From time to time I’ve been known to do some really stupid things and today is one of them. I had this brilliant idea, there’s a guy called Ken Duncan and he’s just a gifted photographer. He travels all around the world taking pictures that, well they just blow your mind. He published a book not so long ago, 200 pages of beautiful photography, it’s called “Where Jesus Walked” and it’s the places where, quite literally, Jesus walked.

Now Berni thinks to himself, ‘wouldn’t it be great to get Ken on the program to talk about some of those places’ so we organised that. And then when I was preparing I realised my stupidity. We’re doing pictures on radio. So I’m sitting here looking at pictures that you can’t see. I am such an incredible genius. So what we’re going to do is each day open up the picture that Ken is talking about, I’m going to hold it up to the mike so you can see it too, what do you reckon Ken?

Ken: Well that’s a novel approach.

Berni: I’ve been really taken with this book, ”Where Jesus Walked”. It’s sort of a sense of wonder at being transported to places that, well Jesus walked. Is that why you did it?

Ken: Well to me it’s very important to understand where Jesus came from because there’s always a link between people and where they live. So I’ve heard of all the stories from the Bible and you know they all have great meaning to me. I was a Christian before I went there but I just had to find out where He walked and so it adds a whole new dimension to your relationship, for me anyhow, to God because it puts things into perspective. Like when Jesus went from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, how close is it?

Also you find out some of the things that happened in these areas, why they would happen because you understand the customs and the traditions as well. So, for me, I believe when there’s someone as powerful as Jesus has walked in a place He leaves a footprint spiritually and at times on that journey I sort of ran into that, you know you could just feel His presence so strongly you thought, ‘He was definitely here’, so it was great for me.

Berni: You’re going to join us each day on the program this week and today we’re going to talk about Mount Arbel. Now it’s not exactly that well known is it?

Ken: No, Mount Arbel’s one of the highest mountains near the Sea of Galilee and actually from the top of it you look right over the whole Sea of Galilee. And the way I got there is I was actually in Capernaum which is an area Jesus spent a lot of time and I was in one of the synagogues there which Jesus would have definitely been in and it was great to be there and I could feel His presence. But I just said, ‘Lord, I’d really love to go to a place that hasn’t changed.’ I just felt an inkling to look off to the right and I looked off and I saw that mountain, Mount Arbel. And it was a steep-cliffed mountain and I just felt Him say, ‘I was there’. And so I thought, ‘right, that’s it, I’m going off to that mountain.’

So I got up there the next morning for a sunrise and to get there I had to catch a taxi and go a huge way to get there. And I finally climbed up in the dark to get ready for sunrise. And as the sun came up, and it was coming up over the Sea of Galilee, I was just amazed. I just thought, ‘my goodness, you know, I can feel as if Jesus would have spent time here because it was very close to where He lived, the highest point around here. He would have spent time there praying and He would have been able to see the boats out on the Sea of Galilee. And then while I was sitting there I just thought, ‘how did you get here? Man you wouldn’t….

Berni: He didn’t have a taxi right?

Ken: He didn’t have a taxi, he’d have to walk a long way because there was a sheer sort of cliff in front of me. And then just as I’m thinking that all of a sudden this shepherd came up through this little gap in front of me, with his sheep. And he came up and I’m thinking, ‘man, how did you get up here? Can your sheep climb or something?’ and he said, ‘oh no, there’s an ancient shepherd path that comes up through from the Sea of Galilee and it goes off and it’s before the time of Christ.’ And I thought, ‘God, you’re just so incredible!’ and I thought, ‘Lord, you’ve just shown me how you got here.’ And that area hasn’t changed and you know, there’s no tourists there, at sunrise definitely.

Berni: Well that’s pretty good because a lot of these places you go to in Israel, it’s just, they’re tourist traps right?

Ken: Yeah!

Berni: With lots of people.

Ken: And so this place, I just sat there and watched the sunrise and even the Lord provided a shepherd with his sheep coming in front of me. How good is God? You know Jesus is so true and faithful to us.

Berni: A lot of the pictures you see on television and in the news of Israel, it doesn’t look a very nice place. But when I look at this picture here in this book that you’ve done of Mount Arbel, it is just stunning. I mean the sunrise is just gorgeous looking over the Sea of Galilee and the colours, it’s an awesome thing.

Ken: Look, in life you’re always have busyness but you’ve got to stop and be still and in that stillness, that’s when you sense the presence of God. And you know, look really, the trouble is with a lot of tourists when they go to Israel, they’re on this program and it’s like, ‘in the bus, woop, off we go.’ What they’ve got to learn to do is stop, and not be driven by the tour operator and begin to sense, ‘okay Lord, where were you? What’s happening now?’

I’ve spent a lot of time with a fisherman there on the Sea of Galilee and mate, they haven’t changed much at all in all the years because here they are, we’re cooking fish on the little fire, that they’ve just caught fresh out of the sea, you know St Peter’s fish. And if you spend time to get to know them, they’re quite funny people. They’re real rogues too, you know. One of the guys name was Armon which means ‘St Peters fish’, you know…

Berni: Okay.

Ken: …so, just incredible people but you have to spend the time to get to know them.

Berni: Well, I mean Jesus had a busy schedule didn’t he? They were always wanting to, the crowds were following Him and He was being chased down and hounded down and He did this. He pulled away. He drew away and He spent time with His Father, quietly and presumably in places like this…

Ken: Yeah.

Berni: … that were beautiful and stunning and peaceful and we have the same problem don’t we? I guess you have a really shocking schedule from time to time, doing the stuff you do and I do and we all do and we just need to get away and spend some time with the Lord.

Ken: Yes, I think that’s why God made me a landscape photographer because, you know, my natural inclination is to get caught up in things.

Berni: Yeah.

Ken: So with landscape photography, I’ve got to stop and wait. And I sometimes think that is why God keeps me waiting so long because He longs to spend some time with me. So I go ‘okay Lord, I’m stuck here so what are we going to talk about today?’ So… but I love that because it gives me a chance to clear my mind, to clear my ‘in-tray’ because unfortunately in life our in-tray just keeps getting piled up, piled up and in the end we’re no longer driving, we’re being driven by the in-tray.

Berni: So when you’re in these remote places you don’t take your satellite dish and your email? You get away from that?

Ken: No I actually turn a lot of those things off every now and then. Like, people try and email me and I go missing in action for a couple of weeks because I think it’s very healthy just to be out of contact every now and then. And people need to deal with that because we’ve become so accessible, here you are in the middle of nowhere with a cell phone. I mean that can just spoil the whole thing, you know.

Berni: It’s an awesome book and people can get a hold of it where? Have you got a website?

Ken: I have a website, www.kenduncan.com

Berni: Okay, that’s really cool. It is an awesome book; we’re going to spend the rest of this week talking about it. If you take your mind back to Mount Arbel, how would you sum it up in just a few sentences? What impression did that place leave on you?

Ken: Very intimate, it’s like, I felt like Jesus was sitting right beside me and I had the opportunity to watch a sunrise with Jesus because His presence was so strong, in that place, and I knew without a doubt, that He had sat in that same spot. In my spirit I just knew it. And I just thought, ‘Lord, you just love us so much to share these things.’ I mean, just for Him to show me that, you know that’s how intimate Jesus can be.

People say to me, ‘well, how come you’re a Christian?’ I’m saying ‘man, how come you’re not?’ You can have intimate relationship with Jesus, you know, this is what I love about it and for Him to, and He cares about everything, our littlest things, for Him to show me that was just like ‘here son, this is just for you. I’d like to show you one of my special spots where I prayed, where I spent time talking to my Father.’ So that’s, you know, I just left that place on a high.

Berni: Listen, that’s fantastic and thank you for that. Tomorrow you’re going to join us again on the program and we’re going to another mountain, you’re obviously into mountains, we’re going to another mountain where Jesus gave that well known Sermon on the Mount. I’m really looking forward to that.

Ken: That’s a great place too.

One of the most well known sermons that Jesus ever preached is the Sermon on the Mount and it goes something like this:

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called Sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Its pretty radical stuff, in His inimitable style Jesus turns the world on it’s head and it rings so true doesn’t it? What must it have been like to be there, to sit on that mountain and listen to Him talking that stuff? Well we’re joined again today by well known photographer, Ken Duncan, who’s going to take us there and tell us a bit about that place. Ken, welcome again to the program.

Ken: Thankyou Berni.

Berni: I guess in putting together this pretty serious book of pictures that you’ve called “Where Jesus Walked”; it wouldn’t have been complete without going to the Sermon on the Mount, would it?

Ken: Look, very special place and again you know, one of these places where you can go at different times and experience different things. I’d been there often through the day but I found there, you’ve got the tourist buses coming to the Church and all of that sort of stuff that’s there.

Berni: Does that disappoint you? Like you go to places where Jesus was and they turn them into tourist traps.

Ken: It’s inevitable that that’s going to happen and people are on a program but I just really hope that people, on those programs, every now and then stop and go out of the program and just spend that intimate time with Jesus themselves.

Berni: Yeah.

Ken: So I’d been to the Church there at Mount of Beatitudes and it was a wonderful experience being in the Church but I just felt, ‘Lord, I need something more out of this. I want to be where you were.’ So I went there the next morning, early sunrise…

Berni: You do a lot of mountains and you do a lot of sunrises, are you naturally a early morning sort of guy who likes high places?

Ken: Look, the hardest part about photography is getting out of bed. I think that’s generally life totally, you know getting out of bed and getting on with the journey but it’s a great time because a lot of people are still in bed. So off I went, to this Mount of Beatitudes and I just felt led to go down in front of the Church. The gate was open because there had been some farmer down there so I thought, ‘oh well, praise God, I’m going in.’ So I went in and here was this, where the Mount of Beatitudes is. It’s right near the Sea of Galilee so you’re looking at the Sea of Galilee down in front of you and it’s this beautiful, undulating slope going down to the Sea of Galilee.

Berni: I’m looking at the photo now, look I’ll hold it up to the mike so that everyone can see it. It is just the most stunning picture of these beautiful yellow flowers, like a sea of them and then the Sea of Galilee and this fantastic sunrise at the other end.

Ken: Well you see that’s what was so amazing, I got there and here’s this field of flowers. I hadn’t seen it before and I’m seeing this beautiful sea of yellow flowers. And to me it was just like, you know, Gods word that has come to life and produce fruit out of the soil, the very soil that they all sat and listened to that great sermon. So I sat there but the only problem was that we had a bit of a gale blowing and so those flowers are dancing all over the place. And I’m just thinking, ‘Lord, there’s no way I’m going to be able to photograph these flowers ’cause they’re all moving’.

And then the sun’s starting to rise up and the sort of exposure time I’m looking at there is probably at least about 30 seconds for an exposure like that so they would have been all blurred. And I’m going, ‘Lord, what can I do?’ And I just felt Him say, ‘set up your camera’. And so I set up my camera and ‘blessed are those who are photographers’ because He stopped the wind for about 2 minutes and I was able to get a few shots and that’s the shots.

So you know, God again, He’s so interested even in the smallest things in our life. You know, one day there was some preacher preaching on about that ‘Gods very busy up in heaven and dealing with things like major crisis’s and sometimes we just pray for car parking spaces and trivial things like this and you know, He’s very busy’. And I’m thinking, ‘oh my goodness, that’s me’. But you know, God is very busy but you know He’s never too busy to even help you even in the smallest things, I mean how wonderful for Him to help me with that wind just at that exact moment when the sun was coming up.

Berni: ’cause you don’t have a lot of time do you? When the sun comes up you’ve only got a few minutes to get the shot.

Ken: It’s that moment, there’s this magical moment when the rays radiate out and it’s all happening. Look, it was just such a wonderful experience and for me to be there on my own and to experience that moment. And it was another one of those, ooh, very eerie moments where I could just feel His presence again so strongly. I mean that is how much God loves us. He wants to walk so intimately with each one of us if we’re just willing to stop and allow Him to be with us and to minister to us.

Berni: I was talking to a man the other day in Launceston and he’d been, since his mid twenties, he’d been waiting for a wife and he was in his early forties and God bought along the right woman and he said to me, ‘you know, I’ve learned something through that’ and I said, ‘what’s that?’ and he said, ‘the suddenlys of God come eventually.’ Isn’t that great? And I thought of this picture and the wind and everything, ’cause I look at the picture now and all those flowers are so clear and so wonderful and God just comes along and stills the wind when we think nothing can still the storm, doesn’t He?

Ken: Yeah! At the time I was there it was grey and overcast along with that wind and I’m thinking, ‘oh it will never happen’ and you’re just sort of thinking, well I’m wasting my time. And your mind… You know we’re constantly battling our mind and you just got to say, “mind, just go to sleep, I’m just going to stay here anyhow and see what God does” and you know what? When you have that attitude, God shows up.

Berni: Because time is, I guess in photography, time is money. If you don’t get that shot today you’ve got to wait around until tomorrow because that’s the only other time you can get it, and the next day and you can’t wait forever can you?

Ken: You can’t wait forever but you know what I’ve found is, enjoy the waiting because you know…

Berni: That’s cool

Ken: ….you just sit back and it’s a great time to talk to God, you know like if nothing else is happening you just say, ‘oh well Lord, nice to talk to You and Lord, I don’t know what’s happening but I know You do so over to You and we’ll talk in the mean time.’

Berni: When you now read the Sermon on the Mount, what does it do to you having been in that place?

Ken: Well to me, I can just imagine all those people drinking in every word that He spoke. And you know, that’s why I just thought it was so symbolic with those flowers because, you know, He planted seed, incredible seed that’s, you know, brought forward so much blossom over the generations. And to me, this is a symbolisation that here you have all these flowers just coming out of the very soil that He preached on, you know, so there’s this anointing. And look, there’s very much something that when someone like Jesus walks through an area He leaves an impression and I just encourage everyone, if they get a chance sometime, to try and go to the Holy Land, its a very moving experience.

Berni: I mean, I look at this photo, I had always imagined the Sermon on the Mount to be in this craggy, dusty place and when I opened this page I thought, ‘there’s flowers there, they’re all over the place’ and its such, I mean you would pay millions of dollars to have a house on that hill, wouldn’t you with that view?

Ken: It would be a lovely view

Berni: You’d pay a fortune for that and for me when I looked at this picture it just kind of lifts the words off the page in the Bible. And I too, I think, ‘wow, what must have it been like there to sit amongst these grasses and these flowers with this stunning view of the lake and the sea and listen to Jesus talking?’

Ken: Oh, it would have been incredible and you know what’s so incredible though is, there weren’t flowers everywhere around it. God just opened that gate and took me to that spot where those flowers were. Now a lot of people had gone to that area to see the Mount of Beatitudes but didn’t see that particular area so it was just like a carpet that He’d laid out and I just thought, ‘you know, He’s so good, He’s so wonderful.’

Berni: Now tomorrow we’re going to another mountain, the Mount of Temptation and we’re going to have a look at that. That’s a really interesting place isn’t it?

Ken: An amazing experience happened to me there.

Berni: Okay lets talk about that tomorrow.

I’m really excited because this week on the program we’re joined every day by well known photographer Ken Duncan, who, I guess, is sharing some of the stories behind the stunning pictures in his book “Where Jesus Walked”. As I’ve been saying all week, there’s something special about exploring the places where Jesus walked and today Ken’s with us again to take us to a mountain that is thought to be where Satan took Jesus to show Him the kingdoms of the world. Now Ken, this is a pretty amazing picture, can you describe it to us and I’ll hold it up to the mike so everyone can see it?

Ken: Well I think, pretty well, this is definitely the area because it talks about Jesus, if He’s going to be thrown down, He would kill himself. Well there’s very few places where you’ve got a steep enough cliff for that to happen. And this area, just near Jericho, just up behind Jericho is the Mount of Temptations and there’s a steep cliff that then leads up into the wilderness which goes behind it.

To get into that actual place at the time it had all been closed down and no-one was actually allowed into Jericho so I thought, ‘Lord, how am I going to get into this mountain?’ And so I went to the border and the Israeli guards said, ‘look, you can’t go.’ and then all of a sudden this taxi guy comes up to me and over the fence says, ‘hey, you go down the road for 5 kilometres and you park your car and then just walk over the border into the desert and I’ll meet you in a taxi.’

Berni: Well that’s good.

Ken: And I’m thinking, ‘right!’ you know, it wasn’t a good looking taxi and I’m thinking, ‘God is this you or what?’ You know, I thought I might have been set up or something.

Berni: Yeah

Ken: And I thought, ‘nah, I think this is You Lord.’ So I went and we snuck across the border because we had to get in there, you know, and I thought, ‘it’s my life and I’m going to, you know, Gods looking after me not anybody else.’ And so we went over and I’ve never run faster in my life, with camera gear, to get into this desert. And as I’m doing it I’m thinking, ‘what am I doing? I’m running into the wilderness across a border, I could get shot if I get seen.’

Berni: Funny, I don’t see this when I look at this beautiful, serene picture.

Ken: Well I know, well, this is to get there, you got to get there. So finally I get there and there’s this yellow taxi, it was in the middle of these sand dunes and we got to the area. Now when I’ve got there, at the particular time, you know God had said to go and do this journey, on the journey of Jesus. And it had cost me a lot of money to actually do this whole project. In fact it cost us everything. We had to borrow money and I’d been trying to get money and sponsors to do this project and my wife was ringing up from home. (I had an actual mobile that was working there) And she’d ring up and say, things are tight at home and my daughter was sick, and all this stuff’s going on.

And I’m just going, ‘Lord, you’ve asked me to do this book,’ and I’m in Jericho, it’s cold, it’s overcast and I’ve finally climbed up to this mountain, ’cause I’m the only sort of tourist in the whole area. And so I’m sitting on this mountain, now getting rained on and I’m just going, ‘God, you know you said to do this book and you know I could lose everything on doing this book because, you know I’ve run out of money.’ And God said, ‘no you can’t, you can’t lose everything,’ and I said, ‘what do you mean?’ and He said, ‘you can’t lose Me.’ And I thought, ‘Oh Lord, I’m so sorry, you’re right. I can never lose You.’

And I said, ‘Lord, you know this is stressing me out, all this stuff trying to raise finances.’ And He said, ‘Son, stop trying to do things the way you’ve done them in the past, I will finance this book, leave it up to Me, I don’t want anyone to finance this book. I will supernaturally provide funds.’ And I just went, ‘Okay, praise God, over to you, I’m not going to worry one more. I don’t care if I’ve spend every penny, my house, the lot, it doesn’t matter, I’m going to trust you.’ And then all of a sudden here comes this double rainbow, the sun comes out bam!

Berni: I was going to ask you about this because; you sit around for weeks waiting for these rainbows? Or you…

Ken: Well I’d been there for three hours having a conversation with God about, you know, what are you doing? And then all of a sudden He showed me, ‘Hello son, I’m in control …

Berni: Wow

Ken: ..don’t worry.’ And all of a sudden I had this whole burden lift off me and I just, here I am thinking, looking at this view and I actually went to the place where they believe that Jesus actually kneeled when He was being tempted and like, I sat down on that rock and you know, not that I’m into worshipping rocks or anything like that but I just said, ‘Lord, help me with my disbelief. Help me Lord.’ You know, and I just felt this, like, overwhelming sensation go through my whole body. And it was just me, sitting on that Mount of Temptation, not one tourist, just me sitting there. And He gave me this double rainbow.

What’s interesting about that view is that when satan was tempting Jesus and saying, ‘you can have everything that’s before you, you know, the wealth of the world,’ and here He is, looking down on Jericho and Jericho had the walls tumble down, it was a very affluent city. The first one when the Israelites came in, you know, the first city that they saw but the thing is that the walls came tumbling down. So here Satan’s trying to tempt Him by this rich city saying, ‘well, that wealth didn’t do them a lot of good when the power of God came against it did it? Because the whole walls came tumbling down so the power of God is far more powerful than your worldly wealth.’

Berni: I guess people don’t think of Ken Duncan going through tough times and the money’s running out. As you look back on this Mount of Temptation it must have a really special significance for you.

Ken: For me it was a point where I was about to give up. I was on my knees really. If you’re going to follow Jesus, everybody thinks that you know, it’s all going to be plain sailing but you know, look at the life of Paul, it’s not plain sailing. It’s sailing alright but sometimes you run aground and everything like that but you know what? Jesus is faithful all the time and it’s often at those times you’re really going to sense His presence. You know we all would love to see miracles but are we willing to put ourselves in a situation where we need a miracle. I’ve just realised one thing on my whole journey is, God doesn’t just require some of you, He wants the lot and when you do that it does get exciting. And that’s when the double rainbows come out.

Berni: It’s like that Chinese curse, ‘may you live in interesting times.’

Ken: Yeah, well yeah. So I was actually trying to raise finances the way I’d done for America when I’d done the American project by seeing companies and I was just getting nowhere and I’m just thinking, ‘Lord, it worked before.’ One thing I’ve worked out about the Lord, He doesn’t always work the same. He always loves to do things in a new way just to keep you always plugged in.

Berni: And I guess, if you look at the temptations that Jesus went through here which was, ‘if you worship me, the devil, you can have all of this.’ When you’re doing what you’re doing and I’m doing what I’m doing and everybody’s doing what they’re doing, it’s really easy to try and do it in our own strength isn’t it? It’s really easy to fall to that temptation and say, ‘we can have the whole world if we just do it the worlds way,’ and then God comes along, supernaturally as He did to you on this mountain and says, ‘well, I don’t do it the worlds way.’

Ken: No, and look, it was supernatural the way things happen but I had to come to the end of me, you know…

Berni: Yeah, yeah.

Ken: I had to come to the point where I was saying, ‘okay Lord, I don’t care if I lose everything ’cause I can’t lose You.’ I had to get back to my foundation and when you get to that point and just say, ‘okay Lord, I can’t do this, You have to help me, you know, it’s over to You, I’ve got nowhere else to go.’ That’s when He comes in. What happened in the finances, it just turned around. All of a sudden people at home said, ‘oh Ken, we want you to do this. Oh, we want you to do this’ and all of a sudden these projects came out of the supernatural realm and they provided the finances for us to finish that book.

Berni: That’s an awesome thing. So if you could share one thing, very quickly, with anyone who’s struggling at the moment, what would it be?

Ken: That God will never let you down. Getting on your knees is a really good place to be ’cause you know, He can turn things around supernaturally and you know He’s trustworthy, that’s one thing about God, He will not forsake you, He will not let you down.

Berni: That’s awesome. Now listen, tomorrow, we’re going for a stroll through Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus prayed just before He was crucified. I was under the impression that people weren’t allowed into Gethsemane.

Ken: Well you can go to Gethsemane in the area but you have to sort of get permission to actually go into the main garden, which I was able to get, praise God.

Berni: We’ll look at that tomorrow.

I’ve really been looking forward to today. If you’ve joined us earlier this week on the program you’ll know that well known photographer Ken Duncan is with us to share the stories behind the stunning pictures in his book, “Where Jesus Walked”. It’s 200 pages of photos that kind of bring to life, the incredible reality, the places where Jesus walked. And I was blown away yesterday when Ken shared with us the experiences on the Mount of Temptation outside Jericho but today is something really special.

Today we’re going for a stroll through the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where Jesus prayed just before He was handed over to be crucified. But Ken it wasn’t just that night was it, He often went there to Gethsemane?

Ken: Gethsemane was a very special place just outside Jerusalem and its, you know you go down to the Kedron Valley and up into the Garden of Gethsemane. So we’re pretty well, it’s for sure, where the garden was, there’s no real dispute about that and um, it was this olive grove really and Gethsemane means I think ‘place of crushing’ or ‘olive press’. It’s to do with the pressing of the olives. So when I was in that garden these trees, some of these trees are over 2000 years old.

Berni: I was going to say, I’m looking at the photo now and as I look at them they don’t look like the olive trees down in my local nursery.

Ken: No.

Berni: They’re really kind of gnarled and very old. They are the original ones?

Ken: These trees would have been there at the time of Christ….

Berni: Unreal.

Ken: ..When He was in that garden. Now that’s what was so fascinating to me and there’s a little special area that’s sort of fenced off that most people don’t get to get into but I just felt, ‘Lord, I have to get in there’ so I….

Berni: You jumped the fence or?

Ken: No I didn’t, I actually did it the right way and the man showed favour on me and allowed me inside that place. But why it was so important to me is that, you know before I became a Christian I was involved in many other religions and all sorts of things. And now, as a Christian, often people say to me, they say ‘Ken, that’s really good that you’re a Christian but you know, there’s other ways.’

And I think, ‘hello, there is not another way because when Jesus was in that garden, He was in anguish, He was in such a state like He knew what He had to deal with or what was before Him. But in that garden and even to His disciples he said, you know “just wait with Me, this is a really intense time for Me, can you just wait with Me?” And they’re falling asleep while He’s trying to sit before God and saying, “Lord, if there be another way for this cup to be taken off me that would be really cool, you know.”

Berni: The Ken Duncan translation.

Ken: The Ken Duncan translation. And He’s doing this and then He goes back to His disciples and they’re asleep and He’s saying, “can’t you even wait with Me for one hour?” And then He goes back and, “Lord if there be a way” the second time. Now don’t you think that at that time if there had been another way He would have said to Jesus, His Son, ‘actually there is another way.’

Berni: There’s a plan B.

Ken: Yes, you don’t have to do crucifixion, you can go and do a self improvement course at some college and of course they’ll charge you money and there’ll be courses after that which you’ll have to have too but…. Or you can go and sit on top of a mountain and meditate upon your naval and become one with the universal jelly bean. Or, you know, if there was some other method, don’t you think at that point He would have said, ‘there’s another way rather than crucifixion?’ I mean, who in their right mind would choose crucifixion and when He knew what He was going to have to go through but then Jesus said, “Lord, not my will be done but thy will be done.”

When I was on The Passion movie doing the photography for Mel Gibson on that movie, it became so real that Garden of Gethsemane scene to me I wondered, you know, because that’s where it all started, that garden when He was handed over to humanity, when He was handed over to pay the price for our sin when it all happened and I knew how gruelling that was and I thought, ‘God, how could any man deal with such torture?’

Berni: Well, He was crushed in that garden wasn’t He? Its interesting what Gethsemane means. He really was crushed.

Ken: That’s right and He was but that’s where it started. But what gave Him the power to endure that? The power of the Holy Spirit. You see ’cause when all of a sudden the Spirit comes upon Him in power ’cause when you’re doing what Gods called you to do He will empower you to deal with it whatever it is and I hope I never have to go through what He went through. But you know, He’s showing there that it doesn’t matter, whatever happens, God will provide the power for you to overcome. And look what He did, He went through that. So when people say to me, ‘Ken, Jesus is only one way’ I say, ‘hello, that’s making a mockery out of what Christ did. If there was another way He wouldn’t have had to go through that but He went through it willingly because He knew He was doing it for us to reconnect us to God.’

Berni: It’s amazing isn’t it? He spends that time praying and He goes to the disciples once and they’re asleep, twice they’re asleep and He’s going through enormous pain and then all of a sudden (Berni clicks his fingers) something happens, He says, ‘come on, it’s time, lets go.’

Ken: Yeah.

Berni: When I read that it is such a marked turn around, something clearly happened for Him in this garden. You’re standing in this garden amidst these gnarled olive trees, what are you thinking? What are you going through?

Ken: Well, I see these trees and I just think, ‘you were here, you’re part of the tree that was here when Christ went through this decision, you weren’t asleep, you were awake, you were there,’ you know.

Berni: Yeah

Ken: And you know, the disciples were sleeping around the roots of your trees. So to me, and I believe the land is very much like a recorder of man’s passing and it sort of holds the remnants of our passing. It’s like a, it has the track there. And for me, when I was in that garden I had an inkling of just the sense of the anguish that Christ must have gone through to the point where it was hard to stay there for too long because it was agonising.

Berni: What would you say to the person who’s listening to you right now and they’re going, ‘ah, come on Ken, give me a break, I mean it’s a garden, there are some trees there, it may or may not have been where this person, who may or may not have existed called Jesus, spent some time.’ What would you say to that person?

Ken: Well, I would say ‘get out of your brain’ because you know, the thing is we’ve got to learn to sense things with our spirit and our brain is trying to always limit us. In fact the brain is like the upper room and you know the disciples, they were in the upper room until the Holy Spirit came into that upper room and said, ‘come on, lets go’. And then all of a sudden they’re out of that upper room of knowledge or fear and they’re out in the streets doing the will of God. The thing is, a lot of us, especially coming from a European culture, have a problem trying to sense the spirit and this is why I’m trying to show the land in this book, to try and get people to look beyond the intellect and allow the presence of the place to try and touch them in the spirit because as Christians we need to sense, we need connection of the spirit not the head.

Berni: Yeah. So Ken, how did you get to the point of walking in the spirit?

Ken: Well actually I spent a lot of time with my Aboriginal friends and um, even with the Navajo Indians over in America. Coming from a Western society we tend to live very much in our intellectual realm and we, we don’t sense necessarily what’s happening around us. Yes, every now and then we sense it, we stand at Grand Canyon and go, ‘Wow’! There’s something that happens beyond the explainable. But there’s more than that. You know, I believe God, through His creation, is trying to get all of our attention and if we just humble ourselves and sit back the Holy Spirit begins to speak to us and touch us and there’s like a message there for us. But it’s not for the head, it’s for the spirit and all we have to do is be still. What it says in the Bible is, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Berni: Now listen, tomorrow, a bit sad, it’s our last day together and you’re going to talk to us about Tyre I believe and this is a place where you were kidnapped by the Hezbollah

Ken: I was, yeah. That was an interesting occasion.

Berni: I’m sure it was.

Well I’m kind of a bit sad that today is the last day of the week. If you’ve been with us at all during the week you’ll know that well known photographer Ken Duncan has been with us, taking us behind the scenes if you like, of his brilliant pictures in the book “Where Jesus Walked” and today he is going to share with us an amazing story when he was kidnapped by Hezbollah gorillas while he was out there doing the photography. But Ken, before we go to that story, tell me what gave you the idea to do a project like this one, where Jesus walked? I mean, why did you do it?

Ken: Well after photographing on “The Passion” movie with Mel Gibson I was very moved about the cost of my salvation. I was a Christian before that but I hadn’t really taken in how much pain Jesus went through for me. So I had a bit of a problem trying to deal with all that to tell you the truth. I had to go out into the bush for a little while to sort of, you know, have a bit of time with God. But then this opportunity came up for me to go and actually do the journey of Jesus and I just felt I’ve got to go and do that. So that’s how it happened. And I just felt I want to go and walk where Jesus walked because I had to understand more about this man. And then it became this quest of really following the footsteps of Jesus.

And it was sort of interesting because I am not a scholar sort of guy you know and here’s God getting me to have to go through the Scriptures to try and come up with the actual route that Jesus would have taken and the footsteps. And I’m whinging and whining to God saying, ‘God, why are you picking me? You know I don’t like doing this sort of stuff.’ and I’m whining and stuff, carrying on.

And finally I was trying to find someone else to do it for me, to do the whole reconnaissance, but in the end I knew I had to do it. And all of a sudden I got so into it that it became like CSI Jesus. You know, I had to find that guy, you know, any evidence I can get on the journey. So that’s how it all unfolded so I didn’t want to just go to the places that everybody goes to, I wanted to try and make sure I was as faithful as I could to follow the footsteps of Christ.

Berni: So why did you go to this place Tyre? What’s the significance of that?

Ken: Well He went there so we went to Sidon and also to Tyre and some of the areas in Lebanon and at the particular time, when I was going to go there, there had been a few problems because this is when they’d been shooting rockets into Israel, the Hezbollah, and then the Israeli’s had been sending some rockets back over into Lebanon.

Berni: So you didn’t think of buying a post card or something and not going?

Ken: Well, there’s always something going on in the Middle East so that’s the story you know and also I really believe that you know, Gods looking after me, you know I don’t like to be stupid about that but I didn’t feel it was that bad, tourists were still out in there so I got in there and I was finding some fantastic places like this one Palaestra of Tyre which is the old ruins of Tyre and the main street, you know which is the Cardio Maximus which means ‘the main shopping area’ so there’s no doubt that Jesus would have walked down those very pavers down past that colonnade.

Berni: Wow.

Ken: So just to be in that street I’m going, ‘Oh, I’m on a street that Jesus was walking’, so I was very excited about Sidon and Tyre. But then I thought I want to actually go and find out where He crossed the border and ah, at the time my guide was saying, “Well, I’m not sure if this is such a great idea but you know, why not? We’ll give it a go.” So we went up to the border between Israel and we could see there was a bit of military stuff going on up there but, it was still okay. But we were taking photos and all of a sudden along came a Hezbollah unit and they had like, grenade launchers and all this sort of stuff. They come up to me and they say, “What are you doing here?” and I’m saying, “Well, I’m here taking photographs of the journey of Jesus and His footsteps.” And they say, “No you’re not, you’re a spy.” And I’m going, “Mate, with an accent like this, come on give me a break……”

Berni: Come on, you look like a spy. (Chuckling)

Ken: “…….I’m an Australian”. And they’re saying, “No you’re not, you’re a spy.” And my guide stepped in and he said, “Look, I’m from, you know, Tyre and he’s from Australia.” And they got a gun and stuck it under his chin and said, “Get out of here.”

Berni: So how did you feel at this point?

Ken: At that point when the gun came out underneath the guys chin I thought, ‘this is not good’ and I’m just thinking, ‘my goodness, if they stick a black bag on my head’ I just started to see those television shows you know when they see that guy and think, ‘this is not good’. And I just went, “God, what am I going to do?” I just felt God say, “Tell them about your website”.

Berni: Gee, that’s good God.

Ken: And I’m thinking, ‘Are you kidding God? Like Hello! They don’t have websites they have rocket launchers and guns.’ And I just thought, this is stupid and so I thought, ‘Oh well, why not?’ I said, “Look, I know this is going to sound funny but if there’s any way you can get to a website you can check my website.” And they’re saying, “Well, if you’re a spy you’d have a website.” And I’m thinking, ‘This is going really well!’

But then they got onto a radio, they rang through to a commander and my guide translated this to me later. But he said, apparently the commander gets back on to radio to them and he says, “Look he’s a spy, of course he’ll have a cover.” But somehow they’ve got through to my website and on the front page there was a story about me being the Ken Duncan who was photographer of “The Passion” movie. And the next thing they come through and they say, “Were you the photographer on ‘The Passion’ movie?” And I went, ‘ummm, this is interesting, these are Muslims.’

Berni: What’s the answer? What’s the right answer God?

Ken: Well they already know so I said, “Umm, yes’.” And all of a sudden the guy said, “Well he can’t be a spy. We all love that movie.” And so they’ve all gone and seen this movie….

Berni: Wow.

Ken: ….and the next minute I’m their best friend and they say, “Ohh, he’s you know, we like Jesus.” And they, for some reason, thought it was anti-Jewish. Now I must admit, I wasn’t going to tell them that it had nothing to do with anti-Judaism or anything like that, I wouldn’t have been involved with it. But the next minute I’m getting a group photo of me with the rocket launcher and I’m their friend and as soon as I got the photo I thought……

Berni: I’m outta here.

Ken: ……’It’s time to get out of here.”

Berni: So at this point you’re thanking God that your wife Pam got you to have a website, is that right?

Ken: Well yeah, that was a good move. But what was even funnier ’cause at the time when we were doing “The Passion” movie, Mel was in a situation where there was so much media pressure against him that I went to a meeting with Mel. And they bought in these people and they were going to spend all this money to trying to tell people that it wasn’t anti-Jewish and at the time Mel said, “What do you think Ken?” and I said, “Well you know what? I reckon whatever you do they’re never going to believe you anyhow. I think it’s a diversion, it’s a distraction” and I said, “anyhow in the end, you know, probably all the Muslims, they’ll think it’s anti-Jewish and they’ll all go and see it and they’ll all see the genuine story of Jesus.”

Berni: It’s kind of prophetical wasn’t it?

Ken: In the end it actually did happen.

Berni: Yeah, that’s amazing. Again I look at this picture here in Tyre and it’s this beautiful sort of colonnade of ruins and old stones and that sort of stuff and behind every picture there’s story, behind every life there’s a story and people will look at Ken Duncan and say, ‘the guy’s made it, you know, the guy’s a success, they guy’s well known, he does cool stuff. Gee it must be a great life taking photographs.

Ken: Look, to do what I do, every project God requires me to put everything back on the line again. Every now and then I’d say, “God, you know couldn’t I just have a little private supply of money over here like a security blanket?” And He says, “Son, everything I give you is going to need more than you’ve got.” And so I’m constantly putting everything on the line because that’s what I need to do and travelling, what I do is sometimes you know, I miss my wife and miss my daughter, I’ve been doing a lot of travelling, I really praise God for them because they’re willing to release me to do that because my heart is, that hopefully, that what I’m photographing here can put a greater reality into Christian’s walks because you know, I became a Christian by faith but you don’t need faith when you look at the evidence. There is so much evidence out there about the journey of Jesus that you just look at the evidence and you’ll have to know that Jesus was very real and He had a purpose.

Berni: Now listen, where can people get this book again?

Ken: On my website on www.kenduncan.com.

Berni: Ken, it’s been a great week, thankyou so much for your time.

Ken: My pleasure.