon when
a little cool air will blow in from the Mediterranean. This is what the Bible calls the “cool of the
day” (or literally the “breathing” of the day in the Song of Solomon). This is the same direction that rain usually
comes from, when there is any.
Most
of the rain falls on the Coastal Plain just before the clouds ascend above the
mountains. That makes this the best area
for crops. Today, this area is planted
with Jaffa oranges; it was an oak forest in antiquity (Sharon plain).
As
the clouds press inland, they come to the low, rolling hills (the Shephelah). This area is also pretty well-watered, good
for grain.
But by
the time the clouds have risen up above the hill country itself, there is less
rain. This is an area of terrace
agriculture. The soil here is better for
trees: like olives, almonds, figs,
grapes, and pomegranates.
After
the clouds pass the peak of the hill country, and the land starts to drop down
again, there is no rain left. This
creates what we call a rain shadow in the Judean Desert and the Rift Valley/Aravah
canyon. It’s an area with very little rain,
and so very little vegetation.
Then,
when the clouds get beyond the Rift Valley, they ascend again in Transjordan, above
the Eastern Plateau. Since this means they
must go up again, they release a little more rain. This creates a narrow strip of agricultural
land in the Eastern Plateau about 20 miles wide. But after that, there’s no more rain, only desert
going out to Saudi Arabia.
The highest
amount of rain is on Mt. Hermon (the highest elevation): 2 m (60") per year, which is nothing
compared to Taiwan. Upper Galilee gets
about 90 cm (40”). In the low elevation
areas, especially in the south, there’s as little as 1 cloudburst every 5 years. Jerusalem is about 62 cm (25") per year
average: though this varies from 90 cm
(40”) to 10 cm (4”) a year. An area is considered
desert if it gets 28 cm (11”) or less a year.
So
all this variety of geology and elevation and rainfall creates hundreds of
different ‘microclimates,’ all over the country, which creates:
4) A tremendous variety of PLANTS and ANIMALS. (We’ll
say more about that in just a moment.)
5) And also a tremendous variety of PEOPLE:
both today and in ancient times.
In
ancient times, 10 different people groups are mentioned in Canaan before the
Israelites entered the land (Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and the Jebusites; Gen.
15:19-21). Even after the Conquest in
the time of Joshua, there were Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Philistines, and Phoenicians.
Today
there are also many different people groups:
Jews, Moslems, Christians, Druze, and Samaritans, with many sub-groups,
likeAshkenazi and Sephardic Jews; Palestinian Arabs of Egyptian background, or
of Syrian background; there are Greek Christians and Syrian Christians,
Armenian and Egyptian Christians, Ethiopians and Roman Catholics, not to
mention every kind of Protestant group from many different countries.
So Israel
is a land of TREMENDOUS VARIETY. Wherever
you're from in the world, there’s someplace here that’s like back home—at least
for part of the year. You have to travel
a long way in the U.S. or Australia or other countries to see this kind of variety. But here, all that variety is in a tiny
little space:
Israel
is only about 2/3 the size of Taiwan (32,260 sq km to 20,330 sq km). That means you can fit 1½ Israels into Taiwan. But Taiwan has 3.5x the population (23
million to 6.5 million) of Israel. The entire
population of Israel is only about the size of Greater Taipei.
Israel
is only about 400 km (250 m) N-S (from Dan to Elat). That’s almost exactly the same length as
Taiwan (394 km). It’s only about 240 km
(150 m) from Dan to Beersheva. That’s
the habitable part of the land.
While
it’s only about 80 km (50 m) E-W (from the Mediterranean to the Rift
Valley). You can actually see both of
them from Jerusalem on a clear day. Taiwan
is almost twice as wide (144 km).
Israel
is tiny. Yet, most of the events in the Bible
took place in this small area, which changes so much from place to place. This is what creates the dramatic scene
changes of the Bible. So, 3 dots on a
map can be totally different: a different
view, a different sense of security, different rock for building materials,
different soils, different fertility, different hopes and different fears.
It’s
been very difficult to hold together a nation fragmented by all these
differences. And in history, it has rarely
been done. In the 1900 years from the
time of Abraham to Jesus, a Jewish nation united this whole territory for only
150 years. The geology, elevation, and
climate all seem to conspire together against maintaining unity in this land: right up to today's headlines. Yet this is the land of promise for God's
chosen people. Why?
4 SEAS
We’ve
talked about 5 different kinds of variety in Israel. Now I want to mention its four seas.
If
they were anywhere else, two of these would be called lakes. The Sea of Galilee is only 21 x 12 km (13 x 7
m), not much larger than Sun-Moon Lake. And
each of them has a different level of salinity.
The
Mediterranean Sea (Dà Hǎi) is called "The Great Sea" in the Bible (Yam
Gadol). It’s 3.7% salt.
It was the main trade route with Egypt and Lebanon, and Turkey. In New Testament times, it was the highway to
the Roman world. The port here at Joppa
is where Jonah got on the boat to Tarshish, trying to escape from God’s call.
The Red
Sea (Hóng Hǎi) is called in Hebrew "Yam Suf” (the Sea of Reeds). It’s 4.2% salt. This is a tropical sea. It was the route for King Solomon's
trade with Arabia and India. Moses and
the children of Israel came this way on their Exodus from Egypt. It looks quite plain above the water. But under the water, there are almost as many
different kinds of plants and fish as in the Great Barrier Reef (the big coral
reef) in Australia.
The Dead
Sea (Yán Hǎi) is called in Hebrew "Yam HaMelach" (the Salt Sea). It’s 32% salt, which is 9x the salinity of
the ocean. It has no outlet, so the only
way for water to leave is by evaporation.
This leaves all the salts in the water behind. If you take 3 kilos of Dead Sea water, and boil
off the water, you’ll have 1 kilo of salts left.
The
water is supersaturated with salt, which means that salt naturally precipitates
out of it: potassium, magnesium,
chlorides and sulphates. This is what
accounts for it's incredible buoyancy:
like in this picture with the man floating with his hands and feet out
of the water.
The Romans
called it the “Asphalt Lake” because of the islands of tar/asphalt/bitumen that
occasionally appear. One the size of
this room bobbed up to surface of the lake after the 1964 earthquake. Oil slicks often appear on the water. This tar is what gives the dark color to the
famous Dead Sea mud.
The
Bible also mentions tar pits in the area, in the time of Abraham, although none
are visible today. But there is still
tar under the water of the sea. All
these flammable oil products in the area may have had something to do with the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which sounds like it might have been a natural
gas explosion.
This tar was very valuable in ancient
times. It was used to caulk boats (like
the ark of Noah), for Egyptian mummification, in medicines, and even today is
still used in modern health and beauty aids.
The
Dead Sea Works, which removes the different kinds of salt from the sea, is the biggest
business in Israel.
The Sea of Galilee (Jiā-lì-lì Hǎi) is known in
Hebrew as Yam Kinnereth (Harp Sea), because it’s shaped like an ancient harp. It’s also known in the Bible as the lake of Gennesareth
(Luke 5:1), and as Lake Tiberius. This
is a fresh (sweet) water lake. It’s less
than 1/10 of 1% salt.
There
are 18 native species of fish in the lake, most of them kosher, which means they are permitted to be eaten by Jewish
Law. To be kosher, they must have both scales
and fins. (Almost all poisonous fish in
the world don't have scales. So if
you’re somewhere in the world where you don’t know the fish, it’s best to avoid
non-kosher fish.)
3 CONTINENTS
So
far we’ve talked about 5 Varieties and 4 Seas.
Now I’d like to talk about 3 Continents.
Israel is the only place in the world where 3 continents touch: Africa , Europe , and Asia . This makes it the center of the world, as it
was sometimes shown on ancient maps. It
also made it a strategic land bridge—the only land route—between those 3
continents.
Because
of this, there are many migratory birds that pass through Israel: 23 different kinds of birds are mentioned in
the Bible, though it’s not a book about birds.
The migratory
paths of many birds from Asia come down over the Dead Sea, others from Europe come
down along the Mediterranean coast.
A trained observer can easily see as many as
200 species in one day. 4,000 species
pass through every year: more than 500
million birds a year. In fact, there are
tours to Israel just for bird watching.
But
being a land bridge also means there are land animals from three
continents: In the past, there were both
Indian and African camels, leopards, even elephants and hippos. There used to be lots of exotic life living
down in the Rift Valley by the Jordan River:
David fought a lion and a bear. There
were lots of large cats.
But
this also brought the armies of three continents. When Africa was strong, Egyptians and
Ethiopians marched up the coast from the S.
When Asia strong--Assyrians, Babylonian, and Persians--marched down from
the NE. When Europe was strong: Hittites, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Crusaders
marched down from the NW. When the Arabs
grew strong, they conquered from the deserts to the East, and ruled for more
than 1,000 years.
There
were two major routes through the land:
1) The Coastal Highway has that name because it
runs down along the Mediterranean sea coast:
In the Bible it’s called the Way of the Sea (Via Maris), or in Exodus
the Way of the Philistines (Ex. 13:7). This
is part of the reason Galilee is called Galilee of the Gentiles: because of all the people passing through on
the trade routes.
2) The second major route was the King’s Highway,
mostly in what today is the nation of Jordan.
Everyone
wanted to control these routes. Why? If you controlled these routes, you could
collect tax money (customs) at border crossings. This is how King Solomon got rich, and King
Herod after him, along with many others.
But
the problem with living on a highway, is that you're liable to get run
over. And they were, over and over
again, throughout history. Some cities were
destroyed as many as 20 times over the course of their existence. Jerusalem
When
the Bible says, "The land saw peace for 40 years," that was a
remarkably long time. So the Biblical
story is a story of getting run over. It
was not a matter of if there would be war, but when it would
happen (just like today). The differences
between the many varieties of land and people constantly risk boiling over into war.
In
ancient times, a military campaign was the quickest way to solve a kingdom’s
financial problems: you’d go out on a
raid and grab everything in sight: food,
animals, people (for slaves), possessions.
This variety of invading armies also led to a tremendous variety of
cultural influences—if you could survive to appreciate it.
So
why did God choose this place? Why not
someplace safe and comfortable out of harm's way? The typical picture of David peacefully
tending his sheep, or Jesus with the flowers of the field doesn’t reflect reality. Rather, this has always been a place of
struggle, of conflict, and of war!
2 DESERTS
So
what’s left? Next I want to talk about
the 2 deserts of Israel. The Arabian and
Saharan deserts meet here: two of the world's
driest deserts. This makes it a very dry
region overall. Water has always been a
problem and an issue.
To
understand the influence of these 2 deserts, we can divide Israel up into four
sections. (1) The first section, to the
NW, is the rainiest quarter. (2) The
second section, to the NE, is less rainy.
(3) The third section, to the SW, has even less rain. (4) And the fourth section, to the SE, has
the least rain of all.
This
makes it possible to come up with some rules for rainfall: (1) As we’ve already seen, the highest
elevation (like at Mt. Hermon) is the wettest, (2) The lowest elevation (like
down by the Dead Sea) is the driest. (3)
NW = Wetter. (4) SE = drier. If you put all the rules together, you can
make a pretty good guess as to the rainfall.
So for example, a high place in the S might have more rain than a low place
in north.
There
are also two other rules of rainfall we have to include. (5) There is more rain in the winter. This is when most of the rain, if any, will
fall. (6) And there is less rain, and sometimes
no rain at all, in the summer. To this
day, religious Jews pray for rain in the synagogue in the winter, and for dew
in the summer. Because of this, water is
always an area of desperate need in Israel.
And it has always been an area of temptation to seek other gods.
So
Israel is not what most of us would consider a paradise, except by comparison to
the even more barren deserts around it.
So why then does the Bible call it a "land flowing with milk and honey"
(Ex. 3:8)? The milk refers to the milk
of goats and sheep. There’s just enough
rain for good grazing for these animals in the central hills.
And
the honey refers to the honey either from bees or from fruit trees, like date
honey, which is popular in Israel.
There’s just enough rain for flowers and some kinds of trees, even
without irrigation. They survive on the rain
from God out of heaven.
This
is quite different than in Egypt, where there’s almost no rain at all. All the water in Egypt comes from the Nile, and
the land requires intensive irrigation for anything to grow.
But
in Israel, God provided the water himself.
As it says in Deut. 8:7-9: “For
the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water,
of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valley and hills; a land of wheat
and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and
honey; a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not
lack anything.” God provided
everything they needed to have a good life.
The different
amounts of rainfall in different areas lead to a different pattern of life for
those more affected by the desert and those less affected by the desert. We could call these different “seats” to see
the Biblical drama.
Those
in the drier areas to the S+E, low in elevation, we'll call the
"milk" seats, the milk areas. These are the areas of sheep and goats, of milk
and cheese. The life here is the life of
the shepherd. It’s an area of desert,
cliffs and rocks. It’s silent and
lonely: people are more isolated, they
live by themselves or in small villages.
Out
here, life is unpredictable. You can't
always get a crop, if there’s less than 11" of rain. Abraham was forced to go to Egypt, as was Jacob
after him, when there wasn’t enough rain.
There’s a seven year drought cycle still today just like there was in
Bible times: remember the seven good
years and the seven lean years in the dream of Pharaoh that Joseph interpreted?
In
the milk areas, life is exhausting. The
average life expectancy of the Bedouin is 40.
Bedouin families only have 1-2 children.
Why? Because of dehydration and
malnourishment.
Those
living in the areas of more rain to the N+W, and higher in elevation, we’ll
call the “honey” seats, the honey areas.
The life here is the life of the farmer.
It’s an area of fields, plains, and trees. It’s noisy and busy. There are big cities, with trade routes and
the sea. Today half of Israel's population
lives along the coast in area of about 20 x 10 miles.
Here
life is predictable. There’s always
enough rain for at least one crop, even in a dry year (20-40"). The only question is how big your harvest
will be. There are some places in the
north where they can get 15 cuttings of grain in a single year. Fig trees bear 5x a year.
Life
is easy: you produce more than you need—which
is enough to hire others (or buy others) to do your work for you. This created
different levels in society (not like the more egalitarian lifestyle in the desert,
where everyone has more or less the same).
So which
of these two regions, of milk or of honey, do you think has better seats for
the Biblical drama? Of the 353 cities
mentioned by name in the Bible, 300 are on the edge of the desert, in the milk
areas. Almost 50% of the Bible occurred
within a few miles of Jerusalem
Only
50 are in the honey areas, and these usually belong to "others": Phoenicians, Philistines, Canaanites, Greeks,
Romans. The Canaanite gods identified
with the "honey" side of life, the areas of the farmer: areas of power, fertility, and wealth. There was a very strong temptation for those
in the desert to call on these gods.
Yet
the God of the Bible chose to identify himself with Abraham the herdsman, who
lived in the desert, in lonely, unsophisticated areas. The God of the Bible chose to identify
himself with a disorganized group of slaves escaping through the desert
from Egypt. And later with a conquered
nation taken into exile through the desert to Babylon. Elijah, under pressure, sought God in the desert. John the Baptist and Jesus were drawn to the desert.
It's
interesting that the three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam) did not come from the great river cultures of Mesopotamia , Egypt Mesopotamia 's
350 gods have been forgotten. Egypt
The God
of the desert always had a harder time with the Israelites when they were
living on the "easy" side, the honey side of the farmers. Here it was too easy for them to pursue prosperity
and ease. Too easy to rely on powerful
cities and wealth, rather than to rely upon God. Most people see wealth and power as the
blessing of God. They’re the things we
all want, and for which we are most quick to thank God: things that make our lives more predictable
and easy.
But
what if we receive the unpredictable, the lonely, the exhausting from God? These are the things we usually want to stay away
from. But are we right to immediately
assume that these are always bad? Might
this instead sometimes be the path of promise?
What
did Jesus say? To paraphrase the
beatitudes: "You think that happiness is found on the easy side of life, the
honey side, but I say, blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed
are the meek, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness."
Or to
adapt another of his sayings, "It's easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than to succeed in a God-kind of life on the easy side."
The
false prophets taught:
1) God loves your people more than others.
2) There won't be an enemy.
3) There won't be a famine.
But the
true prophets, like Jeremiah, taught against the false prophets:
1) God loves your country--but not more or less
than others.
2) There will be an enemy: your country is a land bridge connecting
three continents. It's not if but when there will be war.
3) There will be a famine: you live on the edge of the Sahara and the Arabian
desert, two of the driest deserts in the world.
4) But God knows about the enemy, God knows
about the famine, and he'll be with you through those things and restore you when
they're over. He's a God that will weep
with you in your greatest sorrow; he’ll preserve you in your greatest time of
need.
What
strength did Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah find in the desert? What drew Jesus, Paul, and many generations
of monks and holy men to the desert? Why
was its time in the desert considered Israel
As
Jesus said, the broad road may be easier, but the winding, narrow, difficult road
is the one that leads to life. This goes
completely against our natural way of thinking.
This
doesn’t mean that God has rejected the "easy" side of life, the honey
side. The book of Acts is the story of
God reaching out to the big cities on the Mediterranean, to the cosmopolitan
Roman world.
But
maybe we can allow what we learn about the land of Israel to challenge our
understanding of what the path of promise is all about. Maybe we can let the promised land, with all
its exhausting unpredictabilities, teach us what it is to be a chosen
people.
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