Tuesday Adventures

What a day we had yesterday (Tuesday 5/26)! We’re all slowly coming to grips with the bewildering wonder, simplicity, and complexity of this place. I put those words together intentionally. The sheer uniqueness of this place, the Holy City of Jerusalem, continues to strike me. It’s hard to put into words. Over the course of our time here, I’ll try to put thoughts to words as much as possible. One thing that has become remarkably clear to my mind just in my few days here is the sheer, utter, irreplaceable importance of THE LAND. It’s central to understanding the setting of the Biblical texts, both the Old Testament and the Gospels. It’s central to understanding the people and their politics, both ancient and modern. You can’t hardly open any passage of the Old Testament and not see the significance of the LAND come shining through.

We’ve been specifically challenged to ask the question: What makes this land of Canaan / Palestine “Holy”? What makes it special? And why would God choose this strange place for a home for His chosen people and for His temple?

We are all just beginning to grasp that the physical, rock/soil/tree/water-source/hill-after-hill LAND is so important to understanding, well, pretty much everything. I’m getting that this is why it’s so valuable for people to come here, to come as learners who will walk the land and get the feel for it and not just come as religious tourists to see a few sites and then leave. That is also valuable if that’s all that time allows, but that approach only merely scratches the surface. Boy, three weeks here will fly by and leave us I think with the feeling that we’ve only just begun.

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On to Tuesday’s activities! We started the day (early!) at 7am for a solid morning’s walk into the Old City again, this time to see a few Old Testament–connected sites. We got to see an excavated section of the city walls of Jerusalem that was likely built by King Hezekiah of Judah (the so-called “Broad Wall”). Like everything around here, the excavation is just smack in the middle of a tightly-packed part of the city, with homes looming on all sides. Next, we strolled downhill south out of the city through the Dung Gate (can anyone guess why the gate here at the lowest downhill point of the city would be called that?) and onward to a low rise south of the SE part of the Old City. Here is a view of the hills to the E and SE near the southern edge of the Old City walls.

This is the original "City of David" before the Temple was built and the city expanded to the north. (visible in the picture above as the slight rise in the center of the photo above just to the left of the crenel) What really kind of shocked us was how comparatively low this hill is compared to its surroundings. The "City of David" as he would have known it doesn't even lie inside the current city walls! Check out this neat web site to get a visual of the topography here and a neat historical sliding timeline to show what the area looked like at different times in history. Here we paused to read from a couple psalms with an entirely new visual context in mind:

Psalm 121:1 - "I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from whence shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." From David's City all you can see are hills of higher elevation in every direction. You would need to trust in Yahweh to protect you in that vulnerable position.

Psalm 125:1-2 - "Those who trust in the Lord are as Mt. Zion [Mt. Moriah, aka the Temple Mount, which is uphill as you look north from David's City], which cannot be moved but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever."

The hills do indeed surround the city at this point! So...why would they build the original city here at all and not up higher on the defensible mountain top? It's simple -- this lower location had access to WATER! And that's where we set off next, to explore the Gihon Spring and the famous Tunnel of Hezekiah (read II Kings 20:20)! For defensive purposes, Hezekiah excavated a tunnel underneath the city over 1600 feet long (!) to redirect the spring water from outside to a point inside the city. Being the intrepid explorers that we Wheaties are, of course most of us chose to hike through the tunnel! And yes, at times we waded through water up to three feet deep!

The water was cold, the tunnel was about 2 feet wide and at times only 5 feet high, and naturally it was pitch black in there without the help of the headlamps some of us had brought along. I tell you, that was an eerie (and awesome) experience, with rushing water at your feet, the ceiling closing down on your head, and random beams of light flashing back and forth in front and behind. Definitely a highlight thus far!

After dinner a few of us decided to head back out to explore the Old City a bit more as the sun was setting. We kind of intentionally got lost to see what we would stumble across, and after some meanderings I looked up and with a start noticed that there was Latin on the wall above me: III STATIO. We'd found the Third Station of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa! (for those unfamiliar with the stations, see here) We don't know quite where Jesus would have actually fallen for the first time under the weight of the cross (the current street system didn't exist at that time anyway), but it was somewhere in this city! Such little discoveries can really put things into perspective.

Our final discovery tonight really put things into perspective for our little band. Once again lost while trying to get back home, we suddenly saw a little tiny sign pointing down a little tiny alley: "Western Wall." We took it and suddenly we found ourselves facing the Western Wall plaza! There were hundreds of observant Jews in the cool of the night walking back and forth, reciting the Torah, praying at the base of the wall, etc. There were very few tourists about and we were able to stay there for a while just taking in the scene and the importance of the place.

What a scene -- the Jews approach the exposed ancient foundation stones of the Temple Mount to mourn the destruction of the Temple and look up to see the Dome of the Rock there...and Muslims who live in town watch huge crowds of Jews gather daily at the Western Wall to pray that God gets rid of the Muslim holy sites up there and rebuilds his holy temple. And Muslims also get to watch IDF military personnel walk throughout the entire city with prominently displayed automatic rifles. The layers of symbols of power here are so fascinating. And a cause for some sadness...when will peace ever come to this land except at the point of a sword or a gun? To the Jews, the Temple Mount is the place where God made contact with earth -- it is the holiest place in the world. It is the veritable center of the created order. Watching the Jews worshiping in such reverence in such surroundings was a moving experience.

What is this place to me? Does God really think the Temple area is still special in some way? Didn't Jesus declare that we should look to him now, that our redeemed lives would be the new Temples as places where the Spirit of the Most High dwelled? Or is Jerusalem still special, a place more holy somehow? I wonder. God surely remembers His past glory and worship here. And we should remember too. I think that means something.