Mesa Musings:

It was the most memorable Christmas of my life.

Twenty-one years ago, I spent the holidays in the Holy Land. I went with a group of 30 Christians, led by the pastor of my Costa Mesa church.

The trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience as I witnessed the Scriptures come to life. I discovered that Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River are actual places.

On the night of our arrival we stayed in Tel Aviv on the coast, and spent the next several nights at a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. My room, which I had to myself, was barely 50 paces from the shore.

That first night at the kibbutz — still jet-lagged from the long flight — I decided to grab an apple from the mess hall and forgo dinner after a busy day of touring.

I filled my bathtub with hot water, put Handel’s Messiah into my tape player, and soaked away the fatigue.

I was tucked in by 8 p.m.

I awoke at 4 a.m. and decided to walk by the lake, which, for Christians, is the single most significant body of water on the planet.

It was a pitch-black Galilean night with pinpoints of light blazing in the heavens. A fresh breeze blew in my face and stirred the water. Except for occasional gusts, it was absolutely quiet.

As I prayed, I wondered how many times Jesus had done the same thing on these shores.

I remained on the beach for a couple of hours. The sun came up — a fiery red ball — over the eastern desert and the Jordan Rift Valley.

Several days later, my pastor baptized me in the Jordan River. Dressed in a white robe over my bathing suit, I was dunked into the chilly waters of the Jordan, and came up a new man.

We headed south to Jerusalem. In nearby Bethlehem, we visited the Church of the Nativity, which dates back to the fourth century.

Beneath its altar is the Grotto of the Nativity, where, it’s said, Jesus was born.

Later, we worshiped at a natural cave in the “Shepherds’ Fields” that has been turned into a cozy chapel. One of our group — an 85-year-old retired pastor — recited from memory, in King James English, the Christmas story of Luke 2.

Our contingent stayed at a hotel on the Mount of Olives, in East Jerusalem. We overlooked the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque.

The hotel was less than a mile from the Garden of Gethsemane, located on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley, which separates the Mount of Olives from the Temple Mount.

One night at dinner a member of our group asked who would be interested in accompanying him the next morning to pray at the Garden of Jesus’ agony.

I raised my hand, along with several others. As it turned out, three of us made the early morning pilgrimage.

We left at 5 a.m. and walked down the hill and through the dark, narrow, slumbering streets of East Jerusalem to the Church of All Nations, which is surrounded by the Garden. The entrance gate was unlocked.

Once inside, the three of us went our separate ways to seek a secluded Garden spot. I sat on a bench beneath an olive tree. All was tranquil.

The church bells tolled every half hour.

In addition to praying for all members of my family, and a host of other concerns, I also prayed for the daughter of a friend who was suffering from leukemia.

Soon the sky began to lighten, and birds flew among the olive trees and around the basilica’s facade.

We three concluded our prayers and met at the entrance to the church.

We retraced our steps back up the Mount of Olives, through East Jerusalem’s crooked streets, to the hotel.

This time, the narrow lanes were crowded with people, but ours were the only voices that I heard speaking English.

A passage of Old Testament Scripture from Handel’s masterpiece came to mind as if by divine providence: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light ... for unto us a Child is born.”

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.