youth pastor pilgrimage: 2011

November 15th, 2011

The beginning of the end is here...but the climax is also here! We begin our day by getting up really early and are on the bus by 6:40 am. We travel back to the Western Wall. There we saw a group of men of all ages singing and dancing. It was sort of a spontaneous worship service. Our guide said they were basically singing and praying for the (1st) Messiah to hurriedly come.
We then entered the tunnels that run along the Western Foundation of the Temple Mount. We saw rocks that had not been moved since the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. We saw steps and archways that date back to the time of Jesus. We saw where the priest would have entered the temple mount, which would have been directly behind the Holy of Hollies (now called Warren's Gate). We even saw the bedrock of the mountain where the temple mount was carved from. Some of the foundation stones that made up the Western Wall were as large as 600 ton each.
From there we came out within the Antonia Fortress. This was the fort or palace that Pontius Pilate governed from and overlooked the temple mount on the north side. We walked along the lower levels of the Antonia Fortress. It was in these lower levels that they would keep prisoners to be judged or executed and would play games with them. Carved into the floor, we saw a "board game" the Roman guards would play with prisoners. The guards would "roll" the dice and move pieces and the game would determine what horrible things were done to the prisoners. It would have been in this room or one very similar that the Roman guards would have played a similar game with Jesus and mocked him as a king. It was extremely moving to be in this room, to imagine the torture and unthinkable things done here, and then imagine our Lord suffering and living the nightmare not far from where we stood.
We came out of the Antonia Fortress and saw what remains of the Pools of Bethesda. This is where Jesus healed the crippled man (John 5:1-15). The actual pool ruins were mostly covered with church ruins, although some of the larger, original pool ruins could be seen.
We came down off Mount Moriah on the north side and made the short walk over to the Garden of Gethsemane. It is towards the bottom of the Mount of Olives. It is easy to see how such a garden could be perfect for teaching, praying and solitude just outside the city walls, but still has the temple in full view. The same temple that sat on the mountain and location of where Abraham bound his own son, and was willing to sacrifice him. It is that temple that stood there in the days of Jesus that would tower above the garden below and cast a shadow on the garden in the evening as Jesus would pray in the garden and prepare to sacrifice himself, God's own son, for all of us. We saw olive trees that date back 1,000-2,000 years. These trees if not the original trees Jesus saw and touched, are at the very least the offspring of such trees.
Our busy day continued as we headed to the Shepherds Hills. These hills overlooked Bethlehem. Off in the far distance we could see a flat top mountain where Herod had another fortress. It was on these hills that Ruth would have harvested wheat and pledged to stay with her mother in law. It was on these hills that Ruth's grandson David would have shepherded his flock and grown into a man. It is in these hills that the angels would have announced the arrival of the King and Messiah to the shepherds watching their sheep. It was a special moment when we began to sing Christmas carols as we looked across the hill to Bethlehem. I don't think I will ever sing Christmas carols the same way again.
We traveled back to the north side of Jerusalem to the location of the Garden Tomb. There is a hill side where a "skull" can be seen. This hillside is believed to be known as Golgotha. Contrary to what our artist paint and draw for us, Jesus would not have been crucified on this hill top. More than likely, knowing how the Romans liked to do things, criminals would have been publicly executed in a location that would make them most visible and graphic to those passing by. Putting them on a hill would not accomplish this. People could walk by and not look up, or have to strain to see or guess who is hanging up there. No, the Romans would have put them at an intersection of the two major roads (the road to Emmaus and Damascus I think). This would give prime visibility for those passing by to see very graphically the punishment for those who oppose the empire. It would also give maximum humiliation to the criminals as people to spit on them, or harass them as they hang and die.
Just a few hundred yards away is the Garden Tomb carved out of the bedrock. This tomb not only had a garden around it back in the day of Jesus but it had the path for the rock to be rolled in front of it. It is one of three tombs known to exist in Jerusalem that has this feature. It is the only tomb in Jerusalem that best fits the Biblical description of the Garden Tomb. Of course the best thing about the tomb is that it is empty. Even if this is not the actual tomb, we know that wherever it is, it is empty because Christ rose from the dead as a proclamation that the Kingdom of God was here. Today, we await his second coming when he will reconcile all things and make all things new and diffidently usher in the Age to Come and make it on Earth as it is in Heaven.