Tuesday 17APR18

Temple Mount
from Olivet

Today we began to experience Jerusalem.  After breakfast, we jumped in the bus for a half hour drive across to the Eastern approaches to Jerusalem.  As we drove, the words going over and over in my head were the Psalms about this amazing holy city.  "As the mountain surround Jerusalem so the Lord surrounds His people both now and forever more."  Psalm 125:2 - I've never seen such an up and down city.  Steep doesn't even describe it.  But a glorious promise.

Gethsemane

We caught our first glimpses from the Mount of Olives (some of you will remember my map of the Triumphal Entry). It's every bit as gorgeous as you've heard.  We reflected there on the Palm Sunday crowds acclaiming him as King and hoping Jesus would lead a revolt against Rome.  Shouting "Hosannah," waving palm branches, songs of exaltation and then Jesus cleansing the Temple all had connections with the previous revolt of the Maccabees.  It surely freaked out the Jewish leaders.  We descended (walking- uff-da) to the Garden of Gethsemane and the beautiful church that was still open to visitors during Mass.

The Herodian in the distance /
Mustard blossoms in foreground

Herodian scale model

The Herodian was our next stop.  Herod the Great was a builder of many great structures (including the 2nd Temple). The engineering of the Herodian, East of Jerusalem is absolutely stunning.  He literally shaved off the top of a mountain to raise the height of another mountain and there built palace, garden, swimming pools, aqueducts.  If you wonder what Jesus might be referencing in Matt 17:20 with mustard seed sized faith and moving mountains, here's a picture of mustard blooms with the Herodian in the background; a mountain literally moved on top of another mountain.  Jesus is saying - "You think that's a great feat? Your even very small faith can accomplish greater!" Herod's tomb was only recently found and excavated on this site.

We also talked there about our next stop Bethlehem, just down the valley.  How Jesus, born so humbly (and with questionable parentage according to his contemporaries) under the shadow of Herod's greatest architectural feat, would set in motion a spiritual movement that Herod could not thwart.  Numbers 24:17 Balaam prophesied the star that would rise out of Jacob to crush and conquer Edom.  In the struggle between the descendants of Jacob and Essau, the Edomites would lose. Guess who tried to destroy the infant Jesus in Bethlehem - Herod, the Idumean (Edomean). Herod would live only another few miserable years.  Jesus still cannot be stopped.

Bethlehem was our next stop where we quickly viewed the interiors of the Church of the Nativity (the crowds were crazy) had lunch and bought some beautiful olive wood carvings.

Korczak and the
Gettos children
Yad Vashem

You're not too far away from home
when you run into your insurance
man and his wife at supper.

And we ended our day at Yad Vashem - the Museum to the Holocaust.  I've always wanted to go there, and our time was short, but my heart was again broken by the inhumanity poured out on God's specially chosen people.  I've toured Dachau and been to Babi Yar and the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg FL. But none of them saddened me like this.  I say it with them, "Never Again!"

Oh, and then at supper, I ran into Gary and Karen Hedberg (for 25+ years my insurance man) staying at our same hotel.  Crazy huh?  I wonder how many other friends I'll discover over here.

Tomorrow: City of David, Hezekiah's Tunnel, Jewish Quarter, Western Wall, Rabbinic Tunnels