Shabbat.
Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath. On Shabbat here in Israel there is NO WORK. Our hotel prepared our meals for Shabbat the day before. The elevators all have "Shabbat Mode" - which is basically autopilot: they go straight to the top from the ground level and then stop at every single floor o nthe way down. See, pushing elevator buttons is considered work. Using the internet is considered work. Therefore, the hotel computer was off for the duration of Shabbat. Shabbat starts from sun down on friday night (about 7pm) and then lasts until an hour after sundown on Saturday (about 8pm). Everything re-opens at 8pm: the drugstores, internet, etc. So....that is why this series of posts are so delayed.
Communion
Yesterday we visited what is known as the Garden tomb. In Jerusalem there are 2 spots that are supposed to have been the place where Christ was crucified. We know from scripture the name is Golgatha - meaning skull place - but the location has been hazy since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem within 100 years of Christ being crucified. The garden tomb is place number one, and the Holy Seplica (spelling help?) is the other. The Seplica is the orthodox location that was comemorated by the building of a church above the rock where Christ was crucified, etc. The church was built by the mother of Constantine, who built 14 churches over holy sites to preerve them. These sites are now known as the Via Delarosa, and this is where we get the 14 stations of the cross.
Lost? There is more....
So the garden tomb is where EVERYBODY ELSE (non-greek, armenian, and roman orthdox christians) hold that the crucifiction took place. The hill with the skull shaped side is pretty interesting, although an Israeli bus depo now is at the base of it (weird...). The tomb was, well, empty, but it had a slot for the stone to be rolled in and it was in a garden. If you need to read the description of the tomb you will need to check out the gospels, but we know it was outside the city gates, we know it was near a garden, and we know it was an unused tomb (they recycled tombs then).
So my conculsion is that I don't know which location I think that the crucifiction happened...but here is a truth I cling too: I KNOW it did happen.
Gethsemane
This is a picture of me in THE Garden of Gethsemane. The olive tree behind me with the thick trunk is likely around 4,000 years old.
Gethsemane is Hebrew for 'olive press' - there are thousands of gethsemanes in Israel. The Garden of Gethsemane that the Bible describes as the location where Christ was betrayed and Peter chops off the temple guard's ear (which Christ heals...) is in a valley between the mount of olives and the east Jerusalem wall. It makes sense that the olive oil factory was a the bottom of the mount of olives: natural supply chain.
We had an awesome time of prayer and worship in the garden.
Golgatha - The Place Christ was Crucified
This is Golgatha at the Garden Tomb
When we went to the Garden tomb after we visited all of the places where Christ went in the process of being tried and convicted of blasphemy, we took communion as a group. Pastor Scott, as he had done so many times before, took the bread and broke it and started his usual, "on the night which our Savior was betrayed..." lines to present communion to us. But the unusual part was that as he spoke about the disciples having the last supper, he pointed to the location in Jeruslam where they believe that to have taken place, and as he spoke about the temple guards coming to arrest Jesus after the betrayal, he pointed to the direction of the garden....he made commuinion come to life. And then he spoke about how he was hung on the cross, and exclaimed "right over there!" with his arm pointing towards skull hill. What an intense communion service it was!
Bethlehem
We have also visited Bethlehem. Our tour guide was not allowed (because he is Jewish) to go into the town. There is a wall around the town because iti scontrolled by the Palestinians, and the wall reminds me of the fragments I have seen of the wall that split east and west Germany in Berlin. It wa sickening. But we went with a differen guide to the church up the hill from the ACTUAL Shepherd's fields where the angel of the Lord came to the shepherds to tell them this:
Here is a picture of me touching this star shaped stone that was cut on the place where Christ is held by tradition to be born. The feeding troph manger that he was layed in was wood, and removed, but replaced by a stone one on the other side of this small fireplace-looking thing that you see me kneeling in and touching.
Dead Sea Scrolls
The other cool thing we got to see and experience were the Dead Sea Scrolls. Did you know they have recovered a fragment of every book from the OT that predates the time of Jesus except for Esther? Wow! We were not supposed to take pictures, but I knew what I had to do for my loyal blog followers. Here ya go!
This is just a small part. They found all sorts of different types of paper and in 3 languages: aramaic, hebrew and greek. We visited the area of the cave where they were discovered, but that wasn't too cool.....but the artificats themselves are awesome. It looks like an old treasure map....
Holocaust Memorial
Here is a link if you are interested in learning more about the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem we visited. http://www.yadvashem.org.il/
This was a very sobering experience. Our guide told us a story that I want to pass on to you:
The children's memorial is incredible. It is this big dark room with 1 candle lit. Then there is thousands of mirrors all over the huge building that reflect the light and make it look like a million stars in the sky. There is a speaker somewhere in the dark, star-lit memorial that is listing the names, ages, and locations of every child to be slaughtered in the Holocaust.
Our tour guide tells a story of a women he had go through the memorial may years ago. She insisted on holding the hand of the tour guide and her husband for comfort because it was very hard for her to experience the memorial. Why was it extra difficult for this woman? She was a holocaust survivor, but her children were not.
You know where this is going.
As she was walking through the memorial, her children's names, ages, and location came reveling accross the PA system. She fell over faiting and had to be carried out of the room when she came to in complete and udder caious.
Unreal.
over 6 MILLION Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust.
Pray for Peace for the Israel Nation and the Jewish Heritage as a half-century later they are still recovering from this tradegy.
This is a picture outside the children's memorial at the Jerusalem Holocaust Museum
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