A day unlike any other

Today was a day unlike any other day on the trip. It was the first day of two days in Jerusalem, the international city of Israel, a place where 4 religions and hundreds of people groups converge. It’s a magnificent and disorienting place, filled with people from all backgrounds and cultures, speaking a variety of different languages and dressed in a wide assortment of clothes. We spent the day walking this ancient city’s streets among the people who call it home.

We started at the western wall, where hundreds gather throughout the day and millions gather throughout the year to pray, study, and teach. We got to go on an underground tour led by a New Yorker turned Israeli who had a wealth of knowledge about the wall and the city. We learned just how complicated Jerusalem is, and how it’s never been anything other than a hodgepodge of architecture with one civilization built on top of the one before it.

Throughout the day we learned about the layout and structure of both the current city and the city of Jesus’ time. We even got to walk on a street that Jesus certainly would have walked on based on our knowledge of his life. As always, it’s a powerful remind that he was in our world and walked among us.

We ended the day in Bethlehem, an obviously significant location in the Bible. Here we sang Christmas carols in a shepherds cave and reflected on the humble, seemingly insignificant beginnings of Jesus’ life. One of the things that stood out to me was just how close Bethlehem was to Jerusalem, the place where Jesus would eventually go to the cross on our behalf.

We have just one day left in Jerusalem and in Israel itself, and tomorrow is looking like it will be one of the fullest days of our trip! Thanks for following along and we’ll see you tomorrow for one last post.