Today I walked where Jesus walked and sat where he sat. It started on a clear.cold morning on the Mount of Olives overlooking the city and the Temple Mount. Here Jesus wept over Jerusalem. We walked down from the summit to the Garden of Gethsemane where the ancient Olive trees gave some sense of the surroundings Jesus spent that agonizing night of his betrayal. The path we walked is also approximate to the path days earlier he would have walked on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Later in the morning we went back inside the Old City and sat on the steps that lead up to the temple. Jesus would have walked these steps as he entered the temple precinct and overturned the money changers tables. The scale of the temple precinct is breathtaking, even by today's standards, so I can only imagine the spectacle it was in Jesus' day. We had lunch at a Kibbutz on the outskirts of the city before traveling to the Israel museum where a 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem in Jesus' day is a major exhibit. So helpful. But the major exhibit is fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls, including an almost intact scroll of the Book of Isaiah. So humbling to consider the reverent dedication of those who copied this out so painstakingly and beautifully.
The day ended at Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Museum. This was truly moving. An understated, but beautiful building is filled with graphic and moving illustrations and testimonies of the horror of that time. The Children's Memorial - dedicated to the 1.5 million children who died - grabbed me by the throat as you here name after name pf victims read in darkness broken only by candlelight.
My only concern on this trip is how possibly I can drink it all in.
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