Jerusalem, Day 1 Part 1

I am going to write two different blogs today.  Because we had two different days, even though it was technically the same day.

This is part 1.

Let me say this:  there are lots of ways to come to Jerusalem, to the Holy Land, to Israel and Palestine.  Some come and see only biblical sites.  Some come and see biblical sites and new testament era sites.  Some come and see biblical sites, new testmanent era sites, and shrines.  And some come and see biblical sites, new testament era sites, shrines, and try to meet people living in the current reality of this place which is complicated at best.  

Our trip was designed in this final category.  The way Dan (the fellow who organized the trip) and I describe it as we want to see the ancient and biblical stones of this place, and we want to meet and hear from the living stones of this place too.

So the first part of the morning was spent on the Mount of Olives.  And the afternoon and evening were spent with two young women working for peace in this place who showed us many places and many things that made the conversations about walls and check points very, very real.  

So today was a day for making things real.  The valleys and hills of biblical Jerusalem -- they are real.  The 24 foot walls dividing villages -- they are real.

This first blog is about biblical Jerusalem and what we saw on our way around it. About the first day we had here.

This is the route that Jesus likely took down the Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday.  Our group is in the background on the road.  Behind me are the acres of graves, Jewish and Muslim, seeking to be near the temple mound and the now sealed "golden gate."  If I was a more apolocalyptic theologian or pastor, I would write a great deal about this.  But instead I'll talk about what was there today.  

Here on the slopes of the Mount of Olives - the ground is crazy steep.  Like Blowing Rock or Boone steep.  Down, down, down it goes until it ends at the Garden of Gethsemane at the base of the Kidron Valley.  There to my left is a somewhat sacred Jewish site.  Notice the fence and the wire to prevent vandalism.  Irony:  Jerusalem is called the "city of peace," and yet there is security everywhere.  Checkpoints.  Young men with guns.  Young soldiers with guns.  Cameras, cameras, everywhere.  That is one just over my left shoulder on a thin white pole.  Cameras dot the whole way down the Mount of Olives.  And I get that. 

I understand their necessity.  

They just break my heart.

To my right is a beggar.  He was loud and desperate.  You should know I rarerly, if ever, give money to beggars.  This is for many reasons -- and all of them intellectually interesting and acute.

If you read the gospels Jesus goes us to Jerusalem from Jericho.  In Jericho Jesus meets Zacchaeus and Bartimaeus.  Batimaeus is a blind man who gets louder and louder and louder.  Jesus stops.

So here we were on the Mt. of Olives, and a beggar shouted louder and louder as we appraoched him.    We are on the same route Jesus took.  We are on the same Mount of Olives where the road to Jercho in Jesus' time both began and ended.  The city was before me.  The words of Jesus to "do to the least" of these echoed in my ear.

So I broke all my neat intellectual rules and I gave the man all the money in my pocket.  Don't know how much (I think about 5 dollars).  And it really doesn't matter.  There were too many synergies to deny the man a brief success.  If even for a moment, I hope he saw in it the top-pence I offered him the  mercy I intended.

(There are 1.000.000 pictures of the Garden of Gethsemane on the internet.  This is my contribution to the library of the photographs.  It really is as cool and wonderful as I hoped it would be.  It looks like the kind of place where one could get lost in prayer.  Is there a more tragic and/or sacred place for the intesction of the human drama that at Gethsemane?)

At Gethsemane and the Church of All Nations, or the Church of the Rock of Agony, people stream in from all over the globe.  Africa.  Asia.  Europe.  And us.  It is wonderful.

Here is the inside of the church.  It is the most visually elegant of the churches we have visited.  As I listened to the catholic mass and prayed for my family in this space, I tried to imagine the many who have come before me praying and praying for those they love and for the world.  

Again, I find myself looking at these ancient stones.  From the walk down the Mount of Olives, to the survey of the great city, to the place of Jesus' final prayer and arrest.

I find myself staring at the ancient stones and wondering what they remember. 

Jesus weeping over Jerusalem?

His long walk from Gethsemane to the home of the high priests, to the Romans, to Herod.  Do they remember that?  What secrets do they hold in the unalterable past?

And then I hear the voice of a beggar growing louder.

I hear the song of what sounded like 1000 Nigerians singing as they march down the hill.

I see the Ethiopians dressed in costumes which make them look like kings as they march the way to Jersusalem proper.

I see all that and I realize that these dormant stones yet support a living faith.

And I am glad for our part in it.

Friends, the city, at a distance really is as wonderful as you have imagined.  Its scope and place in world history is simply unmatched.

But the Nigerians singing, the people crowding, and the small group of North Carolinians who gathered together tightly to pray the Lord's Prayer this morning?  

Well, they are beautiful too.  And for each of these, I am, as I am for this city, prooundly grateful.