A few things I never fully realized:
• How riding a camel is fun, but not terribly comfortable (see photo). We’ll keep our two Hondas.
• Having said that, how here I would rather walk than drive. Auto traffic is bad in this crowded city.
• How even if the water in a foreign city is declared drinkable, it’s good to bring Immodium. Most of us from Denver have done some running as well as walking (know what I mean?).
• Concerning our studies, how the original Jerusalem David called home in 1000 BC was a football field width town of just 2,000 people, built along the steep decline of the hill where his son Solomon would eventually build the first Temple.
• How the region given to Israel’s smallest tribe, Benjamin, became extraordinarily strategic for transportation north-south and east-west, and as a political buffer between the competing clans of Ephraim and Judah. David chose to move his capital north to Jerusalem, partly to be in a neutral site just into Benjamin, unclaimed by any tribe – calling it (not so humbly) the “City of David” – sort of like an American mid-coast city called “D.C.” that’s not in any one state.
• How strongly and mixed my feelings would be on the “Temple Mount” – a huge rectangular box of limestone walls on which Herod the Great began rebuilding the “second Temple” before Jesus was born. That sacred edifice was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., but the tall foundation walls remain, including the famous “western wall” revered by Jews. On top now is the Muslim “Dome of the Rock” and a large Mosque. There’s some sadness in that. And yet there’s this: the Temple’s destruction reinforces the reality of God’s dwelling Jesus said he (as “Emmanuel”) is, and we (as his body) are.
• How exuberantly the Jews here celebrate “Shavuot” – i.e. the feast of “Pentecost” – which was a virtual all-night celebration of praying, dancing and eating last Tuesday evening through Wednesday, especially among crowds at the large area near the western wall. At the same time, we were able to see Christian sites commemorating God pouring out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost some 2,000 years ago here.
• How, in the barren Judean wilderness, between Jerusalem and the Jordan River, the city of Jericho (where the “walls came tumbling down”) was and still is a palm tree “oasis” for travelers and the rich – like the powerful and paranoid Herod the Great who built one of his many palaces there in the decades before Jesus was born.
• How that wilderness is both intimidating and beautiful – a place of both testing and refuge, of judgment from God and intimacy with him.
• How from the ridge of hills called the Mount of Olives – where Jesus spent significant amounts of time – he could look across the deep and narrow Kidron Valley and easily see a) the glorious second Temple, b) Herod’s citadel where Pontius Pilate would try him, and c) probably a rise in the terrain beyond the Temple called “Golgatha,” and d) maybe even a garden area with a tomb. By there he rode on a donkey toward what many assumed (so wrongly) would be a political coronation. There he wept over a city of people loved by the Father, but blind to their redemption. There he prayed for his followers (those living then and those to come). There he agonized honestly but submissively with the Father over the horror on its way. There he ascended to heaven’s throne to reign as risen Lord and pour out his Spirit.
The last two sites touched places deep within both me and Darlene. In the wilderness hills (see photo), I could imagine Jesus in both battle with our Adversary and intimacy with the Father. On the Mount of Olives (see photo), I could sense his love as he prayed for and wept over a city and a world that needed, but pushed away, his peace. Looking at Jerusalem in 2010, it’s not hard to imagine the tears still flowing. There is great sadness over the injustice this land represents and holds: both the Holocaust that pushed millions of Jews to seek a homeland here, as well as the lost rights of millions of Palestinians (Christians as well as Muslims) in what has been their home for centuries. And, of course, Jesus weeps over other cities too – like the ones we live in. Thank God his ongoing intercession is as the Mediator who endured a cross to reconcile all things to God and begin a new creation. And somehow that feat – “finished” he cried – happened among people like us, on this planet, in this city.
Looking ahead, we now travel beyond Jerusalem for three days, heading south into the hot Negev and then the even hotter Dead Sea region where it’s supposed to be 120 degrees on Thursday! That should be one place Darlene will not get chilly.
Thanks so much for your prayers and allowing us this rich time!
Shalom,
Steve
