Day 9: Temple Mount

Day 9: Holy Sepulchre

Day 9: Holy Sepulchre

Day 9: Jerusalem Part 2-The Week Before the Cross

Jerusalem! 

For most of the Church in the world, the two most revered places are the Basilica of the Nativity, built over the cave where Christ was likely born, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over both Calvary and the Empty Tomb.

Yesterday, we traveled to and prayed in the former.  This morning, we began an early morning walk to the latter.

We left the hotel at six in the morning to go to a sunrise service in a chapel adjacent to the empty tomb in which Jesus’ body was laid to rest and from which He rose from the dead.   Due to a logistical challenge, we moved a short distance away to participate in the worship service in the chapel adjacent to the spot where we believe the cross on which Jesus died was erected.  The service was in Spanish, which a few of our band of early risers understood.  After we reached the chapel, though, we realized that next to no one was in line to approach the Rock.  Covered by a sheet of heavy glass with a hand-sized hole cut out, the Rock is a visible portion of the Calvary, the hill on which Jesus was crucified, that you can touch. 

With one ear to the Spanish service to our immediate right, one at a time, our group approached the Rock, knelt and prayed, and put their hand down into the hole to touch the Rock.  The Rock is not magic.  But it is real. And a powerful reminder that our faith is grounded in history, not fable.  That our savior’s death on Calvary is not a story our preachers and grandmothers tell us, but a fact which reveals the love of God for human beings.  It was a deeply moving morning. 

About the time all had had a chance to kneel, pray and touch at the place where Christ died, we joined the Spanish Catholics for communion, and walked down some steep stairs to the entrance to the church where the Rock of Unction is. An ancient custom holds that this was the rock on which the body of Jesus was laid and anointed after His death.  It smells of holy oil.

We returned, deeply moved, to our hotel for a hearty breakfast, then took a short drive in our bus around the Old City and entered the Temple Mount.  It is the place where the Temple built by Solomon, then the Temple built by Herod the Great, once stood.  Only to be destroyed by conquerors from Babylon and Rome.  It is a massive area, over sixteen acres, on which two mosques stand – The Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.  Only Muslims can enter, and the entire Temple Mount was filled with Muslims praying or in small groups studying the Koran.

Walking that ground above the rooflines of Old Jerusalem, you could see where the Temple once stood and see where the moneychangers set up shop. You could see where the Court of the Gentiles welcomed God-fearers and the area where Jesus drove out the vendors. 

At the base of the western wall of the Temple Mount, over a hundred feet below the Muslims at prayer, hundreds of Jewish men and women gathered at the Wailing Wall to pray.  Our guide told us that every once in a while, someone on the Temple Mount will throw a rock down at the Jews gathered below to pray.  And the Jews will retaliate with rocks of their own.

After spending some time praying at the Western Wall with hundreds of Orthodox Jews, we made our way to the Upper Room, the place where Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper as they celebrated the Passover.  Then we enjoyed a great lunch before pressing on to a chapel at Ascension Place.  After that we drove up the hill to the Mount of Olives. We went and prayed in several places, but the Garden of Gethsemane was especially powerful.

A small grove of olive trees fills the garden.  Located beside a beautiful Church built to commemorate the night when Jesus was arrested in the place where it happened, many of the olive trees in the Garden are over 2,000 years old.  So it is possible, if not likely, that the trees under which our group gathered to reflect and pray were the very ones under which our Lord prayed, ‘Father, please take this cup from me.  No – thy will be done,” before His arrest.

We returned deeply moved by the Lord’s work in our hearts today.

Day 8: Entry into Basilica of Nativity

Day 8: Jerusalem Part 1-The Birth of Jesus

Jerusalem! 

After breakfast, we began our morning tracing the journey to Bethlehem.  A week ago, we prayed at the Basilica of the Annunciation.  Now we walked up a lovely hill to the place where Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth. 

And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  Luke 1.38-40

Our time at The Church of the Visitation in Ein Karem, a lovely neighborhood 10 minutes from Old Jerusalem, was a peaceful reminder that God used a family and a friendship to assist an older first-time mother in her third trimester and to help prepare a young teenage girl to deliver and raise the Savior of the world.

We visited the Church of St. John the Baptist, then drove back to the West Bank.

A fifteen minute drive outside Jerusalem, Bethlehem is a much larger town than it was in the Lord’s Day.  We passed through several security checkpoints, then arrived at Shepherd’s Field.  

Tradition holds that this is the place where the angels spoke to the shepherds on the night shift, announcing the birth of the Savior.  We prayed and sang ‘Silent Night’ in a lovely chapel, our voices beautifully resonating.         

From there we traveled to the Basilica of the Nativity.

So much happened there.

The Basilica is a large church built over the cave where we believe Mary gave birth to Jesus.  After entering through a small door, created to prohibit horses from entering the building, we entered a grand but dimly lit nave. 

Originally built at the direction of Helena, the devout mother of Emperor Constantine, who chose the site based on the best information available to her in A.D. 327, the Church is jointly administered by the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches.  Each has ‘rights’, or control over different parts of the church building. 

The Greek Orthodox Church controls access to the grotto – the cave in which Jesus was born.  Thankfully, there were only two groups in front of us – a Russian Orthodox group and a Catholic group.  We were told that we could not sing, but the Orthodox group was given permission to sing hymns of devotion before entering the small room which houses the cave where Christ was born. 

The Russians enthusiastically sang four beautiful hymns and earnestly prayed.  When they finished, and began to enter the cave, the Catholic group began to sing. They were abruptly rebuked by a security guard and a Greek Orthodox priest.  ‘Not you!’ he said. 

Jesus wept. 

I will never forget that moment.  A sad, deeply disappointing moment.

Many of us continued to pray, adding the Catholics to our intercessions.  Thankfully, 20 minutes later, we descended the 8 worn stairs and entered through the low-hanging Door of Humility into the cave where Christ was born. Even with the drama that preceded our entrance, it was powerful. 

It was a small space used for keeping animals.  Low ceiling.  Dark.  Cramped.

The sound of a delivery would have reverberated.  It is likely the guests at the inn would have heard Mary’s cries as Jesus entered into the world. 

We laid our hands on the cave, prayed quietly, and left the grotto. 

A short time later, we were able to pray as a group in another section of the Basilica, the Chapel of St. Jerome.  It was here that Jerome, one of the greatest early leaders in the church, translated the Bible.  A tremendously important achievement.  The Lord stirred mightily amongst us in that chapel.     

Deeply affected by the day, we returned to our hotel for some free time.  Some crossed the street and entered the market in Old Jerusalem.  Some rested.  And a group of us made our way to the Wailing Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Today marked the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  Our journey to the Western Wall through Old Jerusalem is another story, but the Wall was unforgettable.  Built by Herod the Great in the late- 1^st Century B.C., the wall is one of the few pieces of the Temple not destroyed by Roman Emperor Titus in A.D. 70.  

The wall is long and high. Hundreds of orthodox Jews from different sects and various parts of the world faced the wall in earnest prayer. 

The wall is segregated.  A smaller section for women to the right.  A much larger one for men to the left.  Some with scrolls, some with phylacteries on their heads – all praying.  Some singing.  Many quite loudly.

We left the wall and made our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

More on that tomorrow.

What a day.  An amazing day.

Day 7 Western Wall