The Sea of Galilee is mentioned only three times in the Hebrew Bible, once in Numbers and twice in Joshua.
All three times, the mention is territorial, the great Middle Eastern lake used as oak trees were used in old French deeds, to delimit propriety.
And yet this lake shines by it's clearness, and by the earnest blue coolness of it's waters in a land summer-parc hed. When the sun shines on the Galilee it can be a cruel event, and so the 4,000 million cubic meters of water held in suspension in the north of Israel seem like a miracle against gravity.

It seems to me that for Christians, the crystal blue calmness of the Sea is a forerunner to salvation. It was from it's waters that John the Baptist, Yohanan Ha-Matbil, baptised the outcasts; the waters of the Jordan river in sharp contrast to his locust eating sparseness.
It was from it's waters that Shimon of Tzeida, later called Saint Peter, drew substance and example. It was here that Yeshu called upon his friends to be fishers of men rather than simple fishermen.
The Sea of Galilee is central and became a symbol of faith: if you only dare believe, then you, too, like Shimon, can close your eyes and walk upon it's waters. Walk above the fish, walk above the waves. You, too, says the story, can reach out and taste the true waters of the Sea of Galilee, the waters of the spirit.
That strange young man from Nazareth wandered north after having been born in the select and snobbish climes of Judea; the Galilee has always been the hiding place for the marginal and hard-working, for thieves and dreamers. Not far from the lip of the Sea, perched high above the vista of the Galilee, with the sad volcanic Golan singing off high to the North is a ragged hill-top upon which Yeshu sat to rest.
The story goes that a multitude gathered around him, a multitude of Jews brought there to hear this Rabbi.
The name of the hill-top in English is The Beatitudes; in Hebrew, Har ha'Osher, the Hill of Joy.
He began to intone a Hebrew prayer said in every synagogue in the world at that time and since. Ashrei, happy are those. Ashrei, happy are those who dwell in Your house...
But it wasn't long before he began to rap, the words coming out like grape clusters, the message turning and revolving in his mouth like a call to arms, to take up the weapons of the spirit. Ashrei, happy are the oppressed, the poor, the downtrodden. Happy are the Galileans fighting for bread on this hostile and beautiful land, happy are the carpenters longing for wood, happy are the mothers who's babies are born sick, happy are the lepers looking for their limbs. Happy. Ashrei.
Well, it wasn't long before this sad Jew calling for happiness stuck his fingers in the machinery of the Temple and the machinery of the Roman occupation and got himself crucified, like many other sad Jews of his day. The message went abroad and was sadly twisted and became hate inspiring.

Humans! Who needs them! Two thousand years later, Shimon of Tzaida's spiritual descendant flew El Al to the Holy Land of all, the Promised Land of the Jews, to make his peace with Shimon and Yeshu's descendants.
Every day I bought newspapers and watched the television to see how the people were reacting to a Pope who's Church didn't exactly evoke the most cherished of memories amongst the Ingathered. In Israel we were joyous to see him come and happy to receive his message.
In this country he was really swimming upstream, not only is he the Pope from Rome, he is also a Pole!
People here told a joke about how the Pope came to Israel to talk to God, taking advantage of local telephone rates.
Heading North from Jerusalem, the Pope chose the Mount of the Beatitudes to perform Mass one Friday morning.  
Marie-Do and I woke up at dawn to walk there, since we are camping in Rosh Pina, just a few kilometres down the road. The walk was marvellous in the early morning softness of that rainy day and the roads had been closed to all but local traffic.
At Har Ha'Osher itself, about 100,000 Christians and Jews and Moslems had gathered, and we quickly found ourselves seated in the mud amongst a group of Spanish pilgrims.
It took awhile for the star of the show to arrive, but he was finally there, the Pope-mobile inching it's way through the crowd. From a distance I could see the familiar form, the old hunched body draped in white as his armoured Mercedes made it's way to the stage. People sang and danced.
  National flags, tambourines, guitars and a simple dance danced in round.
Three steps and hands clapped and three steps forward. The words to the song were in Latin, I suppose, and the central gist was the Galilee. Everybody had arrived, here, to the Galilee; and I understood them, for this is my favourite Land; home to my dreams. 
In the middle of Mass, white clothed priests walked into the crowd to deliver Wafers, and the sight of them climbing the muddy precipice holding their robes above their tennis shoes, silver chalices in hand was heart-warming.
It was strange seeing all these faces of Christendom here and trying to guess who was the happy Irish priest and who was the strict Roman theologian. I tried to put myself in the shoes of a Believer, I who believe less and less; and found myself moved by the spectacle of the Word made Flesh and Transformed making it's way to the masses to be there distributed and meditated upon. And to this Word, Flesh and Transformation I can only say, welcome home.
After the mass, the Pope headed back south to Jerusalem and Israelis looked on silently as the Pope went to the Western Wall. An old friend had come home.