We depart Los Angeles International Airport on an overnight journey to Israel.

Meals: in flight | Overnight: in flight

We land at Ben Gurion Airport, where our guide will meet us and help us through arrivals before we board our private, deluxe motor coach for the short drive into Tel Aviv. If time allows, we will stop first in the ancient port town of Jaffa, where Peter received the vision recorded in Acts 10 on the rooftop of Simon the Tanner’s house. In that vision, God showed Peter a sheet lowered from heaven filled with animals and told him, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” The vision prepared Peter to go to the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and it was there that God made plain what the vision meant: that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the salvation He offers, was not for Jews only but for the Gentiles as well. Jaffa marks the turning point where the good news began moving out to the whole world. Dinner and overnight Tel Aviv area, Herods Herzliya or similar. (-, D)

After breakfast, we check out of our hotel and travel to Caesarea Maritima, the grand coastal city built by Herod the Great and later a center of Roman administration. Its Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader ruins still stand along the shore. Here we will recount the story of Cornelius, the Roman centurion who became one of the first Gentile believers, and we will trace how Caesarea served as a launching point for the Apostle Paul’s journeys, through which the Gospel spread west into the Roman Empire and beyond. From Caesarea we continue to Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal in one of the Old Testament’s great demonstrations of the Lord’s power. We will discuss why Elijah chose this site for the contest and what the account still teaches us about faithfulness to God in the face of opposition. We then drive to Nazareth and visit the Church of the Annunciation, built over the traditional house of Mary, where the angel appeared to her and announced that she would bear a son and call Him Immanuel. We will also climb the Mount of Precipice, the hillside associated with the moment recorded in Luke 4, when the people of His hometown rejected Him and tried to drive Him from the town. From this height, overlooking the Jezreel Valley, we will also talk about why many Christians identify this plain as the setting for the climactic battle described in Revelation 16:16. We check in to our hotel upon arrival at the Sea of Galilee. Dinner and overnight at the Sea of Galilee, Leonardo Club or similar. (B, D)

This morning we visit the Ancient Boat Museum, home to a 2,000-year-old fishing boat recovered from the Sea of Galilee, a vivid reminder of the world Jesus and His disciples knew. We then set sail ourselves on a replica of that same style of boat, taking in the water and the surrounding hills much as the disciples once did. From there we visit the Mount of Beatitudes, traditionally identified as the site of the Sermon on the Mount, and we will spend time reflecting on that teaching. We continue to Capernaum, the town Jesus made the base of His Galilean ministry and the site of many of His miracles. From there we travel to Tabgha to visit the Church of the Primacy of Peter, built at the traditional site of Jesus’ third post-resurrection appearance to His disciples, when He restored Peter and commissioned him to “feed my sheep.” We then continue to the Jordan River, where those who wish will have the opportunity to be baptized in the same river as was Jesus, before visiting Magdala, hometown of Mary Magdalene. Dinner and overnight at the Sea of Galilee, Leonardo Club or similar. (B, D)

After breakfast, we check out of our hotel and leave the Galilee behind, traveling south through the Jordan River Valley. We stop first at Gideon’s Spring, where the Lord narrowed Gideon’s army down to three hundred men before the battle against the Midianites, a reminder that victory belongs to the Lord and not to the strength of numbers. We continue to Beit She’an, once the leading city of the Decapolis and among the best-preserved Roman and Byzantine sites in the country. We will recall the account of King Saul’s death, whose body, along with those of his sons, was hung on the city walls after the battle at Gilboa. En route to Jericho we stop at Bet Arabah, known also as Qasr el Yahud and as Gilgal, where the Israelites first crossed into the Promised Land, where Elijah was taken up to heaven, and which is the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus. We continue to Jericho, where we visit the Tel of Jericho, the mound of ruins many believe holds the remains of the walls that fell before Joshua and the Israelites, and view the Mount of Temptation rising above the plain. A panoramic tour of the town brings us past the Sycamore Tree associated with Zacchaeus, the tax collector who climbed it to see Jesus pass by. We continue on to Jerusalem and check in to our hotel. Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem, Grand Court or similar. (B, D)

After breakfast, we visit the City of David, the oldest settled part of Jerusalem, including the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed the man born blind, and the newly excavated Pilgrimage Road, which pilgrims once walked on their way up to the Temple. We continue to the Davidson Center, where the retaining walls of the Temple Mount are still visible, and we will pause at the ancient steps that once served as the main entrance to the Temple, where rabbis taught their disciples. From Jerusalem we travel to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. We begin at the Shepherds’ Fields, the traditional location where the angels announced Christ’s birth to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks, and which is also associated with the events of the Book of Ruth. We then visit the Church of the Nativity to see the traditional site of Christ’s birth before returning to our hotel. Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem, Grand Court or similar. (B, D)

This morning we walk to the Western Wall, the surviving retaining wall of the Temple Mount and the holiest site in Judaism, before ascending the Temple Mount itself to discuss its central place in both the Old and New Testaments. We continue to St. Anne’s Church and the nearby Pools of Bethesda, the site where Jesus healed the paralyzed man described in John 5. From there we go to the Mount of Olives for a panoramic orientation over the Old City, tying together the biblical events tied to Jerusalem and the prophecies of Christ’s return. We then visit the Israel Museum to see the Second Temple Period Model of Jerusalem, a 1:50 scale reconstruction of the city as it appeared in the first century AD, and the Shrine of the Book, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls. We will also spend time in the archaeological wing, focusing on artifacts connected to biblical history. We close the day with a visit to the Upper Room, traditionally identified as the site of the Last Supper. Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem, Grand Court or similar. (B, D)

We begin the day at Masada, the mountaintop fortress built by Herod the Great and famous as the site of the Jewish defenders’ last stand against Rome in 73 or 74 AD. A cable car will carry us up to see the ruins, now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From Masada we continue to Ein Gedi, the desert oasis where David hid from King Saul and where several of the Psalms are believed to have been written. We then visit Qumran, the settlement above the Dead Sea where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947. We will see the caves and the ruins of the community that produced them. In the afternoon, time and conditions permitting, we will enjoy a swim in the Dead Sea before returning to our hotel in Jerusalem. Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem, Grand Court or similar. (B, D)

We begin by walking the Palm Sunday Road down to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and agonized on the night before his crucifixion, and the nearby cave where it is believed that He would have spent the night, and have been betrayed and arrested. We then walk along the Kidron Valley, following the footsteps of Our Lord, and pass Absalom’s Tomb, the Gihon Spring, and the Water Gate. We continue to the traditional site of the house of Caiaphas, the high priest before whom Jesus was tried, at the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, where we can see sections of the ancient street He was dragged along by His captors, and we will have the chance to visit and pray in the dungeon where He was held overnight. In the Old City we reach the Ecce Homo site, named for Pontius Pilate’s words “Behold the man,” where Jesus was beaten, crowned with thorns, and clothed in a purple robe; we will see the Lithostratos pavement and take time there for prayer. From there we walk the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route of Christ’s path to the cross, ending at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the site many believe to be Golgotha and the tomb of Christ. In the afternoon we visit the Garden Tomb, the alternate site many visitors associate with Christ’s burial and resurrection, where we will see the Calvary and the empty tomb and close our pilgrimage with the Lord’s Supper, reflecting together on Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Your flight home may depart either late tonight or the following day. If the following day and an overnight is required (i.e., if your flight departs after 2am on September 30), overnight Jerusalem, Grand Court or similar. (B, D)

Your flight may depart either the previous night or today. If today and time permits, breakfast is included today. Later today, we will arrive back at home.

Note: The day’s schedule is subject to change depending on flight details. You must be at the airport three hours prior to your flight.