JERUSALEM!

3 & 4 November: JERUSALEM!

 

24 hours before the Obama/McCain election, we toured King David’s city, just outside the current walls of Jerusalem, then walked down to the Pool of Siloam.  It was here that Jesus cured the blind man by spitting on the ground to make mud, putting the mud on his eyes, then telling him to go wash in the pool. (John 9)  As Pastor Jack explained it, Jesus’ direction was rather degrading to the man.  Jesus not only put spit on his eyes, but then told him he wasn’t clean.  However, the man had faith, proven in that he obeyed what Christ told him to do, without question or hesitation, and was healed because of it.  Julie got a good picture of me in one of the concrete baths, as well as on the steps that would have led into the pool.  Sitting on the Siloam steps, I was reminded that Christ does heal, even me, if I have faith in Him.  I don’t.  Maybe for a few seconds, but really, I don’t.  I don’t need some dramatic healing like from illness or injury, but I do need it from the stuff that’s easier to hide – the crap I do time after time and don’t want to do anymore.  But I can’t stop on my own strength – well, not really.  I have moments of victory, but in reality, nothing long-term.  I can’t persevere on my own strength.  And maybe these things will be with me my entire life and are meant to keep me close to God.  As most Christians are very familiar with Paul’s “thorn in his side” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), we often look at our injuries or diseases or addictions or bad relationships or “issues” in this manner – things that aren’t meant to be healed in this life.  We’re afflicted to help us grow, get character, or increase faith.  But I think I use this idea as an excuse.  It’s a crutch, a cop-out, being chicken, an excuse to not even put the burden of faith on myself.  So all this ran through my mind on the steps of Siloam (which means “Sent”).  And it stayed in my mind, like the picture Julie took of me there.  I can’t say it has changed my behavior or faith or crap I do, but I at least have enough faith to believe that Jesus heals other people.  Maybe one day before I die I’ll get enough faith for myself.

 

The air-conditioned Purple Eggs drove us over to the top of the Mount of Olives – I guess our trip was more gossip than sweat, after all.  Alot happened here: King David took refuge, weeping, as his son entered Jerusalem to overthrow him;  Zechariah prophesied that the Lord would come, His feet standing on the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem; Jesus spent nights praying on the mountain, sometimes with His disciples, sometimes alone;  Jesus told His disciples about the end times here, warned of many false prophets who would perform signs and miracles and convince many of His followers, and many people’s hearts would forget love and grow cold due to increased wickedness in the world; and finally Jesus walked into Jerusalem for the last time from the Mount of Olives, with all the people cheering Him on and acknowledging that He was God, then killed Him five days later.  We walked down from the Mount of Olives via the “Palm Sunday” path, greeted by vendors shouting “You America!  Obama good!  3 for $10!”, finally taking refuge in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus had prayed in agony that He not be killed while His disciples fell asleep.  He prayed for escape, but always ending with “Thy will be done, not Mine” – just as Judas led the Roman soldiers into the garden to arrest Him on charges of blasphemy.  Several of the olive trees in Gethsemane were witnesses 2000 years ago, but are now marked with “do not touch” signs.  Leaves from these trees, or even an olive, are likely a great souvenir.

 

In the afternoon, Nir and Itay guided us through the museum at the entry of the Temple so we could understand what it looked like when Jesus was there, then walked to the southwest corner of the Temple.  While we were told that Jesus walked on these stones, on the street where vendors would be wheeling & dealing, I couldn’t really take it in.  The massiveness of the stones, the bricks – something like 8x50 feet and probably 5 (or was it 50?) tons – now that impressed me. 

 

We came to the Temple Steps, which are now steps to nowhere since the Muslims have walled it off to build their mosque.  During Jesus’ time, the Jewish elders would sit at the city gates or on the Temple steps to discuss laws and judge citizens – kind of like my Dad and his buddies at Starbucks.  Pastor Daniel reminded us that Jesus would have sat on these very steps teaching His disciples and even the elders.  Suddenly, I asked myself the question if I would have been among Jesus’ disciples if I were at the temple and listening to him preach and even witnessing the miracles first-hand.  If I were a Jew in the time of Jesus, would I have believed He was the Son of God – if He was who he claimed he was?  I’m not sure I would have.  The Jews are God’s chosen people, with centuries of history to substantiate that.  Suddenly they are told that they are equal with anyone else who claims to believe that this peasant who refutes their laws and traditions is the King, the Messiah, God’s Son.  I figure that if I were a Jew and met Jesus, it would take as much conviction to follow Him as it would for me to convert to Islam now:  going against my family and cultural heritage as well as being willing to lower my social and religious status, considering that I’m a woman.

 

Tuesday morning, election day back home, paper and pens were passed around the bus.  Julie asked if I wanted some.  For what?  A prayer – for the Wailing Wall.  Oh.  No, I wouldn’t know what to pray for.  What one single thing would I pray for?  I still can’t answer that, and so I didn’t leave anything for God in the wall.  But seeing all those kneeling in front of the western wall that once held up the Temple, men on one side, women on the other, I couldn’t help but think that all these earnest prayers really were “incense” to God.  Jewish or Christian, God had to be listening with compassion and appreciation and love.

 

When the Romans got sick of the Jews not worshipping Caesar, around 70 AD, they destroyed the Temple.  The building and huge blocks (like those seen at the southwest wall) were pushed from the Temple plaza, called the Temple Mount, onto the streets below.  As Jesus had predicted on the Mount of Olives that Jerusalem would be destroyed (Matthew 24:1-3), it was done.  Over the years, dirt filled and covered the mounds of stones against the wall of the Temple Mount on the west side. 

 

Now, I have to digress briefly and say that the Temple Mount is now owned by Muslims, is topped with a mosque, and is prohibited from any non-Muslim to enter.  How the Muslims came to worship on the Jewish Temple Mount where Jesus taught is probably some work of the devil that gives him the giggles.  But in 638 AD, the Muslims declared the Temple Mount a holy sight since Mohammed was transported to it from Mecca one night, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, then ascended a ladder of light that took him through the seven heavens to finally meet Allah.  Returning back to the Temple Mount, Mohammed prayed and acknowledged the site of the assemblies of those who followed the prophets Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and Jesus.  Gabriel then transported Mohammed back to Mecca before dawn.

 

Jews and Christians and interested archaeologists are allowed access under the pile of rubble up to the walls of the Temple Mount.  So we walked along the west wall in tunnels, admiring not only the size of the blocks, but how well they fit together.  No mortar was ever used.  At one point in the tunnel, a group of women, about 8, were seated in plastic patio chairs facing the wall.  No one of our group spoke (well, we weren’t speaking too much anyway), and I finally realized that the women were praying.  This is the place that is the closest to where the Holy of Holies is believed to have been before the Temple’s destruction.  The Holy of Holies in a Jewish temple is where God is.  Once a year, on Yom Kippur, a priest enters to make atonement for all the Jews.  Any other entry at anytime during the year, or by anyone other than the anointed priest, would die.  The first Holy of Holies was built in the mobile tent of Moses and is where the Ark of the Covenant with the 10 Commandments tablets were placed.  So the location of the Holy of Holies is extremely important to the Jews.  Our group passed single-file around the cluster of chairs facing the wall.  I stopped just beyond and touched the wall and don’t know why but tears came.  I’ve never thought of God being in a concrete place that I could touch.  Some cathedrals in Europe make the same impression on me, but this felt different.  Maybe because God told the Jews that He would like them to build Him a temple (told to King David, and his son Solomon actually had it built, although that was the First Temple and this had been the Second).  Maybe because Jesus had been there.  No cathedral was requested by God or Jesus, nor has Jesus visited any of them in the flesh.  And maybe I’m thinking too much – I know I was feeling too much – and it was nothing more than being moved by the devotion of the women facing the wall and praying.

 

Exiting into the sunlight north of the Temple Mount, we walked to the Pool of Bethesda.  Most know this story:  a crippled man sat by the side of the pool, known for its healing powers when “the angel stirred the waters”.  This “stirring” was probably due to the spring at the bottom of the pool that occasionally rippled to the surface.  This crippled man, however, could never be fast enough to get to the water while the angel was still there.  But Jesus healed him.  Stand, pick up your mat, and walk.  Believe, get some courage, and live.  (my translation)

 

Adjacent to the Pool of Bethesda is St. Anne’s Church;  inside is a white, unadorned interior with perfect acoustics.  As we walked in, and Asian group was singing “Amazing Grace” in their own language.  Only the melody was familiar to me.  We sat down, all touched.  As they left, our group assembled at the front, but by this time my tears were ridiculously embarrassing, so I hid behind one of the pillars in the back.  I think heaven is like this – multiplied.

 

Walking back to the Purple Eggs, Julie bought me pomegranate juice – I’d wanted some since I saw a Muslim selling it from a street stand in Nazareth.  The taste was lovely, like cranberry, but better of course, as everything exotic and scarce tends to be.

 

Just as a sidenote, I realize that saying “the Bible says so” might sound cheesy.  After all, I am an engineer and have my moments of being quite logical.  A friend of mine once informed me that being an engineer is incompatible with being a Christian.  But it was actually this logic that finally increased my faith enough to be a real Christian, as opposed to someone who grew up going to church and celebrating Christmas.  The Old Testament of the Bible has been proven true both by secular history as well as archaeology (many archaeologists think the Bible is the best reference for field research and digs).  In the Old Testament are over 300 prophecies of Christ which were all fulfilled by Jesus.  Now there can be all kinds of skepticism over some of the wording and so forth, but for 300, including the place of His birth and hometown?  And the four gospels of the New Testament all were written by eye witnesses to Jesus and all basically corroborate each other and all are written in a historical, documentary style (as opposed to other accounts, like the Gospel of Thomas that reads like a myth) and were all written within 30 or so years after the events took place.   These accounts were written so close to the time that the actual events occurred and so many accurate copies were found (on the order of tens of thousands), that we would have to erase all the history books of anything that happened before the time of Christ (or Before Common Era, as is now politically correct – what’s so “common” about this “era”?) since all accounts of ancient “secular” history, like the Egyptian pharaohs or Alexander the Great, are all based on one or two, maybe three accounts, written centuries after the events happened.  Plus there was this guy Flavius Josephus (cool name), a Roman historian in the first century, who documents Jesus’ life – that He was a Jew and performed miracles and was claimed to have been raised from the dead – that also corroborates the four gospels.   Interestingly, at least to me, I found out at a museum in Singapore that the Qur’an actually means “recitation” and was not written down until 80 years after Mohammed’s death.  In fact, when Allah first called Mohammed to relay his message, Mohammed replied that he was inadequate because he could not write.  So comparing the 4 gospels written 30 years after Jesus’ death to the Qur’an seems to favor the gospels.  I wish I’d known that while discussing my faith with my irritating Moroccan guide Driss, six months ago.

 

And applying logic to Jesus’ resurrection – however silly that sounds –  leads to the only conclusion that He was raised from the dead.  Medically, He was dead, when blood and “water” gushed from His side when the Roman guard stabbed Him on the cross.  His burial was witnessed by Roman guards whose lives were on the line to not let the tomb be raided.  Jesus was pretty seriously beaten up, so to move the stone away from the door – the stone that required a couple of Roman soldiers to put in place – after 3 days without food or water, would be a miracle in its own right.  Then hundreds of people saw Him in his former body – not one that still had all kinds of oozing wounds and red scars.  And 10 of these 11 guys who said they’d never met the guy when He was arrested were now going to die brutal deaths because they believed they saw Him alive again.  I mean, how many Buddhists have gone to their death, or been willing to, because of what they believed?  Considering the whole point of enlightenment is to *poof!* be erased from existence, I don’t know that I’d be that interested…

 

 

Sweat & Gossip

2-November, Sunday:  Gideon’s Spring, Beit Shean, Qumran & the Dead Sea Scrolls, Masada, Ein Gedi

 

Gideon was one of the Israelites’ judges (see the Book of Judges, chapters 6-8).  I like Gideon because he didn’t want to do the task God gave him but finally did.  Maybe there’s hope for me.  Anyway, the Israelites had been back sinning again and worshiping idols and other gods, so God chose Gideon to call their bluff and subsequently free them.  Funny enough, though, Gideon wanted a miracle from God before he would do anything – another reason I like Gideon… 

 

³⁶Then Gideon said to God, "You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. ³⁷Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat. If in the morning there is dew only on the wool but not on the ground, then I will know that you are going to use me to rescue Israel." ³⁸That is exactly what happened. When Gideon got up early the next morning, he squeezed the wool and wrung enough dew out of it to fill a bowl with water. ³⁹Then Gideon said to God, "Don't be angry with me; let me speak just once more. Please let me make one more test with the wool. This time let the wool be dry, and the ground be wet." ⁴⁰ That night God did that very thing. The next morning the wool was dry, but the ground was wet with dew. (Judges 6:36-40) 

 

So Gideon did what God told him to do and destroyed the altar to Baal (sounds familiar?  I don’t feel so bad that God has to repeatedly destroy my altars to things and ideas that I think will make me happy), then gathered forces to fight the enemies of the Israelites, the Midians and Amaleks that were preparing for war on the fields of “Armageddon”, just down from Mount Carmel.  But God told Gideon that he had gathered too many men to fight.  Gideon discharged 22,000 men and stayed with 10,000.

 

⁴Then the Lord said to Gideon, "You still have too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will separate them for you there." ⁵Gideon took the men down to the water, and the Lord told him, "Separate everyone who laps up the water with his tongue like a dog, from everyone who gets down on his knees to drink." ⁶There were three hundred men who scooped up water in their hands and lapped it; all the others got down on their knees to drink. ⁷ The Lord said to Gideon, "I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites with the three hundred men who lapped the water. Tell everyone else to go home." (Judges 7:4-7)

 

Now, we’re not quite sure what message God was trying to send regarding a man’s character if he lapped up water like a dog versus kneeling and drinking, but God whittled the army down to 300 so that the Israelites couldn’t claim the victory as their own.  And this is where I found myself on Sunday morning – at Gideon’s spring, contemplating how often I dismiss and disagree with God.  Gideon gave each of his 300 men a trumpet, a torch, and a clay jar, and they quietly surrounded the enemy Midianite camp at midnight, each torch hidden inside a jar. At Gideon's signal, every man blew his trumpet and broke his jar. God confused the Midianites, and they started killing each other by mistake, while those who survived retreated.

 

This reminds me of one of my favorite scriptures, although it’s from another battle:

This is what the LORD says to you: 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's.  You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.  (2 Chronicles 20:15-17 with my italics)

 

Now, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Gideon wasn’t all perfect.  (Actually, the only heroic thing he did was direct the army like God told him to – even God won the battle.)  He killed two of the Midianite kings as justice for the death of his brothers, had many, many wives, and created a new idol for the Israelites from the gold won in the battle.  So after the personal miracle of the dry wool, then the amazing defeat with only 300 men, Gideon leads the Israelites down again, although they did have peace while he was their judge.  Always good to see that all these people in the Bible have about as much strength as I do.

 

After Gideon’s Spring, we headed south towards the Dead Sea.  We passed Jericho, but with it being a PLO club house, didn’t stop.  Qumran is located in the dry desert on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea where nearly the entire Old Testament was discovered written on about 900 scrolls, with the first being discovered in 1947. Many scholars believe the Essenes, a Jewish sect which isolated itself in disgust of the corruption of the mainstream Judaism in Jerusalem, lived here, transcribing holy documents. The scrolls were found in a series of eleven caves and appeared to have been ordered and classified with a library system, as if the Essenes were purposely preserving the heritage against enemies that might destroy it.

 

A Bedouin shepherd found them when he threw a rock into a cave trying to oust a stray goat.  He heard pottery shattering and upon investigating, found parchment scrolls wrapped in linen.  He took them to a cobbler, so Nir’s story goes, to have new shoes made out of them, but the cobbler kept them and gave the boy a free pair (or even two) of shoes.

 

In March of that year, the 1948 War of Independence prompted the removal of the scrolls from Israel for safekeeping, mostly to Beirut.  Then, the first Dead Sea Scrolls went up for sale with the posting of an ad in the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954:

MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE

THE FOUR DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 B.C. are for sale. This would be and ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group.

Box F 206 WALL STREET JOURNAL

On July 1, they were purchased for $250k and went to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.  One of the first scholars to examine the scrolls was also into photography.  The pictures he took of the texts are now more coveted than the scrolls themselves, for intellectual purposes at least, since many of the scrolls rapidly faded and degraded once unwrapped.  Interestingly, the Beatitudes are also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

Nir & Itay had our group pretty well pegged, however, so before we got the tour of Qumran, we got an hour recess for lunch and playtime in the “schmear” factory.  With the Dead Sea being 40% salt (and climbing), anyone can guess that this is great marketing for all kinds of stuff that women will put on their faces in the name of youth and beauty.  I greatly succumbed to this idol worship, although I was in good company – even Nir was among us, buying from a list his wife had sent along with him.

 

Masada (meaning "fortress" in Hebrew) is the former fortress of Herod the Great on a plateau with cliffs (really, sheer cliffs!) ranging from 300 to 1300 feet high.  It is absolutely amazing to walk through the ruins and look out over to the Dead Sea.  We accessed it, luckily, by a gondola rather than the Snake Path which winds up the east side (the 1300-ft cliffs).  Although Itay did say he’d run up it in something like 18 minutes once in his life… 

 

The flat top is huge – it was definitely a city as big as Tel Dan or any of the others we’d seen.  Along with all the watchtowers, there were storehouses, barracks, the palace (including a library and private bath house on the northern tip overlooking the desert and mountains and sea), cisterns for collecting rainwater, and public baths.

 

Herod the Great established Masada as a fortress around 35 BC as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt – since he was quite a nasty guy, especially to his relatives and wives who frequently turned up dead. In 66 AD when the Jews and Romans began to battle over Jerusalem, a Jewish sect overtook Masada and lived there, even converting one of the buildings to a synagogue. When the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, more Jews fled to Masada.  But in 72 AD, the Roman governor got fed up with them and laid siege.  Eight camps were built around Masada by the Roman army, and their walls are still visible from the city.  The Romans built a ramp (which also still exists today) against the lowest cliffs on the west side and successfully invaded after many months – only to find the 936 Jewish inhabitants dead from mass suicide.  Except for a few women who later told the details of the murders and suicides, they would rather be dead than face certain capture, defeat, slavery or execution by their enemies.  In the war of 1967, the phrase “Masada Never Again” became famous, declared by the IDF general Moshe Dayan, although two meanings can be interpreted by the slogan, which is still used.  Will the Israelis have victory over their enemies, or rather die than succumb to them?

 

We also traveled to Beit She’an, a city that was probably founded by the Egyptians around 1500 BC but became the capital of the Roman Decapolis – ten cities that held the essential culture of Greece and Rome.  As the capital, it was strategically significant, being located to control the trade from the Mediterranean to the east, as well as from Jerusalem to the Sea of Galilee.  The Roman ruins of Beit She’an were even more impressive than those of Cesaria, on the coast.  We sat in a 3-tiered amphitheater with the columns on and around the stage still intact.  Along the main streets, mosaics, like those I saw in Valubilis in Morocco, were very well preserved and also lined by columns and the ruins of walls of the houses, shops, and city limits.  Beit She’an figures in the Bible as the place where King Saul’s body, along with his son Jonathan’s, were hung on the city walls after they were killed in battle against the Philistines.  The struggle between Saul and his successor (though not by bloodline) David, is a great example of true chivalry and respect for God’s plan.  David and Jonathan were also best friends, and while Saul’s jealousy ruined his relationship with David, it could not dissolve David and Jonathan’s friendship. 

 

In Ein Gedi, meaning “Kid (as in young goat) Spring“ in Hebrew,  just north of Masada and on our way to Jerusalem, we remembered how David showed incredible character and obedience to God.  Ein Gedi is a little canyon known for the wild goats that inhabit it.  When Saul turned on David and was wanting to have him killed, David fled to the wilderness and lived off the land.  While obviously not an easy time for David, he writes many of the Psalms expressing his true feelings of loneliness and betrayal during this time of running and hiding from Saul.  In Ein Gedi, Saul finds rest in a cave from his pursuit of David, though David happened to be taking refuge in the same cave.  While David could have snuck up and killed Saul, he instead snipped a piece of his coat as proof of how close he was, then called humbly out to him for a truce.

 

Finally, after a long, wonderful day, we ascended the hill to Jerusalem.  Nir read us Psalm 122, one of the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) which were a series sung by the Jewish pilgrims as they made their way to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate their feasts and atonement.  The Psalms of Ascent cover everything from safety during the travel, reliance on God for direction (“I lift my eyes up to the mountains; where does my help come from?”), the blessings of family, and peace for Jerusalem.  The number of psalms, 14, corresponds to the number of the steps going up to the Temple, and pilgrims would sing a psalm for each step they took at the end of their journey.  According to Nir, one always talks about “going up” or “ascending” to Jerusalem, the city on the hill.  Even pilgrims from Everest would say they were “going up” to Jerusalem.

 

As our entire group was gathered in the public bath house on top of Masada, Itay told us this was how the Jews passed their leisure time – sweat and gossip.  I thought this was an appropriate phrase, especially coming into – sorry, ascending to Jerusalem.  Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, sent his mother Helena to Jerusalem in 325 AD to talk to the locals in order to establish the locations of various events of Christ’s life and to gather Christian relics.  Many of these sites are owned by either the Catholic Church or the Greek Orthodox Church who have erected elaborate churches on the sites.  Some sites are disputed, and often visiting these sights leaves a distaste because so many sects want control over them but often settle for a truce to share the sight.  The supposed tomb site, glorified by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s old city, is shared by something like six or nine different Christian denominations, and yet many scholars place Jesus’ tomb outside the city, which correlates to the Jews’ law that the dead be buried outside camp or city boundaries.  My friend Julie thinks it’ll be cool when we get to see who had the correct GPS for where all the events in Christ’s life actually happened.  But for now, it all comes down to sweat and gossip.

 

PHOTOS!!!

I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to post photos the way I used to, imbedded in the appropriate post.  But this might just be easier anyway.  The link below goes to all my photo albums, and I’ve finally started using captions, so they’re pretty self-explanatory.  Also, I realized that there was a whole album of photos from the Marrakesh market that I didn’t post by accident, and they are some of my favorites, so you can check them out if you want.

 

www.picasaweb.google.com/lauriebuss

 

 

Laughter and Little Miracles

Halloween morning, and I was on the Sea of Galilee.  Our group and pastors and guides climbed into an oversized fishing-type boat, greeted by the Star-Spangled Banner as the crew raised the American flag alongside the Israeli.  Very corny and touristy, but I had to get over my self-consciousness at being perceived as a tourist.  Well, what else was I?  Not quite Jewish, although my friend Christian in Singapore told me I was on my way as I finished reading my Israel book in Singapore. 

 

But somewhere between Pastor Daniels’ comments and Nir & Itay’s rousing rendition of Hava Nagila, I got quiet as I looked out onto the water.  This was where the apostles went through several trials; the most notable was their lack of faith after just witnessing the miracle on the Mount of Beatitudes of the feeding of 5000 families with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread.  And then, thinking they’d be drowned, they saw a ghost.  Peter, doubtful at first, decided that if the ghost on the water was actually Jesus, then he should be able to walk on water, too.  So he jumped out, keeping his eyes on Jesus and believing it was Him, and walked on the water of the Sea of Galilee.  Of course, then he looked down, thought that he couldn’t actually be doing this, got scared, and started to sink. 

 

So big prayers, was it?  That was yesterday’s epiphany, and today’s was that I didn’t have the faith for big prayers.  Prayers need to be prayed in confidence.  Yes, my good friend Mary died of cancer when I would have bet my life that she was going to be healed.  I still struggle with this one, as most everyone else on the planet who has prayed for a loved one to be healed or a peace to end conflict, and yet people still die young and tragically everyday.  But confidence in prayer is not confidence in how God responds.  That’s none of my business.  Confidence in prayer is knowing God hears, sees the situation from His perspective, and acts, with all the prayers in mind, on behalf of everyone involved (which is usually a lot more than I know).  Now immediately as I write this, I know I’ve opened up a whole other realm on prayer.  How can horrible things happen if God answers all prayers with love?  How can God let certain things happen if He loves each of us?  Why should I bother praying at all if God already knows what’s going to happen? (because, after all, the Bible says this).  Why would my prayers affect anything?

 

While I was in France, I read several of CS Lewis’ books (of Narnia fame).  He wrote a whole book on pain and why it has to exist, even while God loves us.  First, He put us in a world bound by 4 dimensions, and we understand our world only in this way.  If my dad falls off his roof, God can’t just make the cement driveway into a swimming pool so he wouldn’t get hurt.  And conversely, when my brother falls out of a boat while rafting and is underwater by a strong current, God can’t just raise the rock bed up from the river floor to get him up into the air.  All these things change the way the world works, and what is good for my dad (water), isn’t good for my brother, and so everyone would be operating in their own worlds.  Besides the fact that if our world was pain-free and individualized for each of us, why would we need God, or even think about Him?   Pain certainly brings me closer to God, whether my own pain and shock and grief, or someone else’s.  It makes me grow up (sometimes), depend more on God (sometimes), and be comforted (sometimes).  Of course, then I want to believe pain can be avoided by a miracle.  But how can I expect God to save me or my dad or anyone when I first run to 911, doctors, and every other hope on this earth, then remember God as a last resort?  Besides, I don’t need a miracle to know He’s there.  God does miracles to show Himself, so that I can believe Him.  He does this when I need it.  God cured me of an affliction that I would call a miracle – doctors hadn’t done much for me.  But life continues and I still look for God.  I guess this is the part where I looked down into the water that I was walking on and couldn’t believe.  Luckily, each day is filled with miracles if I just realize it.   I was, after all, being very well taken care of, even on a mundane Halloween morning, even with most of my possessions somewhere between Paris and Tel Aviv.

 

Above the Sea of Galilee, we hiked the Mount of Beatitudes, the most likely place that Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and His disciples fed the 5000 families with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread.  Now, by anyone’s standards, this is a miracle – not only the food, but the after-dinner entertainment of Jesus speaking to such a huge crowd without the assistance of an AV/IT team and Bang&Olfsen speakers.   

 

In Matthew, Chapters 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount is recorded.  It begins with the Beatitudes and also contains the Lord’s Prayer and some of the better known teachings of Jesus: don’t resist evil, turn the other cheek, do unto others…, salt of the earth, light of the world, and don’t judge others unless it’s how you want to be judged.

 

The Beatitudes (from Latin beatus, meaning "blessed" or "happy”) are encouraging and comforting, showing how to find God, both in thought and action.  They also give the perspective Christians should have of the afterlife, the Kingdom of Heaven, alongside a healthy detachment from this life. 

 

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12)

 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying:
 "Blessed are the poor in spirit,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
 Blessed are those who mourn,
      for they will be comforted.
 Blessed are the meek,
      for they will inherit the earth.
 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
      for they will be filled.
 Blessed are the merciful,
      for they will be shown mercy.
 Blessed are the pure in heart,
      for they will see God.
 Blessed are the peacemakers,
      for they will be called sons of God.
 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

 

 

These 8 characteristics of the Beatitudes are those needed to be blessed or happy in the sense of having an internal peace that isn’t based upon what is happening in this life at the moment.  To me this also sounds kinda Buddhist, with the 4 or 7 tenets to achieve enlightenment.  I suppose this kind of “find peace by detaching from the world” thinking is common to most religions.  And I think most people agree on it, even if it can’t be practiced perfectly.  I guess I believe Jesus’ way, though, because He is different than other founders of religion in that He said that He was the Son of God.  No other leader said this, and conversely were quite emphatic that only God should be worshipped and not himself.  So it would be quite correct to say that Jesus was a bit crazy, except for the fact that He made the Pharisees and Sadducees, the top religious leaders and university professor equivalents, feel threatened and agitated to the point that they wanted to kill Him.  So Jesus can’t really be considered a great leader, on par with Buddha, Moses, or Mohammed, because He was demanding worship of Himself.  Unless, of course, if He really was a spirit – more than a man.  He could have been the Devil, though, but then He went and did all those well-documented and compassionate miracles…

 

(My beliefs are actually based on more than this, but I’m trying not to get on the soapbox for too long at a time)

 

OK, so after hiking back down to the Sea of Galilee from the top of the Mount of Beatitudes, we went to Capernaum.  This town had a prosperous fishing industry, (about 230 fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee, according to Flavius Josephus, a first-century Roman historian) and also strong trading due to its location on the Damascus-Egypt trade route.  Jesus moved to Capernaum after leaving Nazareth, probably because such a large community with international merchants gave good opportunities to preach.  His first apostles came from Capernaum: the fisherman Peter (Simon) and his brother Andrew, as well as John and James, also brothers.  At Capernaum, we saw the ruins of the city, including the Temple at which Jesus had taught and amazed the elders (and the demons) by His knowledge, as well as Peter’s house.  Finally, after a St. Peter fish lunch (they really have a great fish called “St. Peter’s fish”) at a kibbutz by the water, we drove to the top of the Golan Heights, where we learned about Israel’s victory over the Syrians there in 1967. 

 

The following morning, we toured Tel Dan (“Mound of Dan”, where Dan is one of the 12 Tribes of Israel) and Cesarea Philippi (where Peter first recognized Jesus as God’s Son).  Both of these sites are in the northernmost regions of Israel, within bombing distance of the Lebanese and Syrian borders, and both are archaeological sites as well as Biblical sites.  At Tel Dan, we saw ancient city ruins and learned about life in the cities from 2000-3000 years ago, as well as seeing an altar which looked quite similar to the Israelite altars from 3000 years ago (around the time of Kings David and Solomon), but was altered enough to be recognized as a degraded – one used for Golden-Calf worship.  Jeroboam, and subsequently Rehoboam, became king of the 10 northern tribes of Israel after Solomon died.  They both thought that the pilgrimage to Jerusalem 3 times a year was too much – it hurt the economy and tired the people – so under Rehoboam, two new pilgrimage sites were founded, in Dan and Bethel.  But giving people what they think they want to make them happy rarely makes them or God happy, and these new Golden Calf altars slid the Israelite kingdom into centuries of decline.  (The story is in 1 Kings 11-14.)  As far as archaeology, I was most impressed by the discovery of Tel Dan’s 3-arched city gate, which puts the engineering of arches at the time of the Canaanites, rather than the Romans.

 

The afternoon ended at a baptism site on the Jordan River (the exact location of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist is not known, but thought to be north of the Sea of Galilee).  Several of our group were baptized, some for the first time and others to renew their commitment.  While I was baptized as a baby in the Presbyterian Church by my parents, my pastor James in Cannes convinced me to be baptized by immersion because it is the method of baptisms in the Bible.  In the Book of Acts, written by Luke, a doctor (same guy who wrote the Gospel of Luke), the early church is documented.  They only baptized adults, and then by immersion, because it is making a commitment to Christ – something like a marriage vow.  I don’t know what the future holds when making a commitment to marriage (which is why I’ve neatly avoided it), and I also don’t know how Christ will change my life.  But I’ve offered my life up, just as to a spouse in marriage – and done out of love and respect.  So I was finally convicted, and Pastor James baptized me in 2005, and I didn’t feel that I needed to be baptized again in the Jordan.

 

Our touring days were long and hurried, but even with all my introspection, I couldn’t help but laugh so much with our group and our guides.  We ate our meals together, and several times I found myself at the loudest table (imagine that!).  It started feeling like a kibbutz, at least for me, as I was wearing clothes and sunglasses and shawls from some of the other women, while I waited for my suitcases, and borrowing Julie’s camera because mine was so temperamental. (These are the little miracles God does for me – provides for me – that I so often overlook.)  Our last night on the Sea of Galilee at a gorgeous resort, our table was rolling on the floor laughing as we plotted out a CSI enactment starring some of our fellow church-goers who were sharing a bottle of wine poolside as a gorgeous sunset gave way to night…  And then, of course, Dan had to bust-a-move in front of our bus driver David, but I don’t think I can quite describe that properly.