Deep breath.
Sigh.
Oh Palestine and Israel. I was so excited to go to the country “Israel”. Little did I know what we were getting into.
Expectations: Israel. The county dreamed of going to by many Christians. It’s the promised land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel). The land Moses led the Israelites to. (Joshua 21:43-45) Where the temple was built and destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed again. Where Jesus was born, where God walked as a human, and died and rose again. There’s a lot of biblical significance in Israel. I expected it to be like a magical land, a land that made me feel closer to God; a land where I especially felt the presence of God.
Expectations not met.
“The promised land” was underwhelming and overwhelming.
We stayed in Bethlehem (which is in Palestine) and took a bus almost daily to Jerusalem (which is in Israel). Holding Christians, Muslims, and Jews, the old city of Jerusalem is a religious capital.
Day 1:
While looking at the beautiful hills and valleys through the bus window on the way to Jerusalem, I tried to let it sink in that we had finally made it to Israel. Deep down there was a gentle excitement mixed with a little bit of unbelief.
Our first stop in Jerusalem: the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s the place Jesus went to pray before being crucified.
This place means nothing to the Muslims because they believe it was Judas who died on the cross. And it means nothing to the Jews because they are still looking for the Messiah to come. So this place is really only significant to Christians.
Expectations of the garden: a huge open garden that you can walk through. One that is filled with trees and all sorts of plants and a garden where birds like to reside. A peaceful and quiet place.
Expectations not met. The garden was a small fenced in area that you couldn’t walk through. Many people were walking around it and visiting the huge church beside it.
I asked myself, “Is this really where Jesus prayed?”
Even though the place I was standing may not have been exactly where Jesus prayed, that doesn’t mean the words of His prayer weren’t real.
It was in that moment where a wave of God’s love strongly washed over me. Jesus didn’t want to suffer, but He was willing for our sake.
He took the punishment for all the wrong things we’ve done in our lives, for all our sin.
He suffered for us.
Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Matthew 26:36-39
We spent the rest of the day climbing the Mount of Olives and exploring part of the Old City. We supposedly saw the place Mary was born and her tomb. Of all the places we went, those were the most spiritually dark places I experienced. I couldn’t stay in the buildings because of the heaviness on my heart.
Our whole team stayed together for the first day, and overall, it was a really good day.
Day 2:
It’s about a 15 minute bus ride from Bethlehem to the outside of the wall in Jerusalem that surrounds the Old City.
The Old City is split into quarters. There’s the Muslims quarter, the Jewish quarter, the Armenian quarter, and the Christian quarter.
We spent most of the second day in the Christian quarter. When we arrived, we started making our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is one of the places they think Jesus was crucified and buried. The atmosphere was weird, strange, confusing, and chaotic. The huge church was filled with people fighting to get in a line to see… I never figured out what the line was for. There was a rectangular stone, about the size of body, built into the ground. People were bowing down to the stone, on their knees praying, kissing the stone, and fighting just to touch it. It deeply saddened me because it felt like idolatry.
I remember asking God, “Dude, where are you?”
And it’s like I felt Him standing next to me in my sadness. I felt Him there with me.
After we left the church, we made our way to the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. This is probably the only place that is significant to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. The wall was part of the expansion of the second Temple of the Lord after the Temple Solomon built was destroyed. The rebuilding of the Temple is discussed in the Bible in the book Ezra. For the Jews, it is the most holy place they are allowed to go, and Muslims believe it is the place where prophet Mohammed was before he ascended into paradise. Just behind the wall is where the Most Holy Place in the Temple was. Sitting on top of it is now a famous mosque called the Dome of the Rock. Jews are not allowed near it. Since the closest Jews can get to the Most Holy Place is the Western Wall, they come here to be in the presence of God and to pray. The offer up prayers since they can’t offer sacrifices.
The wall is lined with people crying out to God.
I asked God, “Father, don’t they know they don’t have to come to the wall to experience your presence and find peace?”
The Western Wall is a bittersweet wall to me. It’s beautiful that thousands, maybe millions of people have come here because they want to feel the presence of God, but it’s also bitter that they think it’s this place that gives it to them.
Expectations of the wall: that I would feel God’s presence so strongly and feel like I was on holy ground.
Expectations not met. I felt sorrow.
So where’s a place I can go to feel God’s presence?
I can go anywhere.
I wondered how Jesus would feel if He walked the streets of modern day Jerusalem. Then it dawned on me. I thought I was experiencing a place where Jesus had walked. I was, in a way. But when Jesus walked here, there were no Muslims and no mosques, and there were no churches and no one who was called a Christian. Today those are the main things Jerusalem is about. The Jerusalem Jesus experienced during His time on Earth was much different than what we experience today. Not to mention the Temple hadn’t been destroyed yet.
As Jesus was leaving the Temple that day, one of his disciples said, “Teacher, look at these magnificent buildings! Look at the impressive stones in the walls.” Jesus replied, “Yes, look at these great buildings. But they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”
Mark 13:1-2
Wow. Jerusalem was more intense and thought provoking than I expected.
Day 3:
Thank God the next day was a “lighter on the mind” kind of day. It was full of adventure! We took a bus to En Gedi and hoped to get to float in the Dead Sea.
Majority of the day was spent hiking around En Gedi. Fun fact: En Gedi is where David hid from Saul. The landscape consists of rock mountains that has killer views of the Dead Sea. It’s hot and dry and you wonder how anything can live there. But then you stumble upon plants. How are plants growing here? Then you see the waterfalls! It was amazing how water was coming out of this desert and allowing life to grow.
Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
Revelation 22:1
As our day was coming to an end, determined to float in the Dead Sea, we found a way! It was crazy. YOU FLOAT! You just float! Also, if there was ever such a thing as bitter water, we tasted it.
Then he said to me, “This river flows east through the desert into the valley of the Dead Sea. The waters of this stream will make the salty waters of the Dead Sea fresh and pure. There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows. Fishermen will stand along the shores of the Dead Sea. All the way from En-gedi to En-eglaim, the shores will be covered with nets drying in the sun. Fish of every kind will fill the Dead Sea, just as they fill the Mediterranean.
Ezekiel 47:8-10
Day 5:
On the morning of the fifth day, we explored Bethlehem. We visited the church built on top of where Jesus was born. It was similar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, just a little more toned down.
Next we visited The Walled Off Hotel and the wall separating Israel and Palestine that is plastered with graffiti. Coming into Israel I was completely oblivious about issues between Israel and Palestine, but upon leaving I was more educated and more torn. Learning about Palestine had one of the biggest impacts on the way I view “Israel”.
That afternoon our team hopped on a bus and headed to Jerusalem for the last time. But it wasn’t just our team, it was the whole squad that was meeting in Jerusalem.
We met at the Garden Tomb. This is the place they say Jesus was actually crucified and buried. It was a peaceful garden with different kinds of trees, plants, flowers, and birds.
I walked in to see the tomb, laughed to myself, and walked out because this scripture came to mind:
Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!
Luke 24:5-6
Our squad had a worship session where we read scripture, took communion, sang songs, and danced. It was an awesome experience to be able to worship so close to where Jesus was, but thank God that it doesn’t matter where we worship!
So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
John 4:20-24
To end our day we went to the Museum of Psalms. A Holocaust survivor did 150 paintings based on the 150 Psalms.
Expectations of the museum: a glorious gallery set up with 150 beautiful paintings, each with a labeled Psalm number and the words of the Psalm.
Lol. It was a small room with a few paintings and a guy trying to sell stuff. It wasn’t the paintings I needed to be in awe with anyways; it’s God. So many lessons about expectations.
That concluded our time in Jerusalem. We bussed back to Bethlehem to pack. We left at 1 am to go to the airport in Tel Aviv. We flew to Armenia with a 12 hour layover in Turkey. Then we took an overnight train to Georgia. In a few days we will be in transit to an island in Greece where a team of ten people will serve at a refugee camp for five weeks.
