Stations of the Resurrection Pilgrimage
Travelogue

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May 7, 2007
Monday
Day Thirteen

This was our last full day in the Galilee, and was spent with our pilgrimage group focusing on the Sea of Galilee and living in the hope of the resurrection.

We took the bus to Nof Ginosar, a kibbutz that featured a display of a boat discovered in the mud of the Sea of Galilee in the 1980's and found to be from the first century and relatively intact. It was quite a feat getting it out of the water without the wood disintegrating, and there was a film chronicling the discovery and removal. The room also had the boat itself preserved with questions about whose boat it was. The disciples or Jesus? A fisherman from nearby Migdal?

On the same property, with its multi-level stone structure, was a beach for swimming. Some from our group took a last dip in this lake that is the source for so many of the Gospel stories, and a contemporary resource for the well-being of Israel.

In our last hours as a pilgrimage group, we held a processional devotional service adapted from the Archdiocese of Detroit called the Stations of the Resurrection. We sang stations of the Easter hymn O Sons and Daughters, read verses from resurrection accounts, and prayed prayers of living into the new life Christ gives to us in fourteen stations around the grounds of the Pilgerhaus. We ended in the meditation room, lighting our own candles from the Paschal Candle to show that we pilgrims are bearers of Christ's hope for this land and our world.

After a festive Italian farewell meal with wine all around, we celebrated our time together in and prepared for our early morning departure.

We shared thanks and gifts with our guide Naim and driver Magit, and our beloved and capable leaders Michael and Susan.

Our departure from the Pilgerhaus will be at 6:00 am, in order to arrive in a timely fashion at Ben Gurion airport, and to get safely through security. We expect to arrive in Newark at around 4:00 pm, and for those continuing to Manchester to arrive at around 10:40 pm.

This has been a deepening experience for which we are grateful. We all want to return and invite others to hear the stories of Palestinians and their struggles, and to recognize the continuing witness of the Christian community.

I have been privileged to be a reporter to those back and home, and apologize for any inaccuracies. May this documentation be its own memory, story-telling, and window into the experience of twenty-four pilgrims who came to find hope, to share solidarity in the occupation, to accompany Christians who live here, and to be in our own small way a source of hope, all rooted in the event of Jesus' resurrection that continues to resonate in this land.

Tim Keyl
Christ the King Lutheran Church
Nashua, New Hampshire


Click here to see Pastor Tim's photos of the Pilgrimage on Flickr.
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