Jerusalem - Our Last Day

We enjoyed a morning to sleep in, waking up at 7:30AM and starting our last day in Israel at 9AM. We travelled by bus to the Mount of Olives overlooking the golden Dome of the Rock. Between our view and where we stood is a cemetery of hundreds of tombs. According to the prophecy in Zechariah, the Mount of Olives is where the Lord will be when He comes again, and so people who want to rise first in the resurrection want to be buried as close as they can to where He will return. Therefore, it is the oldest cemetery in Israel. Sarah Peters read Acts 1:3-14, the story of Jesus ascending into heaven and encouraged us to be ready for His return. JD Larsen challenged us with the questions “What are you doing with what you have? How are you making yourself ready?” After the encouraging lesson, we lined up for our chance to ride a camel in Israel! Singing Hosanna in the highest, we walked down the street where Jesus rode the colt when He entered the city of Jerusalem.

At the church of Gethsemane, we gathered together to read Matthew 26:17-56, the story of the Last Supper, Jesus’ praying in the garden, and His betrayal. Judas kissed Jesus as a sign for the soldiers to know who to arrest; thus, he turned the kiss from being the sign of trust to a sign of mistrust or betrayal. Just a short walk across the street, we circled together for communion as we stood in a place where Jesus may have been praying before His betrayal. Then we hiked to the Sheep’s Gate, or the Lion’s Gate as it is referred to today. As the Muslim call to prayer sounded outside, we gathered inside St. Anne’s Church and sang hymns of praise to God.

Unfortunately, we were not permitted to see the pools of Bethesda for it was time for them to close and we were herded out. As we gathered, JD explained that Bethesda was a place where people gathered to be healed. If they could not go to the Temple, they would come here. In John 5:6, Jesus asked a man at Bethesda if he wants to be healed. We can look at this as Jesus asking, “Have you become comfortable having everyone else take care of you, or do you still want to get well?” That’s a question we need to ask ourselves. We live near living water, the Lord, yet all too often our roots don’t draw it in to drink.

With this on our mind, we walked on through the streets until Ronen brought us to the front of a Catholic church, where he explained that we were starting to walk Via Dolorosa, the street that Jesus walked with the cross-beam on his arms on the way to His crucifixion site. The streets, he explained, would have been so crowded with people, the walk would have been very difficult. Even our group walking through the streets, the bazaar, took some maneuvering through crowds, not even comparable to what it would have been on that day. We ended at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 90% of scholars believe that this was the exact site where Jesus was crucified and buried. At 9AM, the time of the morning sacrifice, Jesus was brought to be crucified, and then at 3PM, the time of the evening sacrifice, He died. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb. We walked through the church, crowded with people coming for all different reasons: prayer, rubbing the anointing rock for blessing, and touring. The decorum was exquisite and incense filled the air from all the candles people lit.

After lunch, we climbed to the top of the old city wall, called the Ramparts. From here we had a beautiful view of Jerusalem. Kai-Kai Bates read for us Psalm 48 and Psalm 122, and then we walked the wall in silent prayer for peace for the city. Off the wall, we boarded the bus after a long day of walking and rode to the Israel Museum, where we saw a magnificent model of the city of Jerusalem in the 1st century. Ronen tested what we learned this past week before leading us to the Shrine of the Book, the building dedicated to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s a bittersweet moment to be at the end of our last day in Israel. I know that we shall never forget the memories we’ve made and the experiences we’ve had here.