Israel 2018 – Wrap Up

So I said I would write this last Israel post on the plane heading home. But as I warned all of our travelers before we left, this trip was not a vacation, it was an excursion. I told them that one of my goals would be for them to get on the plane heading home, exhausted, and filled with new Biblical knowledge and an understanding of Jesus’ world. We succeeded. And I too was exhausted…and fortunately slept most of the flight home.So here’s the wrap-up, 4 days after returning.Our final day was definitely fitting. We had a great mixture of Old and New Testament, the background of Jesus’s coming, and the place where he did ministry. We started the morning with a walk through the old city of Jerusalem, going through Zion’s gate, a gateway that Jesus would have walked through many times. We then visited the Temple Mount. While we call it the Temple Mount, as it was built by King Herod to serve as the platform of the Temple, it is now the domain of Muslims, who conquered the city and took control of this section in the 8th century. It is now home of the famed and beautiful Muslim memorial, the Dome of the Rock. While the Temple is no longer there, there was also a special feeling just being on this massive stone and earth structure (36 acres–larger than 20 football fields) where a large portion of the words of Jesus in the 4 Gospels were spoken. He held many teaching and discussion sessions here, as well as debates and corrections of the established religious leaders of his day. This is also where the early church made many of their converts, as the Apostles went daily to this place to preach and evangelize.We then walked the very crowed streets of the markets in both the Jewish and Muslim quarters of the old city, along what is called the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route Jesus took, carrying his cross to Golgotha. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the most likely place of Jesus’ resurrection. But the sad thing is that organized religion has spoiled the place with lavish construction and decoration, and it’s impossible, even after waiting in line for hours, to see what it would have actually looked like when Jesus was there.We made our way to the Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed the lame man (John 5). Some of the ruins of the original pool remains, along with evidence of very early Christian places of worship that were erected to commemorate it.The day and our excursion ended with an incredible trek through the city of David, the old city Jerusalem that was first conquered, settled, and rebuilt by King David himself. It is amazing that this these ruins are even there (discovered not that long ago). We took a trek through the underground water tunnel that David used to conquer the city (2 Samuel 5:8). We saw the remains of what was very likely the palace that David built (2 Samuel 5:11). And then made our way to the ancient water source of the city, and the site of another healing by Jesus (John 9), the pool of Siloam.As we recapped the day and the trip that evening together, the theme was “emptied and overfilled.” We all had been emptied of energy. This excursion was a crash course in the history of Israel, archeology, and the Life of Jesus. We traveled the country from end to end and saw so much in between. We walked and climbed several miles every day. We were exhausted, physically and emotionally. But we were also filled. This was a spiritual journey and we could not have imagined one that could be more fulfilling. To rest in a boat on the waters where Jesus calmed the sea and stand over the spot where he taught the beatitudes and preached in Galilean synagogues, there could be no real description of the sense of awe that is felt. This is the land where Jesus walked, ate and lived. And for 10 magnificent days, we were privileged to do so as well.But Jesus left the Holy Land in Acts 1. Look it up. When he did, he said, “Go, now, and by my witnesses.” We left, too. And so we have a mission from Jesus to accomplish in the world where we live. Let’s do it!

Golgotha