A little piece of Israel in your hearts

Hello family and friends! Our incredible journey through the Holy Land has come to an end. I am writing this on the bus from the Dallas airport en route to Oklahoma City, since we went straight from visiting our last few sights on Wednesday, to a day and a half of travel and there was no time to write until now.

Day 11 was another incredible day and we actually got to sleep in a little, since the wake-up call was at 6:30 AM. We started the day with a nice breakfast (and, by the way, at all the hotels we visited, they have a dessert bar with every meal, including breakfast - it is a good thing we walked between 5-7 miles per day or gaining weight would have been a big risk!), followed by a great devotional time and people sharing thoughts about what we had experienced. Then we boarded the bus and headed to the Mount of Olives.

On the Mount of Olives, Yehuda told us about the Jewish burial practices of the time of Jesus. Families that could afford one would build a tomb in the rock (a cave) with an antechamber that contained a sort of slab, upon which the body would be laid to be cleaned and prepared. This process took several days. When the body was prepared, it would be moved to another smaller room, where it would stay for about two years, until all the flesh was gone, and only bones remained. Then the bones would be placed into an ossuary and interred permanently. Interesting fact, the ossuary was much smaller than a typical casket, but it had to be the length of the femur, or thigh bone, as this is the longest bone in the human body. So these family tombs were to be used many times over and over throughout the generations. The Kidron Valley is on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem, and separates the Mount of Olives from the Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock mosque currently sits.

We walked to the Garden of Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives (actually one of the places it is believed to be, this remains in dispute) and sat among the beautiful plants and flowers, and beneath the ancient olive trees, one of which is approximately 1,150 years old. Pastor Terry shared some of his wisdom as we rested in the garden and referenced Matthew 26:36, where Jesus and the disciples went to Gethsemane, and he asked three of the disciples to sit with him and keep watch while He goes to pray. His soul was troubled and He was full of sorrow. Can you imagine what He must have been feeling, knowing what lay before Him? Jesus was a human being and felt all of the emotions any other person would be feeling faced with the events about to unfold. He may have felt afraid, exhausted, alone, betrayed, anxious, maybe even angry on some level. He prayed to His Father, asking the same prayer three times, but resigned to the perfect will of God. As He prayed, His beloved friends and disciples Peter, James, and John, slept in the garden. I can imagine how this must have increased Jesus' loneliness and sadness, if his brothers couldn't even stay awake to encourage him.

The takeaway from this experience for me was a lesson in trust. The Son of God, faithful and obedient, knelt at the feet of His loving Father, pleading for mercy. The Father, knowing what must take place, did not abandon The Son, but did not let the cup pass from His hand as Jesus asked. In total obedience and trust that we cannot comprehend, Jesus accepted His fate and His purpose was fulfilled, in the perfect will of God. Jesus knew He was about to face indescribable suffering, and He could have run away. But He chose to obey, trusting God with everything. This beautiful, peaceful garden was a place of deep sorrow, and the memory of what happened here left me with an almost palpable sense of grief. And, at the same time, was uplifting, because of the promise and hope that came from Jesus' sacrifice. While in the garden, we had some time to ourselves to reflect and be with the Holy Spirit. I spent that time in prayer, giving thanks for all that He has done, is doing, and will continue to do in the lives of His children, whom He loves in a way we cannot understand. I asked for His grace and enough wisdom to help me keep this feeling in my heart forever, always multiplying it, so that I can share it with others. I asked for His help as I continue learning to trust as Jesus trusted Him that night in the garden.

As our time at the garden came to an end, we dodged the cool spray of lawn sprinklers as we made our way out of the garden and back to the bus, headed for our next stop at a site called The Garden Tomb. This site is at Golgotha (the place of the skull, so named for the cave formation that resembles the eyes of a skull), where Jesus was believed to have been crucified. This site is owned by The Garden Society, a non-profit, non-denominational group of Christians from the UK, who purchased the site with these main goals in mind: to keep it simple, keep it from being turned into a shrine, with posters and paintings and shiny silver and lacquered things, and to ensure it is available for the public to visit, and not walled off out of reach of believers from all over the world. Our guide was a retired pastor, who served as a chaplain in the British military. He spoke beautifully, teaching with an obvious passion for sharing the Love of Jesus Christ. The site was a beautiful place and so full of emotion, and this man made it so much better as he shared his heart for Jesus with a group of complete strangers from Oklahoma. I know he probably gives that tour a dozen times a day or more, and found it very powerful that he is able to share the message of Our Savior with such enthusiasm. He impressed upon us that, while it is very possible the place we were standing was where Jesus was crucified and then buried, rising from the dead after three days, it is also possible it happened somewhere else. But the most important thing is that it did happen, and because of that fact, I will be able to go before God at my judgement, with confidence that He has prepared a place for me, as I received the gift of new life through Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. We were able to go into the tomb through a small doorway, and get an idea of what the space felt like, and we walked out of the tomb into bright sunlight. I paused outside the tomb, as my heart swelled with gratitude and humility, wondering what it must have been like for Mary to go there and find it empty. It was very powerful, and it just gets better!

We moved to a shaded area where Pastor Terry taught about the historical meaning of communion, and how it modeled the process for making a contract in ancient times. This was an explanation I had never heard before, and the facts and details were fascinating, but too lengthy to describe here. We came to the discussion of the last supper, and how we observe the sacrament today. We prayed, and then shared communion with our new friends who have become more like family, in Israel, in Jerusalem, in the land where it all began, where Jesus lived and preached, and became the perfect Lamb of God, so that we would never have to be separated from His love. After receiving communion, we sang beautiful hymns together in that beautiful garden. I, for one, will never view communion the same way again.

We made our way back to the bus, and drove to a very nice park area for our very cool picnic lunch. We had a bread Yehuda called a Jerusalem Bagel, which was a large oval bread about a foot long, served with goat cheese on one plate, hummus on another, and olive oil mixed with hyssop on another. It was delicious! And, keeping with the dessert tradition, we dipped pieces of our bagels in Nutella for a very tasty chocolate finish. Now, where can I find a Jerusalem bagel in Oklahoma???

After lunch, we entered Jerusalem through the Joffa Gate, and walked to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where several churches deemed to be the location where Jesus was crucified and buried. This location is a shrine, was packed with people from all over the world, and we were not able to spend much time here. Yehuda provided teaching and historical facts about the site and the churches who administer it. We then walked across the old city, to the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount. At this location, we saw the original street stones, and walked in the footsteps of Jesus and the disciples. The Southern Steps are the original stone stairs that lead up to the Temple. We know from the Bible that Jesus and the disciples sat here. It was awesome to sit there, still, resting after a long journey, as they would have done following the pilgrimage to the Temple 2,000 years ago.

Pastor Terry gave our final lesson as we rested there on those steps in that holy place. We had seen a movie in the visitor's center at the site, which gave a really good description of what the pilgrimage would have been like for a young man coming from his small village to visit the temple, seeing this magnificent place for the first time. This man of simple means would have spent possibly a whole year's earnings on making this trip, as his faith would have compelled him to do. Although our circumstances are different, our group of 55 pilgrims traveled a great distance, and walked miles through Galilee, through the desert, the Dead Sea, and finally through Jerusalem, concluding our great journey on the southern steps where the temple once stood. We have learned so much about the Bible, about Jesus' life and ministry, and about ourselves, along this journey. Now, what will we do with it? Will we go out into Judea and Samaria and to all the world and tell of this good news? This incredible journey is only the beginning of what God wants us to do. We did not make this journey on coincidence. He has a plan and a purpose for each of our lives. Have we the faith and the courage to fulfill our purposes? The love of Christ compels us to share the good news.

As our journey ends, I am feeling melancholy and a little sad to be leaving this incredible place, and the people who have come into my life for this transformative adventure. But I am filled with hope and inspired by what I have learned. And I will never be the same. I hope that through reading of our journey, each of you will have a little piece of Israel in your hearts as well.

May God give you patience as you listen to hours of stories when we are home again!

Thank you for reading.

~ Terri