Day Nine Jerusalem

We are going to Jerusalem today. I started out reading Psalms 122 but ended up reading several before and several afterward. It is so beautiful. 133 talks about brotherly unity, and I think about how the Jews and Muslims both live within the city walls right now.. 129 says to me let go of your past and let the blessing of the Lord be upon you. 128 Every time you sit down to eat there are olives; I have seen dozens of varieties. It is as frequently seen on the tables at restaurants as catsup in America.

I wrote the above before we went to Jerusalem this morning. We meet an Israeli that Darrel works with named Ariel, his wife Matal and their baby girl, Tohar (purity). Tohar is adorable she is one month younger than Daniel, made me really miss my baby. They are observant Jews. Matal wears a head covering and she makes them and sells them in some of the higher end stores in Israel. They are really very pretty. We went to the Jerusalem market. I bought some wheat so when I get home, I can make some bread with wheat from Israel. I probably drove them crazy asking them questions about their faith, their culture, their country, etc. It is fun to relate with them since they speak English as a second language. Sometimes Ariel had to look in his i-touch on a dictionary to find the right word for one of my questions. It is really quite amazing how well they speak our language. I wish I knew theirs even half as well. They are such gentile and gracious hosts. It was such a pleasure to get to know them and spend some of the day with them.

After navigating through Jerusalem, we found our way to a parking area near the old city and went to the Garden Tomb. On the way to the tomb we had to pass through some of the Muslim quarter, not a real safe feeling for Christian Americans, but Darrel and I agreed that this was one of the best places that we have gone while here. It is not incredibly impressive like Masada or as beautiful as En Gedi or the Mediterranean Sea but it was a wonderful place. It was full of scripture. They do not say that it is for certain the place where Jesus was crucified and buried, but they show how it fits the descriptions we have in the Bible. I’m not sure if I can express what I feel about our experience there. We walked around and saw the sites, Golgotha (the hill that looks like a skull) where they believe He was crucified, the tomb where they believe He was buried and rose again. Then we walked around and watched as people from different countries came and they had a church service, took communion, prayed over each other, sang worship songs and read the Bible all in their native tongues. You couldn’t help but think…. This is what heaven will be like with every tongue praising the Lord. But as we witnessed speaking in tongues sounds the same in every language. ☺ We then found a quiet place and worshipped our risen savior. We prayed for those we love, for the peace of Jerusalem and for each of our children by name. We sat and we or maybe it was just me, cried. We spoke promises over our children and gave them back to the Lord again. It’s hard to explain how powerful the presence of God was in that place. We enjoyed a nice visit with a lady who volunteers there for a month three to four times a year (she and her husband who is a guide live in England), she told us of when Collin Powell came to the garden and when he came out of the tomb he was weeping and he went to a bench and got on his knees and stayed there for a while weeping and praying.
I am tired, so I may post more at a later date on this one.