What is so special...

Being in Israel is truly a great experience. Being in a new land, a new country; having a new exciting experience, but it’s hasn’t been until recently that I’ve truly started to think about me being here.

Yesterday we went onto the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock stands. Seeing the Dome of the Rock didn’t make me stand in awe to such a structure or praise God. If anything I felt rather uncomfortable and just confused about it all. How could such a structure stand where God’s temple was? How can the Muslims claim such a Holy site and take hold of it so? It also made me start to reflect about what is so special about this place. Why do we as Christians still find the Temple Mount so significant when such an abomination to the name of God lies where the Temple used to sit? Why do I feel as if I the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem is such a great place when it has fallen so far from what used to be so connected to Him in Biblical times? Times are definitely different now. The Dome of the Rock truly does display how far mankind has fallen away from God and will continue to fall away from God, but when I reflect upon the significance of the Temple Mount or even the significance of Jerusalem, I start to really realize…there was once a time that God dwelt there. God’s presence was in the temple, within the Holy of Holies, and yet Israel was always at risk at falling away from Him. There has never been a time in history that man hasn’t exchanged the glory of God for a lie. It is human nature to worship and it is human nature to worship anything but God, yet God continually worked to bring His chosen back to Him to the point that He brought death upon Himself. Upon His Son, fully God and fully man. And that was done within this city. God dwelt within the temple and Christ cleansed the temple because man continued to make it into an abomination. Christ walked the streets of Jerusalem, healing, preaching, having compassion upon the lost. Christ prayed desperately in the Garden for God’s will to be done, even when He desired to have this cup taken from Him.

Why are all these places so significant? So special? Because God simply being there has made them so. In the same way, God has made each of His own significant. His holy temples where His spirit dwells. We no longer need the temple as Christ dwells in us, but it’s still amazing how at one point God did dwell on the Temple Mount on the Holy of Holies; at one point God did work in Jerusalem and bring redemption to all mankind. That’s what makes this place so beautiful in the first place. That’s what makes it so significant even down to the last piece of rubble found within the Kidron Valley. And what is amazing is that God isn’t done yet working here. If God wanted to He could take out the Dome of the Rock in one blow and yet He has allowed for man to exchange the Glory of God for a lie. A lie. He has allowed this all for a reason and all we can do is continue to push forward and wait patiently upon the Lord to reveal His plan in His time.

It was continually humbling as after going to the Temple Mount, we were also able to go through the Kidron Valley up to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane. It was tiring and I’ve been sick, so I wish I could have appreciated it more than I did, but looking back, it was amazing being able to be there. You could see all of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and I could just picture Jesus coming through the Mount of Olives on His triumphal journey weeping for Jerusalem. Jesus had such great compassion over His city that would soon be destroyed; that was so lost.

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you

He knew of the fate that would befall upon Jerusalem, the city of the great King, and they didn’t recognize it. They didn’t recognize God in human form. And they still don’t. People out there are lost and will meet their own destruction because they haven’t recognized God’s coming to all of us. It continues to make me mourn for this city; feel compassion for them. I can only continue to pray. Pray that God will soften the hearts of those in Israel, of those in this world. That they would realize that Christ is the true Messiah, the High Priest that has come to intervene on man’s behalf. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem that would not only come within its walls, but within the hearts of the people of Jerusalem. Pray that God’s plan for Jerusalem and for Israel would come soon and very soon.

”By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion...If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither…If I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.” –Psalm 137

everyday a flurry of people, mainly Jewish, come to the Western Wall to feel close to the presence of the Lord that once dwelt among the Temple Mount. They come for prayer, to feel close to God, in hopes that their prayers will be answered. I wonder what they pray about. What they’re waiting for. This day I went up to the wall and touched it. It felt like a slab of stone. Something that I wasn’t truly connected, and yet, I still desperately prayed. I prayed for Israel. I prayed for these people. I will continue to pray for them; that God would show Himself to them through His Son, the answer to their prayers and all their waiting.


Our Tread through the Kidron Valley up to the Mount of Olives

The view from the path on the Mount of Olives towards Jerusalem

View from the Mount of Olives amongst the many graves

The sun shining on the Garden of Gethsemene

At the end of the day we were able to do some Temple Mount sifting. A number of years ago the Muslims began excavating in the Temple Mount to expand their Mosque that lies underneath the Temple Mount and dumped all this rubble within the Kidron Valley. We were able to sift through it to look for whatever we could that had archeological significance—pottery pieces, mosaic pieces, glass, bones, coins. We were actually sifting through rubble found within the City of David, but still it’s all pretty significant. Down to the last piece of rubble, yes.

From New Testament Walk

I can't believe it's already February....

Last night a group of people went camping. I didn’t. I don’t regret it. At all. Really, I don’t. It was nice being able to wake up in my nice cozy bed and not feel rushed, as I don’t have class until later this afternoon. It would have been great to greet the new month (is it really already February?) in the grass in the hill country of Israel, with the open sky above, buuuut I’m okay with missing it. I did go along for the walk last night, as hesitant as I was to go because I’ve been sick and it’s been taking me an awful long time to get over it since I’m on the go all the time. We ended up going to the Roman ruins we were at the night before. We built a large fire and just sat around it, talking and laughing and speaking on spiritual matters. I can barely recall what we talked about around the flame, but all I know that it was great. It would have been cool to be sleeping out there and to catch some pictures of the sun rising and the sun perfectly hitting Tel Aviv, but I’ll live. I’ll just have to catch it next time around I suppose. For now, enjoy some pics of the fire, while I learn how many different ways I can construct the word lomed [learn] in a sentence in Hebrew. Shalom.