The Pomegranate tree at Migron

Yesterday was my favorite day yet. Beyond a sense of familiarity with Biblical places, I’m really starting to see Biblical history come alive. I’m remembering why I came here, something easily forgotten on days spent curled up in bed, crouched over a toilet or squished in a smokey church with hundreds of other tourists.

We began our day at Gezer, which used to be a thriving OT city, but is now just a huge hill of ruins surrounded by kibbutzes. We were able to climb in and around the ruins of a city gate from Solomon’s time, and collect tons of pieces of pottery from the late Bronze age that literally just covered the ground. It was hot and windy and felt like a grown-up playground. Climbing on limestone walls instead of wooden playsets and picking through pottery instead of digging in a sandbox? It could catch on.

Our second stop was at Nebi Samwil, the ruins of a Crusader church on top of a huge hill. The ruins are nothing to speak of (see my callousedness! After a week here in Israel I can say that RUINS were “nothing to speak of”, when previously anything resembling ruins was fantastic), but the view from the roof of the church was perfect. We could see all the surrounding countryside: the strategic Central Benjamin Plateau. It’s a triangular valley about 30 minutes from Jerusalem that is surrounded by four cities: Gibeah (Saul’s hometown/headquarters), Ramah (Samuel’s), Gibeon, and Mizpah, cities right on the central North-South route through Israel. It was strategic for trade, for the fertile plains, and for its location right in the middle of everything. We spent a while discussing various military manuevers in the Bible, pointing here and there. Standing up on the roof of the church, I imagined I was Joshua taking the land, encamped on the highest hill in the area and spreading out a map with Caleb and discussing what to conquer first. It was so real. Those cities were right there. Okay, so they were filled with tall antennea and large apartment buildings, but I could imagine they were late Bronze age apartments and pretend I watching for campfires in the distance that would tell me an army was on the move.

We ate lunch, hopped back in the bus, and began the treacherous journey to Jericho. On the way, we stopped for a while at Michmash just to see the cliffs Jonathan and his armor-bearer scaled together in 1 Samuel 14. The cliffs were enormous–those guys must have been ripped! It certainly gave me a great appreciation for Jonathan, who took off to do the Lord’s work while his dad was hanging around making stupid vows “under the pomegranate tree at Migron”. In this hot desert land, trees are hard to come by, so they are landmarks, and their shade a relief from the heat. For Saul to be just under a tree chilling makes me wonder how he raised such a godly son who went off and climbed the cliffs at Michmash in order to conquer the Philistine garrison there single-handedly…and then, at the end of the day, Saul almost killed him. It’s a wierd, facinating story–go ahead and read it tonight, and then let me rub it in: I was there.

So we made our way to Jericho, wending our way through desolate, magnificent mountains of chalky limestone dotted with an occasional Bedouin encampment. It took us nearly an hour, and there were times we thought the bus was going over the edge. And then, all of a sudden, a palm tree appeared, then another, and then we were in Jericho, a veritible oasis in the desert. Settlements in this area are situated around one thing only: water. We took some pictures of the ruins (unfortunately, nothing from Joshua’s time, but still cool), played in the spring that Elisha blessed, ate some ice cream, and then headed home.

We finished our day as Israelite soldiers by going out to this great Armenan restaurant for one of the girls in our group’s 21st birthday and trying a light Israeli beer called Taybeh. The authentic Israelite experience, for sure.

Grafted In

Today (6/13) I had an identity crisis: I couldn’t decide if I was the Apostle Peter or Martin Luther. So I decided to be a tree.

We started out the day by visiting the Pater Noster church on the Mount of Olives. Claimed to be the site where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, the walls are covered with translations of the Lord’s Prayer into over a hundred languages. Although the Lord’s Prayer comes packed in with most of Jesus’ teaching in Parea, and therefore was probably not taught from this spot, the courtyard of the church is beautiful, and on a cool, breezy Medditeranian day we sat on rocks under the palm trees and read the Lord’s Prayer. For me, I could finally picture Jesus actually being here, actually teaching on a morning like this, maybe around breakfast, before heading down to Jerusalem. We students wandered around looking for the Lord’s Prayer in our favorite languages (I bonded with a fellow student from Kenya over Swahili), and then sat on rocks under the palm trees and discussed theology, imagining that we were Jesus’ first century disciples, instead of his twenty first century ones.

We continued on our way down the Mt. of Olives, taking in the view from Hebrew University and viewing some first century tombs. The Mt. of Olives is traditionally a cemetary, and the soft limestone it is made from make it ideal for hewing tombs. We continued to the site where, traditionally, Jesus stood and wept over Jerusalem. Although we can’t know that this is the exact sight, it is along the road to Jerusalem that Jesus most likely took from Bethany. There is a small chapel on the site, built out of white limestone, beautifully designed with tear-shaped embellishments on the four corners of the roof and mosaic floors. The window in the front of the chapel looks out onto the temple mount. Here we read scripture, discussed Jesus’ last few weeks of ministry, and played with a tiny praying mantis trying so hard to blend in to a cactus bush. No one leaves worshippers in peace these days.

At the foot of the hill we came to the garden of Gethsemane and the Church of all nations. The garden is very likely the actual site where Jesus spent his last night. There is a grotto or small cave nearby, and the cave held a olive press, which is what Gethsemane means. Apparently olive trees have a pretty long lifespan–the trees in the garden were about 400 years old. It was cool to gather around and look at these old, gnarly olive trees, to see where the roots send up shoots, birthing new trees, to hear about its longevity and ability to survive hardship, and discuss the significance of us Gentiles being “grafted in”.

The church of all nations was dimly lit and people were praying all around the church, although the noise from the road outside was obnoxiously loud. It’s called the church of all nations because so many different churches from around the world helped fund its constuction. It’s kinda a cool symbol of the church universal, right here in the middle of the olive grove where Jesus was about to graft us in to the body.

The symbolism of the church in the olive tree really grabbed me. The olive trees twist and turn and bend every which way, goofy gnarly trunks and branches. Sending up new shoots from the root is how they stay alive when cut down, dried out, or broken in half. When an olive tree is demolished, the farmer will take a small shoot from the roots, and graft in into the original trunk, and the tree will survive. For years and years–olive trees can live 1,000 years.

We went from the Church of all Nations across the street to some shrine to the tomb of Mary. Of course it isn’t really Mary’s tomb, but pilgrims are told it is. When we walked in, the scent of inscense was so strong it was hard to breathe, and the smoke was visible in the air. The room was dark, and nauseatingly overdecorated in huge gaudy candlesticks and pictures and inscense holders. I felt like I had entered the building of another reliegion–some Eastern religeon.

From the Mt. of Olives we boarded the bus and took off to Bethlehem. Although Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem, it is located inside the West Bank and under Palestinian control, and getting through the border took an hour. The border is marked by a huge wall–gigantic concrete and barbed wire, surrounded by checkpoints and military personnel carrying big guns. The Israeli side of the wall has ministry of tourism posters reading “Jerusalem-Bethlehem: Peace” and the Palestinian side has emotional graffitti crying, “fight to make your voice heard” and “we will be forgotten if we do not fight.” It’s a stark contrast between the lies and pasted-on smiles the Israeli government shows the world, and the human rights disaster that the Palestinian problem really is.

A few miles outside of Bethlehem is the ruins of the Herodian palace, so we explored the ruins, climing through the cool tunnels of rock and peeking into ceremonial bath houses before descending into Bethlehem proper. Bethlehem is more like a third world country than Jerusalem is; the streets are littered with trash and the houses are little more than hovels. We visited the church of the Nativity, which was dirty and crowded and thick with more inscense, to see the “place where Jesus was born”, a icon-encrusted spot on the floor that everyone was touching and kissing and weeping over. Across from it was “Jesus’ manger” made out of marble. Those animals lived well. About the only thing that was authentic was the fact that it was hot and smelly.

My roommate and I escaped to a little chapel next door and sat and discussed the people in the church of the Nativity who were weeping and really believed they were touching the spot where Jesus entered the world. It was sad and disgusting to look upon these people who had been so decieved. To us it smacked of indugences and the cult of relics. Who was lying to these people, and why? 

Descending to Jerusalem again, we took photos of the wall and discussed the Palestinian’s situation. Israel is building this wall (only part of it is finished, when complete it will stretch for miles) far into the original boundary of the Palestinian territory. The oppression of the Palestinian people is an outrage that needs to stop. But when, and how, and what are little college students like us going to do but listen and learn?

We ended the day on a somewhat depressing note, but the visit to the olive grove in the morning reminded me of a song. The people of God are just people, weak and frail and full of sin, but they are all peoples, whether mislead and full of strange worship, or locked on the other side of a wall, or well-educated sceptics from the U.S. To me these are so foreign and unrelated that it might take Heaven for me to see how they will come together. But they will, because they have all been grafted in, in their weakness and failures, to be part of one tree, one that shall see storms and endure:

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against a foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.