In His Footsteps: DAY FOUR

River Jordan

Breakfast

Yardenit, River Jordan: Jordan means ‘to descend into’.

-‘Land of Milk and Honey’ usually thought of meaning plush place, but, actually infers a rugged mountainous place. Milk came from goats which lived in the mountains, very rugged terrain. But there were lots of flowers for bees to gather honey from, so a rugged place with flowers.

Canaan

Passing through Canaan

The wedding was in Cana. Tradition was that you usually married in your hometown. Nathaniel was from Cana so it could have been his wedding. But why was Mary taking such an active role in the wedding? Maybe they were good friends.
Some shadowing:
Moses brings forth water and Christ brings forth wine
Moses turns the water to blood and Christ turns the water to wine.

Church of Annunciation
The Church of the Annunciation-Catholic Church in Nazareth-where Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus.
Engagements were a very big deal in Mary’s day. There was a huge celebration to kick off the engagement. Very public affair.
In NT Matt. Wrote to a Jewish audience. When he wrote the lineage of Jesus he organized them into 3 groups of 14==the letters for the number 14 are the numbers that mean ‘David’. Testifying that Christ is of David’s lineage.

Inside Church of Annunciation

Luke’s lineage is to the Greeks and he put famous people all on the 7’s, with Christ at number 77. Seven symbolizes perfection.
Matt includes three women, Rahab, Bathsheba and Ruth. Why mention these three? Maybe emphasizing the God will use what he’s got. If you are willing than God will use you no matter your past or place in the world.

Nazareth Village:

Nazareth Village

People were required to go to Jerusalem 3x a year. Taxes were collected at those times as well.
Jerusalem was were the more educated people resided. They looked down upon the Galileans. Thus the phrase ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’
Nazareth is surrounded by 17 hills. Sometimes these are referred to as the petals of a rose.

Terraces: In the parable of the Sower see Matt 13:4/ Luke 8:5. The donkey path is a very hard and rocky dirt path. The thorns can grow very high and must be pulled quickly and early. The good soil is on top of chalky soil. The deeper the soil the better the soil. Farmers would check how deep it would go. In fact one man uses that as an excuse not to come to the wedding feast in another parable.

Threshing floor
A donkey pulls the threshing board while a man stands on the board and sometimes children would sit on it also to weight it down. During the day the wind blows from all directions but the evening wind blows only in one direction, this is good to blow the straw away.
Sheep are always on track but the goats rebel and follow their own directions.

Tomb: They would usually bend the body and tie the legs so it would take up less room. Or they would lay the body out flat like Christ.

One year after dead was buried the family goes back into tomb and collects the bones and take them to bury them all in one place together with all previous generations in the tomb. They would create a family ritual to do this.

Jesus in Synagogue:
When Jesus returned and declared the he was the Messiah while reading in the synagogue he read Isaiah 61: 1-2. There are two parts to this passage. 1. That Messiah will come with might and 2. That the Messiah will come with mercy. Jesus only reads the part about coming with mercy. He reads about the anointed Messiah, prison of sin, sorrow and binding up the broken-hearted. He does not read about ‘the day of vengeance’ as that refers to the second coming.

Oil Press
Woodworker
Matronly Worker with Yarns