An Ancient Sacrifice for Faith

I've finally got a reliable wireless connection now that we are approaching Istanbul, the port from which we started our voyage two weeks ago. It seems like years.

And that may be because so much of this trip has been about exploring the past and seeing how it has molded our lives today: Ephesus, the Acropolis in Athens, Corinth and Jerusalem, where every street of the Old City rings with history. On the last days ashore we toured through ancient Judea, visited the River Jordan, bobbed on the mineral-rich Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, and saw the caves at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

Our final afternoon brought us to the area around Nazareth and to Capernaum, where Christ began his ministry. We took a beautiful sunset boat ride on the Sea of Galilee, where he calmed the waves and walked on the water.

Most amazing of all to me, perhaps, were the ruins of Masada, a mountaintop fortress where some 960 Jewish rebels who had participated in the revolt in Jerusalem in 66 A.D. made their last stand against the pursuing Roman legion. For more than three years they held out against 8,000 Roman soldiers before killing themselves rather than being captured and enslaved.

What impressed me most was the willingness of these Jews (called Zealots) to fight and die for their faith, a sacrifice that many Christians of the early church would soon make. As I gazed out over the northern escarpment across the desert, I couldn't help but wonder at how lonely the siege must have been for the Zealots, for they surely knew their eventual fate. I thought of our visit to the Holocaust Museum on our first morning in Israel, and the isthmus of history that connected that tragedy with this one.

Our guide, Isaac, came and stood next to me. “I have no doubt they did what they thought was the right thing,” he said. “They made this place a symbol of the struggle to be free from oppression.” Then he tapped my arm. “Time to go.” We headed for the cable cars that would take us down.

I had grown very fond of Isaac. The first morning on our bus he had revealed a treasure. He took a tarnished coin from his pocket. “This is an actual coin that was used in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.” He had bought it from a collector for a great deal of money, he said.

He passed the coin around our group, urging us to hold it and feel the sensation of history. When my turn came I examined the coin closely. On one side I could make out the head of a Caesar—Tiberius?—but I couldn't tell what made up the other side. I pressed the coin between my hands and wondered whose hands it had passed through over the centuries. Had a disciple touched this coin? One of the moneychangers Jesus drove out of the temple? Jesus himself?

Not likely, I knew, but possible. Possible.

Isaac explained that when his wife saw the bill for the coin she threw him out of the house and he had to go live with his mother for a time. “But eventually she forgave me and I came home. She understood how important the coin was to me.”

Now I understood too.

If there was any doubt about the reconciliation it was dispelled when we passed the site where Jesus performed his first miracle at the marriage at Cana. Isaac got on his cell phone, called his wife and said, “I love you.” He always did that passing this sacred spot.

Check out the latest slideshow of photographs from Edward's journey through the holy lands.