Jerusalem

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Our day today was spent in Jerusalem and what a day it was!

Our first stop was at the remains of the temple grounds from the time of Herod’s Temple, when Jesus would have visited. We saw the Western Wall (formerly called the Wailing Wall) which is so very special to the Jews today. Numerous Jews were praying, reciting and celebrating various events including several Bar Mitzvahs at the wall. It was a significant throng of people—men and women were required to approach different sections of the wall reserved for the two genders.

Moving on around to the south of the ancient temple grounds we saw the reconstructed pinnacle of temple, from which Jesus was tempted. It is still several stories above the valley and in Jesus time would have been every higher above the floor of the valley. Moving on around we came to the old southern stairway by which the ordinary people would have approached the temple in Jesus’ time. Jesus would have entered here for his blessing as an infant, the visit at 12 years of age, and other visits to the temple. The actual entry-way is now blocked but the stairway is considered authentic from the time of Jesus. This is also where Peter would have preached that great sermon from Acts 2. We were impressed by the numerous mikvahs (stone “baptistery” type structures for the ritual cleansing) that are in the area. It makes the immersion of 3,000 on that first day seem quite do-able. This area, in spite of being quite authentic was generally abandoned by the crowds. In contrast, nearly all of the activity was around the Western Wall and was by Jews.

After a few moments there with some songs and prayer we moved to Hezekiah’s Tunnel. It is a water way established by King Hezekiah in 701 BC to bring water into the walled city as a war provision (2 Kings 20:20). The tunnel empties into the Pool of Siloam where Jesus sent the blind man to wash (John 9). We splashed along for more than a quarter mile in the fresh, cool water sometimes a ways above our knees and finally exited at the Pool of Siloam. What an experience!

We went for lunch at a small coffee shop in the street market of the old city. And then on to the Chapel of the Upper Room. Certainly not an authentic location but it does celebrate the event and the chapel provided a wonderful reverberating location for us to sing several hymns and remember the “last supper.”

Next, on to the location of Caiaphas’ residence and which includes a first century holding cell and torture chamber. We were able to sing a few very powerful songs and several people thought this was the highlight of the day. Associated with this event was the denial of Peter and the church of St. Peter at the Cock-crow commemorates the fact.

Our day went all too quickly.