This was our first day touring in Jerusalem. I was supposed to meet my friend, Hanan, in the lobby, so he could join us for the day, but I couldn’t find him. Then it occurred to me that since there were 2 sections to the hotel (which there were) perhaps there were 2 lobbies. I ran to the bus and asked Mark, our tour guide, if that was the case. He said it was, and said, “Go look for him.” So – I literally ran through the corridor separating the 2 lobbies – and there he was. Being a bit frantic wasn’t the best way to start a day – but I was incredibly relieved when I saw him! He had been waiting for more than 15 minutes, wondering where I was…. And my theory is: 'All that ends well, is." I owe the whole tour group a big thanks for waiting for us! Thank you, everyone!
Our first stop was on the upper part of the Mount of Olives. We had our group picture taken there – and it turned out really well – except that I didn’t believe the guy when he said the back row should take 2 steps back. I thought he meant 1…. He meant 2. A few people got on the camel that was there. I thought that was something we’d do in the desert, so I didn’t….
As we stood near the top – with our bird’s-eye view of the city, we sang the chorus Anita taught us: ‘As The Mountains Surround Jerusalem. ‘ It is a beautiful picture that will remain indelibly ingrained in my memory.
We opted to walk down the hill of the Mount of Olives. That was special to me. Even though the hills are lower and the valleys higher than they were 2,000 years ago, this is as close as one can get to ‘walking where Jesus walked.’ There – and along the Sea of Galilee….
We saw a crypt site where bones are kept. Bodies were only kept in the grave about a year – then the bones were moved to crypts after the first year.
The first church we stopped at that day was The Sanctuary of Dominis Flavit aka The Teardrop Church, where Jesus’ weeping for Jerusalem is commemorated. Once inside Barb Block started us in singing Holy, Holy, Holy. What is compelling about the church is the window that opens to the City of Jerusalem, with the Dome of the Rock clearly in view.
We walked on down the mount to the Garden of Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations – aka Church of the Agony. The church is constructed right over the large rock that is purported to be where Jesus prayed during his agony – when his disciples couldn’t stay awake to show support for him. It was somewhere on this very hillside that happened, even if not precisely at that specific spot. Outside, in the Garden of Gethsemane, there is another rock to kneel at as well. A couple of the Olive trees there are the largest we saw in Israel.
We drove to St Peter en Galicantu church. Saw the exterior doors and the ceiling inside, and then went directly to the dungeon underneath – where it is believed Jesus was held under Caiaphas’ house during his illegal trial. It was absolutely compelling.
Ray Wing read Psalm 88 in response to Mark instructing that it be read from the Bible on the podium in the dungeon. It is a Psalm written by one who likens his overwhelming troubles to being placed in a pit – but the visual the words graphically depicted was of the reality Jesus experienced in this very real pit. They’ve carved out openings so it can be viewed more easily – and have carved out steps to get down into the pit – but in Jesus’ time, that wasn’t how it was.
There was only one entrance then: a hole at the top through which a person would have been lowered – or raised, by a rope slung under the arms. It would have been pitch dark, cold and lonely…as isolated and desolately alone as any person could feel. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Surely He bore our sorrows, and by His stripes we are healed.
We sang 2 songs. Knowing another group was waiting for us, we sang the second one as we exited, and the Chinese tour group that was waiting to come down to the pit took up the same chorus and continued it…. “Hallelujah, Thine the Glory. Hallelujah, Amen. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive Us again.” That was an incredibly special moment – one of my most precious memories along the journey. “We praise Thee, O God, for the Son of Thy love – for Jesus who died and is now gone above – Hallelujah, Thine the glory….”
We went to the historic site of the Upper Room, then on into the Jewish Quarter to a shop run by a Rabbi to hear him talk. He was both intelligent and articulate – and genuine in his beliefs, but He doesn’t have eyes to see that Yeshua (Jesus) was and is the promised Messiah. He does not believe that the blood of the lamb shed at the first Passover would have saved an Egyptian firstborn male had one been in an Israelite’s home where the blood was over the doorpost.
Yet, that very event of the first Passover was what Jesus commemorated with His disciples before his death, and where he taught them a new view of Passover from that day forward – that He was the lamb slain before the foundations of the world – that He was the sacrifice, and His shed blood was the only source of Salvation, and that at every future Passover they were to remember His death until He comes again, rather than remembering the children of Israel and their exodus from Egypt. New wine. New wineskin.
We were ‘released’ to go scout out what we wanted to have for lunch – with a gathering time and location defined. For lunch I had another wonderful falafel. It was so big I gave half of it away. During lunchtime Hanan took me up on a roof nearby so I could get pics of the Western Wall and of a model of the future temple.
Right after lunch we saw the Menorah that is to be in the next temple. It started to sprinkle – and because the weather looked so nice when we started that morning, I left my coat on the bus. Hanan left to go let his dog out and left me his coat. I was very grateful for it later.
Next we went to pray at the Western Wall. Mark told us they do not prefer to have it called ‘the wailing wall’…. We got hailed on. Some people creatively protected their heads with chairs.
We drove to the Garden Tomb & Skull hill. This area is called Gordon’s Calvary, after a man who found the site in 1883. Where the buses park is at the street level where Jesus was most likely crucified – and Ray told me there is a theory that the Ark of the Covenant is buried there – that Jesus’ blood would have poured through the earth onto the Mercy Sea. It’s just a theory – but so is the precise location of Jesus’ death and burial. This is not the traditional site – but it is very plausible.
We got to walk through the tomb. If it was not ‘the’ tomb, it was certainly one that filled the bill….a wealthy person’s tomb. And the proximity to the place of the skull – and that it was an olive garden all meshed to making it a very real experience.
We had communion in a tiny little ‘down under’ chapel that we just barely fit into, out of wee little olive wood cups Rick got for us in the shop in Bethlehem. It was a tender, precious moment.
Then it was time to go back to the hotel (the cheap side of The Ramada where things don’t work so well. Actually all of the problems with the hotel were laughable. They don’t use sheets – just duvet covers over the comforter, which is not normal for us. The hot water wasn’t actually hot – just tepid. And the hair dryer was in a drawer in the bedroom area and hardwired with a duct-tape type of casing directly to an electrical conduit coming out of the wall.
The first day we were there our table lamp worked, but then quit. We were lucky. Some people didn’t have heat in their rooms – and when the maintenance man looked behind the outlet, there were no wires to connect to. Definitely not Five-star as claimed – but that was incidental. We weren’t there for a hotel tour! The novelty just added to the adventure.)
(At some point today – we also went to David’s ‘tomb that isn’t his tomb’ as I call it. Women's side was being renovated: i.e., nothing to see, so I didn’t get pictures, and my picture order is what is defining the record of the events of our journey!)
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