The Cliff At Nazareth
There is a cliff at the southern edge of Nazareth. The locals call it Mount Precipice. Stand at the top and the whole Jezreel Valley opens beneath you – green and gold all the way to the horizon, Mount Carmel rising in the west, and the hills of Samaria falling away to the south.
It is one of the most beautiful views in the Holy Land. It is also, according to tradition, where they tried to kill Jesus. After he preached in the synagogue at Nazareth – in the town where he grew up, among the people who had watched him become a man – the congregation turned on him. Luke tells the story, and so do the Urantia Papers: the crowd rose up in fury, drove him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill, meaning to throw him over the edge.
And then something happened that I couldn't stop thinking about while I stood there. He didn't argue. He didn't plead. He simply turned, and walked back through the middle of the crowd, and went on his way. The people who knew him longest wanted him gone. He met their rage with silence – and kept walking.
Bringing You To The Cliff
This May, during our Jubilee of Jubilees, Sandra and I brought all of you there with us. We opened a live Zoom from the top of Mount Precipice and simply turned the camera on the land. Because from that one spot, you can see the roads of his life.
To the south, the way down through Samaria toward Jerusalem – and the longer road that drops into the Jordan Valley and follows the river south, the route Galilean pilgrims took to avoid Samaria altogether. To the west, Mount Carmel, where Elijah once stood. The same valley armies had crossed for three thousand years, spread out quietly in the afternoon light.
We didn't lecture. We just gave everyone the overview – the land itself, the way he would have seen it. Nazareth at our backs. The whole story in front of us.
Why We Keep Going Back
It is one thing to read that they rejected him at Nazareth. It is another to stand on the edge of the actual cliff and feel how close it came – and to realize that he answered it not with a miracle or a speech, but by quietly turning around and continuing the work.
That is the spirit we try to carry at The Center For Unity. The revelation has been rejected, ignored, and buried more times than we can count. Our response is the same one he modeled on that hilltop: don't argue with the mob. Turn, and keep walking toward the work.
The view from Mount Precipice reminds you that he did exactly that – and look how far it reached.
Gabriel Rymberg