Day 8
So remember how I said yesterday I want to live in Jerusalem? I was just kidding.
Today we walked through a lot of the Old City and the City of David, seeing most of the sites connected with the last few days of Jesus' life. The Jewish quarter was nice, but the Muslim quarter was stressful, and all those little alleyways and market streets made me nervous. It was definitely a different view of this city. It's getting harder and harder to focus and stay interested because of 1) being tired towards the end, and 2) what we're seeing here is foreign to my spiritual understanding.
What I mean by that is that the churches built over every special rock and house here seem so weird to me. They don't help me focus on Jesus or the history of what happened there. They make me focus on Catholicism, or Greek Orthodoxy, but not really Jesus. Shmulik said today that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the church built on the supposed site of Jesus' cross) has become a "monument to dead religion." It's so true, really; walking through the Catholic part and the Russian Orthodox part, and the parts of all the other denominations who claim this church, I just couldn't help feeling like I was fading into the dark, cold stone walls adorned by gaudy and flashy icons and lamps. So religious, but where is Jesus?
I'll tell you where he is, and he's not in that church. He's not in that tomb that people were literally weeping over today. He's at the right hand of God! He is risen! And we are down here fighting over who gets to "own" the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and who can adorn it better.
So, to be truly honest, I was really just looking for the exit in that church. As holy and blessed as the site is, I couldn't even focus on it because I was so ready to step out of that dark place and into the sunshine.
Set over against that in my mind is the Western Wall. The Wailing Wall. The holiest place on the planet for Jews today. I was kind of expecting it to be like the churches we've been seeing, really - a religious site that just makes me sad for the people who are trapped in legalism. But when I stepped up to it, with my prayers rolled up in my hand, I touched the huge stones with my palms and put my forehead against the wall and tears started streaming down my face.
Shekinah Glory. God's Shekinah Glory dwelt in the Holy of Holies, and that wall on the western side of the Temple Mount is the closest proximity to where it was. Shekinah Glory.
I looked around at the women beside me reading prayers from their Hebrew Bibles and rocking back and forth, back and forth, just chanting to their God. I stuck my prayers in the wall and backed up a few paces until I was far enough away to turn my back. I wish I could have stayed for hours. I felt God there. I know I can feel God anywhere, and I do, but there was something monumental about that site for me, that unadorned stone wall. There was something special about the way the Jews revere God at that wall, not turning their back to it, covering their heads with scarves. How much of that reverence we have lost as Christians...and how much of the simplicity of an unadorned wall. Just holy because it is close to the presence of Yahweh!
There is a LOT more I have to say about today, as well as yesterday (Yes, I'm aware I skipped day 7...) but I'll come back to all of it. For now, goodnight. I encourage you to recapture in your own heart the reverence and simplicity of the Western Wall, however that looks for you today...
Today we walked through a lot of the Old City and the City of David, seeing most of the sites connected with the last few days of Jesus' life. The Jewish quarter was nice, but the Muslim quarter was stressful, and all those little alleyways and market streets made me nervous. It was definitely a different view of this city. It's getting harder and harder to focus and stay interested because of 1) being tired towards the end, and 2) what we're seeing here is foreign to my spiritual understanding.
What I mean by that is that the churches built over every special rock and house here seem so weird to me. They don't help me focus on Jesus or the history of what happened there. They make me focus on Catholicism, or Greek Orthodoxy, but not really Jesus. Shmulik said today that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the church built on the supposed site of Jesus' cross) has become a "monument to dead religion." It's so true, really; walking through the Catholic part and the Russian Orthodox part, and the parts of all the other denominations who claim this church, I just couldn't help feeling like I was fading into the dark, cold stone walls adorned by gaudy and flashy icons and lamps. So religious, but where is Jesus?
I'll tell you where he is, and he's not in that church. He's not in that tomb that people were literally weeping over today. He's at the right hand of God! He is risen! And we are down here fighting over who gets to "own" the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and who can adorn it better.
So, to be truly honest, I was really just looking for the exit in that church. As holy and blessed as the site is, I couldn't even focus on it because I was so ready to step out of that dark place and into the sunshine.
Set over against that in my mind is the Western Wall. The Wailing Wall. The holiest place on the planet for Jews today. I was kind of expecting it to be like the churches we've been seeing, really - a religious site that just makes me sad for the people who are trapped in legalism. But when I stepped up to it, with my prayers rolled up in my hand, I touched the huge stones with my palms and put my forehead against the wall and tears started streaming down my face.
Shekinah Glory. God's Shekinah Glory dwelt in the Holy of Holies, and that wall on the western side of the Temple Mount is the closest proximity to where it was. Shekinah Glory.
I looked around at the women beside me reading prayers from their Hebrew Bibles and rocking back and forth, back and forth, just chanting to their God. I stuck my prayers in the wall and backed up a few paces until I was far enough away to turn my back. I wish I could have stayed for hours. I felt God there. I know I can feel God anywhere, and I do, but there was something monumental about that site for me, that unadorned stone wall. There was something special about the way the Jews revere God at that wall, not turning their back to it, covering their heads with scarves. How much of that reverence we have lost as Christians...and how much of the simplicity of an unadorned wall. Just holy because it is close to the presence of Yahweh!
There is a LOT more I have to say about today, as well as yesterday (Yes, I'm aware I skipped day 7...) but I'll come back to all of it. For now, goodnight. I encourage you to recapture in your own heart the reverence and simplicity of the Western Wall, however that looks for you today...
Oh my goodness, I want to go to the Wailing Wall. I cannot imagine how God revealed His presence there. I agree with you on the Jew's rights to the land. Although they do'nt believe in the messianic authority of Christ, they are God's people. Since the beginning of time. I just read recently how God promised Abraham that land and those nations that have so much history there and how even today they have it (barely). As He said it in Genesis 22: The LORD Will Provide! Amen!
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