We hit so many sites of the city today and many of them we just for a moment. Roni, our friend and tour guide advised us early in the tip that we had several hundred year plus three to see in 10 days. Now the advice seems more like a warning...lol...we stayed moving today. Roni SHOULD have a PhD in history because we are filled with it all along the way. On the drive into the city center we were told that the town was built on the bedrock of Mt Moriah. If you remember reading in the book of Genesis, this is where Abraham was sent to sacrifice his son Isaac. I suppose I had never really thought about it, or maybe I am a dumb dumb but I had no clue that Jerusalem was literally built here.
Sidebar - Not to be pious or anything, but I am trying to read through the Bible this year. I kind of wish I had made this my goal before coming, because I am working with Sunday School story knowledge here...I just wish I knew more.
Our first actual stop was to the Garden of Gethsemane. This was probably what I had been looking forward to the most. After Smokey read from and contextualized Matthew 26:30-45. We had a little time to pray in the garden alone. Tate and I ran to a smaller olive tree and prayed together. It was probably the last time Tate will ever hold my hands because she is too old for that, but I cherished it. We all did. Everyone found a little quite spot and then we met up and moved on after. There is a special clover that grows on the ground in the garden. It has little spots on it. The story goes that they are the remnants of the blood Jesus sweat in the garden as he prayed.
Our next spot was at the St Peters...grrr...something. I missed it in my notes. Because of the rain we had to alter plans at the last minute and I missed the full actual name. It was actually the house of the high priest Caiaphas (that has obviously been rebuilt) where Peter denies Jesus three times.
This town is so impressive. There are new things built and they know there is stuff under it, so the begin excavation under these structures. The was a place where the road was so preserves and so originally constructed that it is one of the few places they know Jesus walked on the same exact street. The same, same street.
This is a mezuzah. You will find them on the right side of Jewish houses at the entrance. This one is on the side of a walkway/ road. Inside the Mezuzah is a tiny scroll with Deuteronomy 6:4-9 written on It.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.This is a scripture that they memorize and recite three times daily. Morning, noon, and night. On the airplane to Israel I wrote a note to myself to research more about the Orthodox Jew because at the same time many men got up and dressed ceremonially in the prayer robe, placed a little box on their heads and wrapped their hands and wrists in a leather strap. I had no clue what this was, but Roni told us today and it went along with this Mezuzah. This little box as well as the leather strap have the same verse written on it. Practicing Jews and Orthodox Jews do this daily. This mezuzah is actually made out of the bullets that have been removed from the wall from the conflict.
Our next stop was the upper room. We were obviously working a little out of order due to the flow and not having to back track across the city. In Matthew 26:18, Jesus told the disciples to go into the city and look for a certain man...that is where they will eat the Passover, AKA the last supper for Jesus. Now the room they believe this took place looks like the room in The Last Supper painting by Leonardo DiVinci. The oddest this in the room was a stained glass window...obviously placed after the fact. It was beautiful but when you looked closer, you could literally see the devil disguised I the glass. It was placed there while the building was still under Turkish rule.
We have to remember that while Israel has been around for a very long time, it has only been a country since the 1940’s.
Roni was telling us all about the different wars and nations that have controlled Israel. As it sits now Jerusalem is a melting pot of people with four quadrants inside. There is the Jewish quarter, the Christian quarter, the Arabian quarter and the Armenian quarter. All get along most of the time, but dependent on the day and the lesson taught inside a specific house of prayer, the riot gear can come out and panic happens in the streets. There was none of that today, but there was a heightened presence at The Wailing Wall as we passed through.
The last stop before the bus was just a found walkway that was dated back to the time of the prophet Isaiah. The description of the building of the wall was found in perfect formation here. After all of the archeological sites we have visited, I can see there WAS a house just outside the wall, and that the wall was built. This is the first wall of Jerusalem when they were battling the Babylonians. Ya’ll this stuff still exists! You can see across the pic that the wall would have been 8meters high. What you are seeing I’d the wall and then the street to the left of the wall. But in the far right of the pic, you can see the houses coming down to make room for the wall.
What I loved even more then this is another prophecy fulfilled right next to the historic site...
Zechariah 8: 4 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. 5 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.Look what is right next door?
This was the first night we debriefed after our day. It was awesome coming t get her tonight and hearing everyone’s “ah-ha moments” for the day. Our group is so diverse in age and wisdom. And each had a time in the day to reflect on where everyone else thought, “yeah, that was cool” or “I didn’t know that either”.
Thank you to my fellow travelers for some of your photos today.
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