Im Back on Dry Land Once Again
Editor's note: Previously, Don Miller followed Jesus' ministry in Galilee and retraced his time in Nazareth. Today: Moving across Israel toward Jerusalem and Easter Sunday.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." – Luke 13:34
For a relatively tiny country, Israel is endlessly complex – and for a place where the world's three major monotheistic religions find meaning and origins, the palpable lack of peace can be jarring.
During our two weeks in Israel, there were no fewer than four attacks categorized by Israeli security forces as "terrorism," that cost 14 people their lives. In each case, the attacker or attackers was hunted down and killed. Then, Friday, Israeli police, already on high alert, and Palestinians clashed on the Temple Mount, a holy site for both Jews and Muslims (who know the area as the Noble Sanctuary). Israeli police had to use crowd-dispersal measures around Al-Aqsa mosque after groups of young masked men attacked security forces with fireworks, stones and other heavy objects.
Although violent attacks are seemingly an everyday occurrence, for a visitor to Israel, it's impossible not to feel the tensions that simmer between Palestinians and Israelis, between Muslims and Jews, in battles over contested holy sites and territory, over ancient boundaries and never forgotten invasions and occupations, and over wars in some cases still being fought.
And you're never far from the sacred; Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and reflection, began April 1, as we arrived in Jerusalem. The Jewish feast of Passover, commemorating the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, began April 15. And Holy Week for Christians concludes Easter Sunday.
And never far from the profane. Our group, vaccinated, boosted and extensively tested for COVID-19, also took on an unexpected burden, with 14 of us, including our pastor, René Schlaepfer, testing positive and forced to quarantine in smallish hotel rooms for as long as seven days after others in the group had flown back to the U.S. It was reminder, of course, that the virus is no respecter of people, places or traditions (and, though I tested negative and made the first flight out, I had cold symptoms for days afterward).
But taking up where we left off in the first chapter of this account, after our time along the Sea of Galilee, we moved north, toward Lebanon and Syria, in the shadow of snow-capped Mount Hermon, across the early stage of the Jordan River and into the Golan Heights.
Our first stop in northern Israel was at the Tel Dan (named for the Israelite tribe of Dan) ruins, an in-progress dig that has uncovered what is perhaps the only non-Biblical evidence of King David – a stone, now in a museum that reads "Beit David" (House of David). The Hebrew Bible tells how King Jeroboam set up a pagan temple here – another step in taking what was already a divided kingdom to the ultimate fall of both ancient Israel and Judah.
Below, we can see the border with Syria, and Lebanon off in the distance. We proceed along a rock walkway constructed thousands of years ago, until we reach a massive Canaanite gate, constructed of mud and brick some 2,800 years ago, uncovered in the 1960s. The tours refer to this spot as "Abraham's gate" though there's no evidence the Biblical patriarch was ever in this spot.
This is sparsely populated territory, seized by Israel in the 1967 war that also brought all of the city of Jerusalem under the Israeli flag. Amid long abandoned Syrian military bunkers and red ribbons marking Syrian mines from 1967, there remains a U.N. outpost in the Golan Heights peering into the distance for signs of trouble.
Upon this rock
Another journey, past the thundering Banias River waterfalls, took us to Caesarea Philippi (not to be confused with Herod's maritime palace), once the site of a notorious temple dedicated to the pagan god, Pan, whose name, translated in Arabic, was affixed to the "Ban-ias" River, a major source for the Jordan. On this site where human sacrifices once occurred, there's a massive cave hollowed into a cliff of red rock.
Jesus came here, far north, to avoid capture by assassins sent by Herod. And here he questioned his disciples about who they thought he really was. Peter answered that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus, calling Peter "blessed," responded that "on this rock (Peter=Petra, or rock, in Greek, the language of the NT) I will build my church and the gates of Hades won't overpower it."
Was he, as Roman Catholics believe, saying that his "church" (still to take form some time off) would be built upon the foundation of Peter – or was he signifying that from a small human pebble, Peter, would come a movement that would dwarf the massive rocks and cave we are looking at here? Pastor René Schlaepfer thinks this latter explanation, in this setting, is likely.
In any case, it would not take long for Peter, as was his tendency, to backslide, as he next refused to accept Jesus' statements about what awaited Jesus in Jerusalem. Then, Jesus rebuked this most human of all his followers for taking on a worldly view, saying, "Get behind me, Satan." Yet, Peter would be restored, fall again, and again find redemption.
After stopping at the extensive ruins at Beit She'an, part of a Roman complex where, long before the Romans, the bodies of the Jewish King Saul and his son Jonathan were hung on a wall, we stop at a park, where there's a pool said to be where Gideon in the Hebrew Bible selected his warriors by the way they lapped up water.
Moving south again, our next destination was the Jordan River, where 11 of our group were baptized by Pastor René. It's the same river where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.
All 11 came out of the water overjoyed, although several had seen a water snake, some 3 or 4 feet long, float by as they prepared to be submerged.
Qumran, En Gedi and Masada
We left the Galilee region and moved south through the Judean wilderness toward the northern end of the Dead Sea and the ruins at Qumran, overlooking caves where in 1946 and 1947, three Bedouin youths found jars containing, astonishingly, parchment scrolls written between the third century BC to the first century AD containing some of the Hebrew Bible. The story about how these Dead Sea Scrolls – with many other scrolls eventually discovered – became perhaps the greatest archaeological discovery ever is a fascinating tale, too long to tell here.
But the ruins of the community of men who had come to this barren region because they believed the religious system at that time was hopelessly corrupt are a testament to their piety – and their hardiness in collecting water from the surrounding wadis when rare rains came through.
The amazingly preserved Dead Sea Scrolls (realistic replicas are in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem), contain some 351 prophecies Christians believe pertain to Jesus. The Bible passages found here are almost word for word with the Bible you can read today.
Continuing along the western edge of the Dead Sea we arrive at En Gedi, where the Hebrew Bible recounts how David, not yet king, fled from the murderous and jealous rage of King Saul and his warriors. Hundreds of Israeli school kids are here on this day, many playing in the waterfalls in this desert space, where David 3,000 years before would resist an opportunity to kill Saul.
We stayed that night along the Dead Sea, in one of the resort hotels, and took advantage of the chance to float in the briny water (if you ever get the opportunity to float in a salt sea, take it. It's truly memorable). The next morning our bus set forth for Masada, a hilltop fortress many Americans are familiar with from a TV movie. The fortress, including a palace, was built by King Herod the (not so) Great, but he never actually occupied it. Some 74 years later, after the Romans moved in to destroy Jerusalem after a Jewish uprising that had begun four years earlier, a group of Jewish people escaped to Masada. The year was 73.
The merciless Romans decided to make an example of the rebels, and laid siege to the encampment. Even though the Masada group had stores of food and water (likely painfully transported from the En Gedi oasis some 11 miles away), slowly but surely, the Romans set up a series of camps on the dry mountainsides, eventually breaking through. As our Israeli guide, Tal Segal, told the story, the leaders at Masada considered their options, and finally decided it was better to die as free-spirited human beings than to become Roman slaves. And so, nearly 1,000 people killed themselves.
This moment marked the last vestige of an independent Judea until Israel was granted nationhood in 1948.
And how do we know what actually happened here? A few women and children remained alive after the mass suicides and eventually were paraded in Rome as slaves, where the Jewish historian Josephus interviewed them.
Remote and isolated, Masada was mostly lost to the mists of history until the 20th century when Jews, seeking their ancient heritage, began to make their way to the mountaintop. A cable car was eventually put in to transport tourists (us) to the top and, today, Masada is Israel's most visited non-holy site and an enduring symbol of Jewish resistance to the forces of evil seeking their annihilation.
Bethlehem: the Shepherd's Field
After passing through the dusty Palestinian city of Jericho (rich in Biblical history, Jericho is 99 percent Muslim today and the poverty and disparity with Israeli cities is impossible to ignore), we reach Bethlehem, today a city of 220,000 and also in Palestinian territory, separated from Jerusalem and Israel by a wire fence and border checkpoints. The daytime streets are mostly empty since Ramadan began.
We switch to a Palestinian Christian guide, Johnny, who says he'd been out of guide work for two years due to COVID. He notes the Hebrew Bible name for the town, Ephrath, and recites the prophecy written in the book of the prophet Micah 700 years before the birth of Jesus – "but you, Bethlehem Ephrath … out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel …"
David was born here. Jesus was born here. We go to an area now known as the Shepherd's Field, overlooking the city of Jerusalem, commemorating the shepherds keeping the watch the night Jesus was born. We move along a rocky path to a limestone cave, and walk through a dark tunnel back to the field. The nearby Church of the Nativity, some 1,500 years old, is built above a cave like this, and said to be the site of Jesus' birth. We descend into an underground area beneath the main floor of the church to quickly pass by the very spot where he was born.
The church's Manger Square was the sight of large-scale Christmas gatherings of pilgrims, until the COVID era.
All of this – the setting, the caves, the circumstances of Jesus' birth – are about as far from the lofty heights of modern religion, much less the vast medieval cathedrals of Europe, as one could imagine.
Jerusalem, the eternal city
And finally, we're headed to Jerusalem. Our guide tells us he can't accompany us; he's been waiting 12 years for the Israeli government to give him the papers he needs to cross the border.
As we pass through the checkpoint and head down into the city of nearly a million people, we can see the Old City walls and the golden Dome of the Rock in the distance, signifying the Temple Mount, where the last Jewish temple once stood, until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Today, the Temple Mount is protected by legions of young Israeli military, brandishing submachine guns. The Temple Mount today, as it has been for centuries, is dominated by a Muslim shrine and mosque.
Before going there, we drive to the City of David, south of the Temple Mount – excavated ruins said to be King David's ancient palace. Herod would eventually move his headquarters from here to the more defensible Old City. We take a long tunnel into the earth, where the Gihon Spring flows, as it did 3,000 years ago during David's reign when it was the main source of water in Jerusalem.
And that brought us to "Hezekiah's tunnel" – an S-shaped, 1,750-foot-long waterway chiseled into rock that connects the spring to the Pool of Siloam. Many in our group had decided to wade through this tunnel, so-named for the eighth century BC Jewish king who (though this is disputed by some scholars) oversaw the work to bring water from one side of the city to the other, to prepare Jerusalem for the imminent attack of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib. Streams of living water.
But the darkness and sound of rushing, if shallow, water, made several think better of setting out into the waterway. So, about a dozen of us made the trek, using our phone flashlights for visibility in the pitch-black underground.
When we emerged from under the earth, exhilarated, we were dazzled by bright sunlight at the (dry) Pool of Siloam, where John's Gospel says Jesus healed a blind man. The religious authorities subsequently asked the healed man how he had received his sight. Neither the formerly blind man, nor his parents, could answer just how it happened, but, said the man, this he did know: "Once I was blind, but now I can see."
And there's no shame in admitting our blind spots, right?
The Old City
"Why were you searching for me?" (Jesus) asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Later, we enter the walled Old City through the Zion Gate, once the Jerusalem border of Israel and Jordan, until the '67 Six-Day War, and which today is the entrance to the Jewish Quarter. We walk along an ancient street with evidence of the eras of Roman and Byzantine control, then pass through a section built by the Crusaders. We walk through yet another tunnel along the underground stone sections of the Western Wall; the wall above ground is the much photographed section where Jews come to pray; all of it part of the longest remaining wall from Herod's long-ago temple. On this hot day, many observant Jews, dressed mostly in black, are deep into their prayers.
The next day, we came through the Damascus Gate, into the Old City's Muslim Quarter, where the night before a conflict had broken out as people broke their day-long fast then spilled into the streets. Then we walked up into the Temple Mount, dominated by the Dome of the Rock, built in 692 AD, and the Al-Aqsa mosque, constructed around the same time. This area is considered by Muslims the third holiest site in Islam (Islamic tradition says this is where the prophet Muhammad was escorted to heaven on a flying horse, guided by the archangel Gabriel, with an escort of angels).
The Temple Mount is probably the most contested religious site in the world, considering the claims made by both Islam and Judaism. No excavations have been permitted in the area, which has been under the control of Muslims since the time of the Crusaders, nearly a thousand years ago.
The Temple Mount is believed to be on Mount Moriah, where Abraham was tested regarding sacrificing his son, Isaac, and on land purchased by King David, whose son, Solomon, built a grand temple here that was eventually destroyed.
Herod many centuries later built his temple here and constructed much of the Temple Mount in about 20 BC. And this is where Jesus' parents found him as a boy after he took off on his own spiritual journey and where Jesus years later overturned the tables of the money changers.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and was the location for the Holy of Holies (you'll have to read the Hebrew Bible to understand what that means). Orthodox Jews think that a new Jewish temple will someday be constructed here when the Messiah comes.
There were so many other places we visited, including the Israel Museum and Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Center that includes the Hall of Names of the millions of people killed by the Nazis and their sympathizers, and the haunting Children's Memorial – a dark auditorium barely lit by candle-like lights with a recorded voice listing the 1.5 million children, name by name, who died in the concentration camps.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
A culmination of this journey was our visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. This church was built here in 327 A.D. after Helena – the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, who had given official recognition to Christianity – traveled to Jerusalem and identified this site as Golgotha, where Jesus was buried after he was brought down from his cross, and where he rose from the dead. Today's 12th century church was built over the ruins of the original one, leveled by Persians in 614 AD.
Again, the story of this church is one that spans millennia and worthy of yet another lengthy essay. Suffice to say the current arrangement is an uneasy truce between Eastern Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian and Roman Catholic denominations. A Muslim family is in charge of the keys that lock and unlock the church every day.
On the day of our visit, crowds shuffled past a rock said to be the stone where Jesus' cross was implanted. At one entrance to the church is another stone where Jesus' body was laid after he was brought down from the cross.
Roving marchers from different religious traditions meanwhile circled the ancient building, while devout Greek Orthodox chanted prayers and sent incense wafting throughout the church.
In the middle of the main church is a rectangular building called the Aedicule. And inside the Aedicule is a small space with a cement slab that covers a burial cave where, for nearly 2,000 years, many Christians have believed Jesus was laid to rest.
And it was here, in this city, in this ancient Holy Land, yes, in this Promised Land, where he rose from the dead.
Surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
martindalehows1953.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/04/17/israel-the-promised-land-once-i-was-blind-but-now-i-see/
0 Response to "Im Back on Dry Land Once Again"
Post a Comment