The Birth of Christ/The Agony of Christ

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After breakfast we went to Bethlehem in Palestinian Authority Occupied Territory. There is a check point and it sometimes requires your Passport to enter this city just 5 miles south of Jerusalem. The city is partially walled off by a wall similar to the Berlin Wall. A sad sight in such a holy place where we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

In the Church of the Nativity (Greek Orthodox) we had the moving experience of entering the manger cave beneath the church. There one sees an ancient stone manger and a place marked by a 14 point star to identify where Mary gave birth to Jesus. The 14 point star is to number the number of generations from Abraham to Christ.

The old church is under renovation, but still lovely with its ornate Orthodox motif. We also visited the adjacent Catholic Church from which the annual Christmas Eve service is televised worldwide. There also is the grave of St. Jerome, the priest who translated the Bible from it's original languages into Latin. It took him 36 years.

From Manger Square outside the church our bus took us to the Shepherd's Fields, where the angels announced the birth of Christ. It is several expansive hillsides of very steep and rocky pasture land dotted with caves where the shepherds could find protection for themselves and sometimes even the sheep in bad weather. On one of the hills in the fields there is a small but lovely chapel celebrating the angel visitation.

Then onto an olive wood factory and gift shop before lunch. After lunch we went back to Jerusalem to the Mt. of Olives for a second magnificent view of all of ancient and modern Jerusalem. Our tour from here included a moving visit to the Garden of Gethsemane. There we saw a 2000 year old olive tree that is still producing olives, year after year. We were allowed to enter into a private section of the garden, there to read scriptures and sing songs related to that difficult night for Jesus.

We visited the Church of the Agony on the garden grounds before walking down into the Kidron Valley (on the path Jesus took from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane and then saw the Pillar of Absalom Tomb of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, then on to Gihon Spring / Pool of Siloam, where Jesus put mud into the eyes of the blind man and healed him.

It rained briefly just before we got on the bus and continues to rain on this Saturday evening. This is the rainy season in Israel and every drop of water is received as a blessing from Yahweh (God).

I am running out of adjectives to describe this experience. But even at my maturing age, this experience is transforming. “Old men shall dream dreams, and young men shall have visions.”



One side note....EVERY new archeological discovery in the Holy Lands from old to modern confirms the amazing historical accuracy of the scriptures and makes the living word even more alive. Shalom! Have a blessed Lord's Day morning tomorrow.

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