As the Sun was heralding the new day, we were seated on the bow of a ship preparing to cross the Sea of Galilee. I was eager for this day, wondering what adventures it would bring, excited for the new things I would learn, and enthralled with sailing. While we traveled across the sea where Jesus walked, Peter sank, and storms raged, we took pictures, fed birds, and meditated on the waves from the bow of the boat. That curve that compels the eyes to see waves and shoreline. To see rhythmic motion and the calm of solid ground.

Bow

Our travels today would reveal the theme of “bow” this simple homographic word whose meaning varies with its job in the sentence. As a noun, it is anything bent. Like the bow of a boat where a desert child meditates on the motions of life.

As a verb, it means to bend, to crush, to subdue, to stoop, to fall upon the knees, to sink under pressure. This application of the word became increasingly interesting this day of our Israel travels. To whom or what do we bend towards or stoop to or fall to our knees before or sink under the pressure of? To whom or what are we crushed by? To whom or what do we bow?

Sink

Jesus, that counter-cultural enigma, brings his strict observant Hebrew disciples to Caesarea Philippi. That ancient city where the political and religious collide. The unique place opens roads where merchants of wares and ideas pass through. This city is a place where cultures mingle with all the good and bad that comes with that.

He walks them to the area where they can see the entrance to the Gates of Hades. Antiquity believed this was a portal to Hades and a few temples were erected here. There was a temple to Zeus. At this moment in space and time, the temple leading to the Gates of Hades was the Temple of Pan. This idolatrous place is where Pan is worshipped, bowed to, and kids are sacrificed. Kids might have been goats or not. I cannot find concrete evidence for one or the other. Just that kids were thrown into the dark pit of water at the back of the cave. If they were crushed upon rocks such that their blood ran into the clear springs below the cave, the worshipper’s sacrifice was not accepted. If the sacrifice sunk deep into the abyss of Hades, the worshipper’s sacrifice was accepted.

Why they sacrificed, I’m not sure. Possibly for fertility in life, love, legacy. Pan was a god who loved dancing and partying, where people exhibit no inhibition. He also loved kids or goats or both. He also loved his naps.

Surely, all this pandemonium was going on when Jesus takes these embarrassed men to witness sin unrestricted and unhindered. Witness desperate people trying to be heard, seen, felt, noticed. Witness broken people trying to feel love, belonging, a moment to hide from their pain. Witness people bent, subdued, or sinking under pressure for the love of something more than they can hold.

Crush

Surely there was more than one worshipper taking their kid to the Gates of Hades who saw this strange Jew who ate with sinners, talked with women, and spoke against injustice. What a strange sight. This God made man peacefully standing next to a place where a man-made god panics. Panic is all Pan has when he wakes from his nap to find God near his temple.

What does Jesus do? Asks his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” He didn’t ask, “Who do people say I am?” This is interesting, compelling, because the phrase “Son of Man” is a phrase that sinks the theological elite into an abyss for the weight of meaning. The phrase points to a man who would overcome sin and death. This Son of Man will sit with God and rule the world with him in Peace and Justice and Mercy. It refers to a King who would be above all kings and a Lord above all lords. A perfect man who lives in the presence of a holy and just God. A man who would bow to the point of death, death on a cross. A humble man.

Subdue

“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” A prophet was the response. Today, we could add a teacher or a philosopher. Or even a good man. Nothing too special, except his birth and death did change time. Literally. Changed the lives of those around him. All the disciples either were martyred or suffered severely until they died. Yet, they never bowed to man or man-made gods again. People still claim that Jesus changes their lives even now. Some are still martyred or suffer severely until they die. Yet, they only bow to Christ who takes their burdens upon him.

Here is a strange cross roads of this Son of Man who knows his deity and sons of men who sacrifice kids to taste that deity. Jesus asks questions revealing his identity in the midst of idolatry. Peter answers quickly, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus affirms that he is the Son of the Living God in front of all these worshipers who are bowed to Pan, a goat-man image.

Fall

Then he says this strange sentence. Jesus proclaims to those who would hear, “… and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” Here where the gate of Hades was swallowing all the sacrifices offered to it, here where worshippers were dancing and shouting and bowing, here where depictions of gods great and small were displayed in alcoves in the cliff side, here where the commotion and cacophony tried to drown out the soft words spoken by the Word made flesh.

Here, the Gate of Hades will not overcome the simple, sinful followers of this homeless Son of Man.

Bend

I walked Caesarea Philippi.  I peered into the cave where water once hid in the depths of darkness where all the goats, children, men, and women lost lives and loves and legacies. I saw the ages of worship from Pan and Zues carved in the rock. I touched the columns that once stood stately and solid. I listened to the breeze through the fig trees. I watched the springs run free and clear with water flowing through the path created for it. I heard a group of Korean believers stop to sing praise songs just ahead of me.

I pondered where Christ might have stood, where worshippers danced and bowed before gods, where that one woman who left the Gates of Hades with her sacrifice to follow this Son of Man to the cross.

Pan is no longer worshipped there. Neither is Zues. There are no sacrifices made nor all night dances. The Gates of Hades have long since been crushed, sunken before a great pressure of time and space. Yet, there are hundreds and hundreds of people who walk this area to listen to why Jesus came to this place to declare that the Gates of Hades will not overcome His church.

Stoop

People will bow in worship to something. This is why Jesus took his innocent followers to this place. Because we all bend to the weight of glory, we all are crushed by the pressure of holy, we all fall to our knees in the presence of beauty.

Jesus knew we sons of God must bow to something greater than us. Be it gods made in man’s image – these creatures that roam dreams and dark things. Be it things we create – gods with eyes but can’t see, ears but can’t hear, hands but can’t touch, mouths but can’t speak, noses but can’t smell, tongues but can’t taste. Be it our own pride – like we can be a god, immortal and vengeful and perfect.

Be it this itinerant who claimed to be God – this Man who healed the crushed spirit and sick body and broken mind, ate with sinners and tax collectors and Pharisees, talked with women and children and men, communed with the lowly and ignorant and wise. We bow to a man broken for our wholeness, crushed for our salvation, humbled for our peace.

Bow

That night, back in our room, my son and I talk about the day. I write in my journal “We sailed across the Sea of Galilee. Climbed to where the Hellenistic culture sacrificed to Pan.” We did more in our day, but the theme of whom we bow to, whom we feel the weight of, whom we are crushed by lingers to this day. Daily I see people bow in worship of things, ideas, gods, themselves.

To whom or what do we bow to? We will bow to something. Perhaps this Son of Man whose very life and death changed history is truly the only one.