Do you ever get goose bumps when you think about Jesus having walked this earth? I know that he did, and yet every once in a while I’ll read something and think, “Wow. He was here.”
I had that thought when I heard about the news of Dalmanutha, a town that was recently discovered to be over 2,000 years old. The Christian Science Monitor said:
“The ancient town may be Dalmanutha (also spelled Dalmanoutha), described in the Gospel of Mark as the place Jesus sailed to after miraculously feeding 4,000 people by multiplying a few fish and loaves of bread…”
I don’t think these types of discoveries are an accident. I think God gives us things in chunks, so we can fully digest and understand them. Sometimes I think things are uncovered because the time has come for Him to want us to discover them.
That’s kind of how I feel about this discovery. The Bible verse referenced in the above article seems to underscore this thought.
The article goes on:
“The gospel says that after feeding 4,000 people by miraculously multiplying a few fish and loaves of bread, Jesus “got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it. ‘Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.” Mark 8:10-13
I heard a really good sermon once where the pastor said that people keep asking for signs from God, but He’s already given them. This verse speaks to this. Why do we keep asking? Why do we keep wanting the type of “proof” that we can put up on a shelf and look at like a worn out collection or cherished photograph?
He was really here. He will really be back again. We know this by the spirit that lives in hearts, in God’s promise to us, in the trust He requires in order to give us eternal life.
