On to Jerusalem
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of my visit to the Holy Land in June was having the ability to understand the lay of the land, so to say, and the relationship to physical places and things I’ve just read about for six decades.
For example, in Matthew 16:18 Jesus told Peter the gates of hell would not prevail against him and the church. I always thought that was just a figure of speech. Turns out the gates of hell are a real place, specifically a massive cave near Caesarea Philippi. It was where the Greeks made both human and animal sacrifices to their god Pan. Hence, the “gates of hell.”
Another example came from my Sunday School lesson just a couple of weeks ago, when the phrase “go down from Jerusalem to Jericho” was used. That’s not like you or I going down to Walmart. Going down from Jerusalem to Jericho involves a descent of more than 3,000 feet in elevation. Jericho sits at the northwestern corner of the Dead Sea, below sea level, while Jerusalem is up in the high rolling hills west of the Dead Sea.
Being able to put that kind of physical relationship to Bible study is phenomenal!
So, I left you last week at En Gedi and Qumran, at the top of the Judean desert. Before I take you to Jerusalem, I have to mention the visit to Masada — the site of an ancient fortress and another one of Herod’s palaces that is THE most visited tourist site in Israel.
Masada sits atop the high mountains and you ride a cable car to get to the site. The remains are truly magnificent and the views across the desert mountains to the north and west, coupled with the Dead Sea to the east, are breathtaking. On to Jerusalem.
Before reaching Jerusalem we got to ride camels at a place called Genesisland. Starting and stopping are an adventure.
As we got into Jerusalem, our first stop was on top of the Mount of Olives. As we looked across the valley toward the ancient city, a massive Jewish cemetery was sprawled out to the south on the slope of the Mount of Olives while the Garden of Gethsemane spanned much of the north slope.
What truly stood out, though, was the view of the Gold Dome of the Rock. The dome sits on the Temple Mount on top of the site where Abraham was supposed to have sacrificed Isaac on Mount Moriah. It was the site of Solomon’s original temple. It is also the place from which the Prophet Muhammad was taken up into Heaven.
Perhaps now you understand why the site is so important to Christians, Jews and Muslims.
The present structure was constructed by Muslims in the late 7th century and is a shrine, not a mosque as some believe. The Al-Aqsa Mosque sits across the Temple Mount plaza a hundred yards or so from the Dome.
Laura Hicks led a very moving devotional in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The following day we ventured inside the old walled city and got our first look at the Western Wall. Seeing the multitude of people offering prayer at the wall was a most memorable experience, topped a day later by having the actual opportunity to offer prayer at the wall and insert a small piece of paper with prayer concerns into a crevice. Some of you are on my paper! During the days in Jerusalem, our group visited the Pool of Bethesda and sang “Amazing Grace” as a choir in the Church of St. Anne while other tourists huddled at the entrance to watch. The Upper Room is a much larger space than I would have imagined and not nearly as worn by the elements of time as one might suppose.
Multiple sites in Jerusalem attempt to lay claim as the site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection. We visited the two that are given the greatest credence, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Garden Tomb.
I wish I could tell you which one I feel more strongly about but I’ll leave that decision up to you some day. The image of a skull (Golgotha) in a rock formation near the Garden Tomb was pretty convincing for that location.
We got to visit Shiloh, which I refer to as the Jerusalem before there was a Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant was kept there until it was captured by the Philistines around 1050 BC.
Excavations are still taking place at Shiloh, and several of the folks in our group were given shards of pottery that could be 3,000 years old or older. The archaeologists obviously weren’t looking for pottery.
During a visit to Bethlehem, we got a chance to go into the Church of the Nativity to experience the cave where it is believed that Jesus was born.
It was the trip of a lifetime and one I hope to make again some day. There is more to see.