Day 3

This morning Tim brought us fresh bread from the market!  It looks like a pretzel, but tastes really plain.

We went to the Muristan first, which used to be a hospital for Christian pilgrims who would come to Jerusalem.  Some of them would spend their life savings to come be in the place where their savior walked.

Next we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  It contains the traditional places where Jesus was crucified, prepared, and buried.  Some people come and kiss the stone where "his body was prepared" even though we know its not the actual stone.  It was set there later.  Tim says he has seen people crying and kissing it, and admires their passion.  There are two sites in the church about 10 feet apart, one where the Catholics say he was crucified and the other where the Orthodox's do.  Kinda funny.

We saw a lot of crosses that were etched on the walls by crusaders who came to the church.

Outside there church is an Islamic Minaret towering over it.  The muslims always want to build their buildings taller to show dominance.

We walked down the Via Delarosa, the street where Jesus carried his cross.  The street he would have walked on is way under the ground by now of course.  The city has been built on top of itself over and over for centuries.  All of the stations of the cross are lining the street, and there are groups of people going through the ritual.  If Jesus was crucified at the place of the scull outside of Jerusalem instead of at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,  He would have walked down the Via Delarosa, Al Wad (a main street), and out of the Damascus gate to the Garden Tomb golgotha site.

We went out of the Lions gate on the other side of the city.  It is also known as St. Stephen's gate because it is the traditional site of his stoning.  However, it was probably outside of the Damascus gate.  The walls and gates that are around Jerusalem right now were built by Sultan Sulyman of the Ottoman Empire, long after the Herodian walls that were up during the time of Jesus.  On our way out of the Lions gate to the Mount of Olives we passed some school children singing.  They gave us high fives.  I wish I knew what they were yelling at us.

A kid asking for money looked at me like I was crazy for trying to hand him a cheese stick.  The Lion's gate faces the Mount of Olives, so we dropped into the Kidron Valley and then started the trek up.  Jesus did this walk all the time.  It was pretty cool.

On the way up there was an old man begging, so I gave him 5 shekels.  Then I saw another two minutes after that.  We passed both of them on the way down too.  It made me think about how we are supposed to respond in these situations.  Half way up the mountain we went into the church where Mary's traditional tomb is located, but we got kicked out because we were wearing shorts.

A bit further up was the Garden of Gethsemane, with lots of olive trees (Gethsemane means olive press).

We stopped to look at Jewish graves on the side of the mount.  There are tens of thousands.  This is considered the best place to be buried for a jew.  Many from around the world try to get plots there.  They believe that the closer you are to the Golden Gates, the better.  Because when anyone dies and is buried anywhere in the world, they must go through the painful process of wiggling through the ground all the way to the gate.  So the closer you are, the less you have to wiggle.  Most orthodox Jews do not believe that anyone is actually going to hell, so of terrible people like Hitler they just say, "May he wiggle forever."  They wiggle to the Golden Gate because it is right at the temple mount, close to the holy of holies where the glory of God still dwells.  Not in our hearts, of course.  This is why they pray at the wailing wall on the other side of the temple mount.  Jews are not allowed on the temple mount for fear of crossing over the ancient site of the holy of holies and entering God's presence.  This is the same as it was in Leviticus with the priests an the tabernacle.  Only they could enter at Pentecost to clean it with blood.  To jews, the veil was never torn.  They are still separated from God.  And sadly, in a way it is true.  They don't believe that Jesus broke the barrier between us and God, and put the temple in our hearts and in the church.  They desperately hope for the temple to be rebuilt, but it was already torn down and built in our hearts by Jesus in three days.

Next we went to the tombs of the prophets (Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi).  Probably not their tombs, but ancient tombs nonetheless.  The muslim owner of the property was very nice and told us how his farther had the property before him, and held onto it during the 7 day war in the 60's.

The three square-cut tombs were those of the prophets, and each were surrounded by oval shaped tombs which were those of their disciples.  We got to the top of the mount, and the view of Jerusalem was fantastic.  For the first time I really took in where I was.  I was on the other side of the world in the place where Jesus would have looked over Jerusalem, a city where so much history has happened.  In my opinion it is the most fascinating city on earth.  They have only excavated 4% of the city, and every time they dig they find more history and more proof of the bible.  It is the holy city of three world religions and a place I think God has set apart.  Zion.  Many people who live here have never even been to these sites.  Instead of making these important ancient places into museums, they are mostly trash dumps by market places.  From this view, we could see everything.  The Kidron valley, the valley of Gehenna (where we get the word hell because it is the place where the Caananites did child sacrifice).

We dropped down to the Kidron again and went to a tomb that was there during the time of Jesus called Pharoah's Hat.  Maybe it was the place he was thinking of when he called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs.  On the outside it was beautiful, clean, and polished. On the outside it was filthy.

On our way to the pool of Bethesda, Weston and I got evangelized to by a muslim.  He was interesting to talk to, and had some really good points.  He said, "Please, I urge you to always seek after the truth, because your time to find it is limited.  You have one shot."  So true.  We ate falafels and went to the Garden tomb site outside of Jerusalem.  It is a beautiful place, run by the British, and is currently thought to be the most likely site of Golgotha and the tomb.  On Golgotha, im pretty sold.  Not on the tomb.  The place of the skull really does look like a skull, and we know for a fact that it is an ancient site of capital punishment.  It is perfectly situated outside of the damascus gate.  Sadly, there is a parking lot under it.

The bible says that they quickly buried Him in a tomb nearby, but there are many tombs around here that they have discovered.  And this one has been dated later than the first century.

Next we went to the tomb of the Kings.  We don't know much about them, but its fun to crawl around in the dark underground and explore.  Especially laying where dead people have been.

We ate a dinner at the hostel of chicken, rice, and strawberries that the kids brought back from the market.  All the kids went out to explore Jerusalem after that.  We went through orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, almost got in trouble a few times, and then ran into a church called St. Mark's.  We talked to a nun there who was from Nineveh and previously taught math.  She talked to us for 45 minutes about how she encountered Jesus on three occasions, how the upper room of the last supper is located under the church (mhm), and how the apostles made St. Mark's the first church in all of Christianity.  She took us down to the upper room after that.  She was very passionate about her beliefs.  She also sang the Lord's prayer to us in Jesus's language of Aramaic.  Cool experience.

So many amazing things are happening, lots that I don't have time to write about, but im having the time of my life.  The culture here is really cool to interact with, and the relationships im forming are awesome.