it's over

this was how i felt last february. 

sigh. 

how a year changes things.  as those of you who faithfully read my blog know, i am a huge steelers fan.  but i am also a huge football fan, and so when the season finally comes to an end as it did on sunday, there is a sense of loss for me.  it's even worse this year as i have not only lost football season, but i have also lost the ability to say the words "superbowl champion pittsburgh steelers."  that title now goes to the very deserving new orleans saints, who i am very happy for.  still, the 2009 football season left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, and with the uncertainty about the immediate future of football (players and owners fighting over contract agreement stuff), i'm left with a disappointment.  so, football, here's to you.  thanks for being there for me week after week, monday after monday.  i'll miss you bigtime, and i can't wait to see you again in august. 

until then, congratulations to coach lebeau, the defensive coordinator of the steelers, who was elected to the pro football hall of fame last week.  you deserve it, coach lebeau. 

israel: day 6

for those of you who are wondering, we are home safe.  we got up at 1:45 am on saturday morning in jerusalem, and were home by 9pm on saturday night in new jersey.  of course we were traveling west, so it was actually more than 24 hours.  needless to say, it was a long day, and we're happy to be safe at home, even if it is covered in snow. 

i never got a chance to write about our last day in the holy land, so i thought i'd give you a quick recap.  we had friday morning free, so shannon and i (along with several others) decided to head back within the old jerusalem wall into what is called "the old city" for some shopping.  there are "streets" there that are really just paved sidewalks lined with tiny little shops, full of vendors trying to sell you their goods.  many of the shops were just clothes or shoes or religious trinkets, but we found some cool shops, including one that sold all kinds of interesting spices, at really good prices.  this picture shows how beautiful the spices look.

there was also a fish store that we walked by in the morning, when it had some fresh fish lying out.  when we walked by later, they had added their most recent catches, including this guy:

after the old city, we went to the holocaust museum in jerusalem, which was a very difficult expeience.  it is an amazing museum that thoroughly tells the history of the whole terrible ordeal, complete with videos and personal stories and pictures and items.  it was emotionally straining to say the least. 

from there we headed to ein karem, the traditional birthplace of john the baptist.  once again it is a site of ancient christian worship (there are christian markings there from some 1500 years ago), that has now been covered and marked by an extremely ornate church.  here is a painting from inside the church:

the weather on friday in jerusalem was awful - rainy and cold.  but we all really wanted to go to the garden tomb, which is another possible location for the crucifxion and resurrection of Jesus.   there is much dispute among scholars about the actual site, but this location is often focused on because of a rock formation there which resembles a skull. 

there was a tomb found there that looks exactly like what a tomb from that era would have looked like.  who knows if it was really the site or not, but we were able to celebrate communion as a group there, which was very moving. 

an ancient roman entrace to the wall around jerusalem, near the damascus gate

i want to bring some closure to this trip, by writing one more post about the whole experience, but i think i'm going to need a couple of days to sort of process everything and let it all sink in.  i looked through so many windows this week: windows into the past; into scripture; into the social situation there, and the need for peace with justice.  windows into myself, and my own spiritual journey, too.  so give me a few days to continue to make peace with what i've seen and heard this last week, and i will try to sum it up.  for those of you who have been following along and reading, thank you.  i hope you enjoyed your participation in my trip.  may God - the God of us all - bless you. 

grace|peace,

greg.

israel: a note as we prepare to depart

a amall opening in the old jeruslaem wall just above the zion gate. 

my friends, as i write these words, it is 6:30 on friday evening here in the holy land.  we have finished a rainy day of touring here, and i look forward to sharing it with you, but our flight leaves tel aviv in the morning at 7:30.  which means that we will be leaving the hotel sometime around 3am.  and we still have dinner and two meetings to go yet tonight!  so i won't be updating day 6 of our trip until after i am back in the states, and likely not until i've had several hours of sleep in my bed (this all hinges on whether or not new jersey gets dumped on with snow the way the forecast suggests it might).  so, in any case, i hope you've enjoyed my updates, and i will, of course be sharing more in way of pictures and insights as the Spirit leads.  until then, peace to you. 

israel: day five

today was a day of extremes, in a way, or at least a day of earth, wind and…water. strangely enough, it all started with ice. we woke up to a threat of snow in jerusalem, which turned out to be hail. this hail came down in huge chunks of ice and caught fire as soon as it hit the ground. okay, not really. that’s in egypt. but seriously: hail. i didn’t really come to israel for falling ice.

we drove east out of jerusalem into the judea desert. this is the very wilderness where john the baptist lived. i, for one, have never been to a desert before, so this was a new experience for me. but this isn’t your run of the mill desert (although i did see a tumbleweed blowing across the road in what must have been the most cliché moment of the day). no, this desert has no sand! it’s just rocks and dirt. you can see from the picture that it is just hill after hill of dirt and rock. this is also the desert where Jesus went after his baptism in the jordan river, and where he was tempted three times during his forty-day fast. the tempter told him to turn all the rocks into bread, and, if you see this terrain, you soon realize that this was not just a temptation for Jesus to sate his own hunger, but to use his power to make enough food for the whole world to eat because there are rocks everywhere! Jesus, of course, realized that the world needed more than just bread, and he continued to set his face against the desert wind for a more difficult future, one that allowed him to be the very bread of life.

speaking of the desert wind, while we were in the desert, we read the story of the temptation and of the good samaritan (this is the area where those travelers would have traveled), and some bedouins came over to us trying to sell us some of their goods. while we were all there hearing the word read aloud in the desert, the wind began to build bigger and bigger until it was a strong push against our bodies. it felt as if the desert just wanted to give us a small glimpse of its fury, a thumbnail sketch of what it must have been like for Jesus for those forty days, and what it must be like for the bedouins all the time.
if you’re keeping track at home, we’ve had ice (hail), earth (stones), and wind. what could be next?

camels, of course. we arrived in jericho, and after seeing the traditional zaccheus tree, we stopped for some lunch where there was a camel that you could ride. his name was sami. Shannon got to get on him and go for a quick ride. sami even smiled for the picture.

later we got to go to qumran, the site where the dead sea scrolls were found. in case you’re not up on your archaeological facts, the dead sea scrolls have been very very useful in our continued work of translating and understanding the hebrew scriptures, or what we call the old testament. for scholars they are a priceless treasure. and the cool part of it is that they were discovered by a desert bedouin goatherder who was throwing rocks. he heard something break after he threw one of the rocks in a cave, so he went it to see what had broken. hoping to have found some treasure, he was disappointed to see that it was just a bunch of parchments in old clay pots. he sold them as antiques and, of course, they ended up becoming a major factor in old testament translation and scholarship. all because of some rocks thrown into a cave. it kind of reminds you of how our lives are made up of so many little moments, many of which do not seem meaningful at all. but who knows, a great treasure could be behind any traffic jam or fast food employee.

we ended the day at the dead sea, where only three from our group of fifty decided to get into the water. i was one of the three. the dead sea is the lowest elevation on dry land on planet earth (some 1,400 feet below sea-level), and one of the saltiest bodies of water. since it is 33% salt, the water allows matter to be more buoyant, and that matter includes human bodies.

so if you go into the dead sea, and you lie down in the water, it holds you up. in fact, it is very difficult to sit down. just be careful not to get it in your eyes or mouth. just take my word for it, okay? good.

and the day ended with a sunset. a day of extemes: from the violent desert wind, to the supportive salt water of the dead sea; from the percussive staccato of the morning hail, to the quiet holiness of qumran; from the memories of the shouts that crumbled the walls of jericho, to the beautiful peace present in the sun setting over a land in desperate need of some peace. and as if to top it all off, before the day was over, a rainbow descended right in the desert near the dead sea, as if a reminder that the One who created heaven and earth is still the God of day and night, of earth and rock, of water and wind. and this is not a God who delights in the violence of a broken creation, but one who delights in redeeming it.

israel: day four

let me start off today by saying how glad i am to know that many of you are following along here on my blog and on facebook, sort of sojourning with us through the holy land. i appreciate your company as we look together through windows into the past, windows that reveal to us a clearer, brighter picture of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and which help us understand the scriptures left to us. i’m certain that i’ll be returning to these windows time and time again in my ministry, using what i find here to enhance my ability to tell the story of this Jesus.

and i was able to look through some pretty amazing windows today. we started the day off real early because we had a long drive north out of jerusalem through the jezreel valley, towards the mountains of the north. our first stop was nazareth. as we entered the city, we passed these huge rocky cliffs, and we learned that these cliffs were very likely the ones that the people wanted to push Jesus over after he claimed to be the fulfillment of prophecy. according to luke 4, this was the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry in this region in the north known as galilee, where Jesus had also grown up. he had been away for some time, and when he returned he came to nazareth, his hometown, to gather with his friends at the synagogue. by the end of that day they were trying to throw him out of town, and, as you can see from these cliffs, probably kill him. this is how Jesus set his face towards jerusalem, even as he began his ministry here in galilee.

in nazareth we went to a really cool church believed to be built on the site where mary received the annunciation, the news that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah. the church there now was built in 1969, but there is evidence of early Christians worshipping on this site in nazareth as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries! the church there now celebrates the universal nature of the church by displaying large mosaics and other art from various nations around the world depicting the virgin mary. of course i particularly enjoyed the one representing croatia.

after nazareth we stopped briefly in cana, where Jesus attended a wedding and turned water into wine after the hosts had run out of wine. from there we headed to capernaum, the town where Jesus probably went to live following his “eviction” from nazareth. at the very least he spent a great deal of time in capernaum, which was a prime location as the best fishing on the sea of galilee was in this area, and local fisherman and farmers would probably sell their goods here. picture capernaum as a fairly busy port community, smelling strongly of fish and filled with the noise of merchants doing business. this is where Jesus called many of his disciples. as you can see from the picture, archeologists have been able to find ancient remains of the homes in this area. these homes were very small and packed closely together. we can tell that they did not have stone roofs, but probably had palm tree roofs. since this region gets very hot much of the year, the people of capernaum would have been able to go up on the roof and put the branches across the stone wall in the morning, to keep out the heat of the sun, and then remove them at night to allow for the cool breeze off the sea. they were able to do this because there were steps leading up to the roof on the outside of almost every house here. remember the story of the paralytic man, and how his friends weren’t able to get him into the house where Jesus was because it was too crowded, so they went up to the roof and lowered him in that way? we see here in capernaum how they would have been able to do this! they would have simply used the steps on the outside of the house.

following capernaum, we stopped briefly at tabgha, the traditional site of Christ’s miracle with the loaves and fishes. then we went right down to the sea of galilee and got on a boat, which we then rode across the sea on. during the ride across the water, we celebrated communion. when we got on the boat it was a little windy with a few sprinkles, but as we moved further out it got darker and darker, and we all were remembering another group of people out on this very body of water so many years ago, when another storm whipped up. we were hoping not to have to repeat this story! as i sat there with the galilee wind in my face and the sound of the water underneath, i looked through yet another spiritual window. we all prayed the Lord’s prayer, and when i said the words that i have said thousands of times, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” i was moved to tears. after all these centuries and millions of people, here i am. and i, too, want to be a part of this kingdom that this itinerant teacher taught about in galilee.

after that experience we went to the traditional site of the sermon on the mount, where i met Sister Vivi, who asked me to send a message to her blood sister living in new jersey. so, Sister Bianca, i will call you when i get back to the states, with a great message from you sister in the holy land. if you are reading this, she’s doing well and, as you can tell, she looks great!

we ended the day by the jordan river, where we all got to see and touch the water in which Jesus was baptized. Bishop Devadhar, our bishop, who is traveling with us, sprinkled us with water from the river as we remembered our baptisms in Christ.

and so it has been another full day. one thing that really struck me today as we were up north in the region where Jesus did so much teaching is how this was not just a jewish thing. there were both roman and greek cities in this region during the time of Christ. in fact, many of the inhabitants of nazareth were people who were only there temporarily since there was work in a nearby roman city. what this tells us is that Jesus wasn’t just teaching the jews. he was rubbing shoulders with greeks and romans, too. they, too, would have seen his miracles and taken his message to their families and friends in their homelands to the east. once the apostles and paul started writing their letters (which now comprise much of our new testament), there were already churches in rome and ephesus and corinth and phillipi. these were greek and roman cities, where Christ’s message had spread, probably, in part, because of his ministry here in galilee. from the very beginning, Christ’s message was not just for jerusalem, but for samaria and greece and rome, and for the very ends of the earth. thanks be to God!

israel: day three

we have finished our third day in the holy land. Shannon and i are both absolutely spent from a very full day, but i wanted to take a moment and let you know what we’ve been up to today on this side of the world (i still can’t get used to the fact that i live most of my tuesday before most of you even really get started with your tuesday…weird).


anyway, we started off the today on the mount of olives, and walked the traditional route for the palm sunday procession. the first thing i would tell you about this is that it is a steep downhill walk! Shannon and i joked that it never looks like this in the children’s sunday school material. we stopped part of the way down to remember how Jesus looked over the city of Jerusalem and wept for it. i got a picture there looking west over Jerusalem with my terrible towel, just to represent steeler nation in the holy land.

we finished the walk down the mount of olives to the bottom where the garden of gethesemene is located. we were able to see and touch olive trees, and to spend some time in personal devotion in the very place where Jesus prayed to the point of his sweat becoming like drops of blood. as i sat in that garden, i was reminded of another story about a garden. it is a story about the origins of all things, and it all begins in a garden. in that story, when given a choice between God’s will (“do not eat of that tree!”) and their own will (“you will become like God”), Adam and Eve chose their own will. and we have all been ratifying that decision over and over again since, in the gardens of our own lives. but as i sat in that garden full of ancient olive trees (some of them are over 2,000 years old!), i remembered that Jesus’ time in the garden also involved a battle of the wills. but even as he prayed to the point of drenching the ground with sweat, he said, “not my will, but yours be done.” i was reminded of how much i desire that my life would be like that prayer of Jesus in his dark moment: not my will, Lord, but yours. let your will be done. we were able to celebrate communion as a group, and have a service of anointing in which the laity anointed the clergy as a reminder of our call in ministry – a really moving moment.

after the garden, we went by bus to the joffa gate, where we entered the old city portion of Jerusalem. We ate lunch there and then went to the church of the sepulchre, which is the main traditional site for the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. this is now all covered by a church which is decorated in traditional greek orthodox style. let’s just say ornate doesn’t even begin to cover it. even though it doesn’t look the way you and i might draw it up in our imagination, it was still pretty cool to be in the place where so many have worshipped the risen Lord, believing that he died and rose at that very place.

from there we walked backwards through the via dolorosa, through the winding stone streets of Jerusalem, lined with shops and vendors. along the way we stopped at several of the stations, and even got to see some stones from the road from the time of the roman occupation (around the time of Jesus).

after this we walked to the pool of bethesda where Jesus healed the crippled man in john 5. this was one of the most stunning parts of the day, especially since we were told that there really is no historical debate about the accuracy of this place. there is almost complete agreement: this is absolutely the place where Jesus healed the man. we got to look down into what is now an empty rock pit, and it was just breathtaking.

we finished our touring by going to the western wall, the place where the religious Jews go to pray, as it is the closest spot to the old site of the temple that they are willing to go, without fear of stepping on the ark of the covenant which is believed to be somewhere under the mountain where the temple once stood (and where the Muslim mosque called the dome of the rock now stands). we got to go there and offer our own prayers in the wall.

one of the things we learned today (we learned a lot!) was that the timing of Jesus’ palm sunday entrance into Jerusalem was very important. this occurred at the passover. at this time, the governor of the area, pontius pilate, would have also come to Jerusalem from his normal home in ceaserea, to stay in Jerusalem during the passover for fear of jewish revolt. as word would spread of the governer’s arrival to Jerusalem from the west, those who were loyal to the romans would come to the city gate and form a procession with him as he came riding into the city. it would be a procession of power, demonstrating the strength and might of the romans, intended to keep the jews in their place. on palm sunday, Jesus seemed to provide a kind of alternative to pilate’s entrance. Jesus also entered the city, riding a donkey, but he came from the east, and his procession was not about power, but about resistance. about peace, yes, and also about justice. it is a good reminder to us that the message of Jesus has always been, and continues to be, a counter-cultural one. even in places where the lines between Christianity and culture have been blurred, there is no question that the teachings of this rebel Jesus go against the grain. as we traveled throughout Jerusalem today i remembered this about Jesus, and how it ultimately got him nailed to a cross outside the city gates as another sign of the roman power. the empire had won. or so it seemed. they had never expected the kind of revolt Jesus came to bring: a revolution of love. a revolution that you and i are still a part of, if we dare to be.

thanks for reading. i hope you are enjoying these posts. tomorrow we are headed north to galilee, and i plan on sharing some of that with you tomorrow night. have a great wednesday.


grace|peace,
greg.

israel: day two

Shalom from the holy land. As I sit down to write this, it is late here, Monday night. I’m pretty tired from a FULL day of learning and seeing. Just as I had hoped, I spent the day looking through windows to the past, windows to my faith, and windows to hope. I don’t want to bore you with every detail, but I will give you at least a thumbnail sketch of what we did today.

After breakfast we hopped on our bus and left Jerusalem and entered the west bank. I hate to admit that I didn’t have a very good understanding of what was going on between Israel and Palestine, and the very real and day-to-day problems that this tension presents to the people here. The first place we went in the west bank was the shepherds’ fields, the traditional site for the place where the shepherds were watching their flocks when the angels appeared to them to tell them of the birth of Jesus. We got to see the terrain, get a sense of the incredibly difficult work of shepherding, and even go into a cave that would be the kind of cave shepherds in those days would often spend the night. Inside the cave we read the shepherds’ story from the Bible, and prayed together (we continued this practice at every site we visited).

After the shepherds’ fields we headed to a major souvenir shop run by Christians in Palestine, full of olive wood carvings and every sort of religious trinket and icon. Then we headed to the church of the nativity, a church currently shared by four different sections of Christianity, and the oldest functioning church in the world. It was built by Helena, constantine’s mother in the 5th century. It still stands. And it is gorgeous. It is thought by many to be built over the actual cave where Jesus was born. Whether this is true or not is certainly debatable, but it was somewhere in this vicinity, to be sure, and it is clear that very early on Christians were worshipping in this site as a very special place. We were able to see ancient mosaic work from the original construction, and share some special moments in the cave remembering the birth of Christ.

After spending some time there, we headed to a restaurant in Bethlehem for lunch. Then it was the Bethlehem Bible College to learn a great deal more about the Palestinian plight in Israel, and particularly what is happening to the Palestinian Christians. Palestinians who aren’t even granted citizenship to a nation, live in a very tense situation, in land occupied by Israel, who not only is building huge settlements in the West Bank, but who has also built a huge wall for security reasons that keeps Palestinians in. the only way they can get out is through a highly secured checkpoint. Most of the Palestinians are not permitted to leave. Some are granted permission, but mostly for work situations. So, there is not peace right now, and tensions seem high.

Then we drove back through the checkpoint and to Mount Zion, where you can find the traditional site for the upper room. From there we moved over to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, where Jesus was taken after being arrested in Gethsemene. It was also the place where peter denied Jesus, and where Jesus was kept overnight before being taken to Pontius Pilate. This was also a fascinating place, and we got to see the ancient steps leading down the mountain to the garden of gethsemene, steps which some think are the same ones that Jesus walked on.

In the midst of all of this I’ve been learning all kinds of things which will change the way I understand scripture. After learning about shepherds, I will now have a different picture in mind when Jesus talks about being the gate. I will have a different understanding when I read Psalm 88, and the darkness of the pit, after seeing the captivity pit in Caiaphas’ house. I will think differently of the locusts that John the Baptist ate. And best of all, for those who know I was dying to see it (pun intended), I got to see Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom.
So its been an awesome day. Tomorrow we are planning to spend more time in the old part of Jerusalem, including the Garden of Gethsemene and other places, and I hope to share some of that with you tomorrow.