Day 7

Thursday, our first full day in the Holy City, Jerusalem. Everyone was excited to get the day started. Yes, there was some rain early on but it stopped before we got headed out.

Our first stop was the Garden of Gethsemane, where Yeshua prayed the night He was arrested. From that vantage point we had a great view of the eastern and southern walls of the Temple Mount. This is a view that Yeshua was probably familiar with since He prayed in Gethsemane more than just the night He was arrested. It may have been somewhere around there that He wept for the city. We then walked down to the Mount of Olives, where Yeshua may have stayed during Pesach and Succot. Again, another great view of the eastern wall of the Temple Mount.

From there the bus took us to the southern side of the walls of the Old City. We entered through the Dung Gate and went to the southern steps excavation site. It was incredible to see some of the equipment that may have been used in the building of the Temple. Abi told how, when the Romans sacked the city, the Roman emperor ordered the Temple be destroyed because he viewed himself as a god and he would not stand for a Temple dedicated to an unseen god. The top stones were knocked down first so they were at the bottom of the piles of stones. Many of those stones were later recycled and used to build the mansions, mosques and churches of the Muslim, Christian and Ottoman. We were able to walk up the southern steps and walk up to the very stones that were there when Yeshua was. There were so many mikvahs found in that excavation area. It is obvious that there would have been no other place where the Talmidim could have baptized 3000 people on the day of Pentecost.

The Western Wall was our next stop. How incredible it is to get up to the Wall, touch it, kiss it and put prayer requests into the cracks. That is the original retaining wall around the Temple Mount built by Herod the Great. It was around in Yeshua’s time. It is the most holy site in all of Judaism. After spending time in prayer at the Wall we toured the tunnels that have been excavated under the current streets. Another street was found but there is even more underneath it. So much has been excavated and so much is still to be found. The more the excavate the more we learn of the past.

 

After lunch we headed for the Pool of Bethsaida, the sight where a crippled man was healed by Yeshua. The people brought their sick and lame here because it was said that whoever was first into the pool when they were stirred by an angel would be healed. From there it was on to the Garden Tomb to partake in a covenant meal. It was near closing time when we arrived so we didn’t get much time to see the empty tomb before we partook. But it was really meaningful.

The day involved a lot of walking but it was so meaningful to everyone. Maggie made it up all the stairs and the steep narrow streets all day. Ingrid seemed to get more invigorated as the day went on. In fact, as we were climbing the final four flights of stairs on the way to meet our bus, she started humming the theme from “Rocky” and when she made it to the top of those last stairs she threw up her arms and did the Mohammed Ali shuffle.

Tomorrow will be less strenuous but in will be more emotional as we will be touring the Israel Museum, where they have a great model for what Jerusalem may have looked like in Yeshua’s time. It will get emotional when we go to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. But we will end the day on a light note: shopping at the Cardo.

Shalom!