Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 72, 11 May 1945, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by the WliakaUme Ministers' Association)

"I ALSO WALKED BY GALILEE" By a Desert Soldier All the time T was in the Holy Land as a soldier 1 was searching for .something—something I never found —until 1 went to Galilee. Jerusalem! Bethlehem! Nazareth! They must be the most familiar place-siames in t lie world a mil | every Christian at some lime or another must have pictured them in the mind's-eye. To me they had always been legendary, unreal places j subjects for Bible pictures and school loom decorations until as a .soldier I found myself in Palestine. Then, almost overnight they became real cities, to be sought out and explored on brief, rare leaves. You don't have to be of a very religious turn of mind to want to find Christ in the Holy Land. It is like visiting Canterbury or .Winchester in search of English history. You look for something more than ancient monuments; something that will bring you closer to reality and truth. In Palestine you hope for even more than that. But it was all very disappointing. In the first place you could never get away by yourself. Wherever you went your footsteps were dogged by persistent guides and beggars, and you very soon gave up any attempt at sightseeing. During our training we got about the country quite a lot. We rattled down the Vale of Hebron and through the narrow ° 9 furtive streets of Gaza and Beer>fheba onr noisy convoys stirring up the age-old dust of centuries. We drew our water from wells which had once refreshed the thirsty Roman legions, and we blvouaced on warm ' scented nights beneath olive groves that were old centuries before Christ. It was always, interesting and often verv beautiful cs--9 pecially when the sun went down behind the Judaean Hills. But that was all. Something essentia! was missing. Something that one wanted to find wasn't there. Nowhere could J find Him; in the Carpenter's shop at Nazareth, on the Mount, of Olives, even in* the Church of the Holy Sepulchre it- ! .self, 1 could not convince myself I that His tired leet had once walked I these worn or that here, per- ■ haps His shadow had once fallen 'across this very doorway. Perhaps 1 was to blame. Perhaps the army —the endless routine or military training—had blunted my imagination. But whatever it was Christ ' '9 was not there. Then I went to Galilee. One roasting day in mid-summer I took the long road that, runs cast from Acre twisting and turning for miles between rugged, hills that rise abruptly* on either side. For centuries these hills sheltered bands of robbers who fell on defenceless travellers and even in the days just before the war the road was a death trap for many British patrols which were frequently .ambushed there. On the day I went along it, it was peaceful enough but every mile the dust lay inches deep and the atmosphere was like an oven. Now and again we passed small Arab villages collections of untdiy mud houses beside the road, and in the narrow lieids under the hills men

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

and women wore busy with primitive ploughs and hoes scratching a bare living from the baked and grudging soil. We passed one settlement rather larger than the others and even more dirty and untidy. It was Cana ? the "village in the scene of the first miracle when the water was turned into wine. Then, almost before we knew it } we had topped a hill and Galilee lay below u.s. What, a scene for tired travellers! There ; quiet and untouched in the centre ot the great Jordan Valley lay the lake, blue and .shimmering, with the brown hills of Trans-Jordanui beyond and in the far away to the north, the great snow-capped peak of Mount Hermon standing up into tlie clear sky. There was an indescribable peace brooding over it all } as if the spirit of Christ still lingered there. I knew instinctively then that at last I had found what I had been searching for all the time 1 had been in the Holy Land. And as avc went down to the lake I had the feeling that 1 was about to step into the New 7 Testament and for all 1 knew might meet Peter or James or Andrew busy at their nets. I walked in Peter's garden and stood beneath the same ancient olive trees under which tie must have stood and looked out across the J lake. It must have been iust here that He took ship with His disciples on that occasion when the storm overtook them: '"And. behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that t lie ship was covered with the waves; but He was asleep. And His disciples: came to Him, and woke Him, saying Lord, save us: avc perish. And He saith unto them why are ye fearful O ye of little faith? Then He arose and rebuked the winds, of the sea; and there was a great calm." As I stooid there in Peter's garden 1 thought of those words and all the present slipped away. Time no longer exis.tc-d. The war the vile discomforts of the desert Tobruk ? ' where only a week before 1 had seen my comrades maimed and killed; they all slipped away from me and 1 only knew that I wa.s standing on the shores of Galilee and that the Master's boat might return to the little beach below me at any moment now, and that 1' might, sfce them coming towards me through the trees. Then 1 walked towards the. water and caught sight of my own stained and dirty uniform. The present came rushing back and engulfed me and the spell was broken. It was dusk as we drove through Tiberias on the way back to the sea coast. Our car climbed the long hill behind the town, and from the top we took out* last'look at Galilee. There was still something of the sunset in the sky, and on the shoulders of the far hills long lingers of purple shadows ran down the valleys to the water's edge. Far out in the centre of the lake, there was a solitary fishing boat with the fishermen standing hauling at their net. Galilee lay quiet and asleep as if a benediction had fallen over it, and 1 turned away. Tomorrow 1 was going back to the desert. But down there beside the lake I had found what I had been looking for.