Day Two of the Holy Land, Monday 16th February 2009

Today was our trip down to the Dead Sea, and I really mean down, as this is the lowest place on earth (422m below sea level) and your ears really feel it!!. Its truly amazing how fast the wildness area becomes apparent when you come straight out of Jerusalem, there is nothing growing and you start to see the Bedouin people with their shacks and camels, these people are a people that move around in the wilderness of the Holy Land, but in recent times that have been pushed closer to the city’s as the Israeli army uses a lot of the desert area for military practice, and you can now find a Bedouin with a car or a cell phone and even a satellite dish on there shack!! The area of the Dead Sea is very hot with warm temp all year around and not much rain.

Qumran.

The first stop was at Qumran, this is where they found the remains of an Essen community, and this community was mostly associated with John the Baptist in the New Testament. Amazingly the community buildings are all present. These people are the creators of the famous Dead Sea scrolls. These scrolls were found in 1947 buy a shepherd boy around this area and he first sold them for a pear new shoes. But still to this date not all of what is in these scrolls have not been reviled to the public, what are the Jewish hiding? Could be there writing’s about Jesus inside? And revealing John the Baptist being his herald, who knows, they do…

To this I say ‘Unroll the Scrolls’. The truth shall be revealed!!

The Fortress of Masada.

This amazing build from King Herod the Great shows me the greatness of this man and his will power to impress the roman empire of his Kingdom. This place is truly in the middle of no where, dry and limited amount of water. Perfect for hiding away, and he built this is such a way that he had massive amount of food stored all the time, its own quarry for building and water channelled into the fortress. But the history books are a bit weird on this site, the sad story of the Jewish suicides in the last stand after the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem has always been known to me as what didn’t happen. But wheat we where told that the Roman have no account of suicides when the fortress was finally breached by General Titus. So what is this place? And why is the story kept alive from Josephus account… And then I clicked while I was on this fortress and Amir our guide was talking to us, this fortress is about propaganda for the cause of Israel, as it’s a perfect example for fighting against something especially in today’s political turmoil in the Holy Land. The Jewish people don’t visit this fortress, as it not kosher for them, but all the new recruits for the army swear their allegiances to Israel on the top and say: "Masada shall not fall again." Other than all this, it is really a masterpiece from Herod the Great; sadly a lot of people died building a massive fortress for a King that never used it.


Jericho.

Yes Jericho one of the oldest cities in the world, famous from the book of Joshua, when the Israelites walked around the city until the walls came crushing down, there is no site of this city today, as it came crashing down. It is a Palestinian town in which the Israeli army control who ever travels in and out. For Jesus’ life this was the place where he was tempted up the mountain by the devil while he was in the wilderness before his ministry and baptism. He also visited here and told Zacchaeus the tax collector to come down from a sycamore tree, and healed two blind men outside the city. The city itself is on the Jordon river road that lead up to Galilee so it was a popular place for travelers and crucial for any empire to own for tax and control over the Dead Sea area and its salts.

The Dead Sea.

Well you cannot, cannot go to the Holy Land without taking a dip into the Dead Sea, but funny enough you don’t dip!! You float!! It’s truly amazing, but because its so full of salt you don’t sink and as you are walking through it, you start to feel your own leg bouncing as you walk, making it hard to walk. Plus when you lay on your front, your back arches and your feet and heat move upwards, and if you start rolling in the water you keep rolling… it just amazing. But there is a lot of salt in it and if it gets into your mouth, you might have had poured a hand full of table salt in your mouth yourself, I wouldn’t recommend going in head first. I hope one day you experience what I have just experienced. Let me know how is goes :)

Day One of the Holy Land, Sunday 15th February 2009

The day started with a get up at 7am, and lavish breakfast from the Knights Palace Hotel in the Old City Christian Quarter. It was time to depart at 8.10am. I was ready for a very big day of traveling and new experiences.

St Stevens Martyr Gate.

Our first stop was at the gate of where St Steven was stoned to death, The Lions Gate. The gate itself was further back from where it is now, but it still has some merit as where the gate stands now might actually be where he died. I noticed thou before all the Muslim graves outside the walls (e.g. blocking the ‘Jewish messiah’), also all the rubbish, it was actually quite bad, as people dump stuff of the wall, just one of my many things I was a bit mad about throughout this tour of the old city, but the positives massively out weighted the negatives as I was not going to allow things that are going on in this Holy City to change my perception that this is where Jesus’ proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven. Anyway back to the first day….

Pools of Beth-zatha

We went through the gate and entered the pools of Beth-zatha, where Jesus in John chapter 5 healed a man that had been sick for 38 years, it was a great place to start and I instantly gained a new insight in what this story was really about. As that this man wasn’t a ‘man’ as such, being sick for thirty eight years and not being able to get into the pool when the spring bubbled once you have to start to question what this story is all about. I found out that the 38 years was used in another story, the desert wandering of the Israelites in exodus. This man was someone that was either just lost in a cycle of sickness and needed a savior to pick him up or he represented a people that where back in the wilderness and in need of a savior for healing and redemption. On the site there are two templar churches, one that’s buy the pools that has been destroyed and the other one close buy that was saved my Saladin, why? The church had good

acoustics for music and chants. We sang a song inside and it was quite amazing, it felt like there was a huge amount of people singing with you.

Via Dolorosa

From the pools we started doing the 12 Stations the cross; this was a truly spiritual time for me. The first two stations, Jesus ordered to die and Jesus taking up his cross was in the same areas where the massive roman fortress would have been (close to the temple). All the rest of the stations up until the 10 were on this narrow pathway called the Via Dolorosa. I and another pilgrim read out reflections at each spot up until the 5^th place. For me I though our pilgrimage through the city would have been easy and nice. But it was quite the opposite thou we where the only group doing the stations at that time, the Via Dolorosa is through the Muslim quarter in the Old city and it was business as usual, people wanted us to buy stuff (even thou they knew we where praying!! And Christian

party’s go past them like us everyday!! - Another negative point went onto the list) But our amazing Palestinian Nazareth Arab Israeli Catholic, reveled to us at one of the stations that it would have been exactly the same when Jesus himself was carrying the cross, people trading around him, not wanting to know who this man was or even care if he was innocent, he was just in their way, and we were in their way on the 16^th of February 2009, 10am in the morning. We just kept on going. We finished up at the church of the Holy Sepulchre with the last five stations. Jesus striped of his clothes, nailed to the cross and his death where in the same area within the church. Touching the rock of Calvary was an amazing humbling experience of thankfulness of the grace that was given to me and also to the whole world when he breathed his last breath. Close by this is the 11^th station where Jesus was taken and laid on a stone to be prepared for burial, and the 12^th and last is the tomb where he was buried and rose from the dead. The cave is covered by a small structure that is very old, so old that it is falling to pieces. But I went inside to this little place, and thanked him for having conquered the grave and giving me new life. Also within the Holy Sepulchre we were given a place in which we celebrated Sunday mass with our priests and Bishop on the pilgrimage tour.

The Western Wall

After having lunch in a great little place, we made our way down through the markets to the western wall, now this is the only part were the Jewish community has access to the temple mount, so when to get to it you can clearly see that they claim every inch of the area they are allowed to have. I had a weird feeling about the western wall, amazing as this wall at its base was the same wall in which Jesus knew and maybe touched, but this place wasn’t for me. There wasn’t a sense of joy in the area, it was heavily guarded my Israeli guards, Israeli flags everywhere and watching the people praying, hopelessness was quite prevalent. For me as a Christian the reality that they have missed out on their messiah 2000 years ago was even more real.

Mount Zion.

We continued onto (via our bus) to the Church of Domitian of Mary and the upper room of the Last Supper. This area is where the first Christians had their community and Jesus and his community gathered when in Jerusalem. The Church of Domitian of Mary is a place that is recognized at the place where Mary the Mother of Jesus died and the Upper room being a place where Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper and the Holy Spirit was poured upon his disciples at Pentecost. Now this place isn’t a church, but it was… a church from the first Christian Jerusalem community, a mosque created by Saladin and also at the moment it is claimed by the Jewish as the burial place of King David. (But if my biblical knowledge is right, the book of Kings doesn’t even place David buried in Jerusalem, but in his home town. Bethlehem) So we have a bit of a problem here, one of the most holy sites for Christians as it was the last time Jesus was with all his followers before his death and where the Christian Church was born, is not even allowed to be given as a place for what its meant to be….but yes this is the story of the Holy Land and this old city, claims and counter claims. Help!! I think we need a savior to sort all this out!!!

The Garden of Gethsemane.

This place was truly an eye opener to the reality of which Jesus faced before being arrested and killed by the Jewish authorities. The Garden is amazing with olive tress that would have been their when Jesus sweat blood, asked for this ‘cup of suffering to be removed, and that the Lords will be done.’ So if these trees could talk, what a story it would be. so the area has a church in it Jesus prayed, and inside it is very dark and quite a sad place, the atmosphere of the church truly gave the aspect of Jesus full humanity in which he allowed himself to be given up to the authorities to die for us, but he knew that it was for something much better than death, but what happens three days later. Anyway for me I truly felt this sense of desertion and loneliness that he might have felt praying for the strength to carry on with his father will and to forgive Judas, one of his own disciples for betraying him.

Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center

This is a center which was built to support pilgrims coming to Jerusalem, and not just Roman Catholic. We were invited to see a detailed presentation about the famous shroud of Turin and after given a tour where we were invited to see the Old City ontop of the roof of the center to see its night lights.

THE START OF SOMETHING NEW....

I have decided to start a blog, and what better place than to start with my amazing 6 day pilgrimage to the Holy Land... I hope you enjoy my future blog journeys.

Paul