Israel 2013 - Day 2

Israel 2013 - Day 2


Today - as has been noted in the comments - began at the "end" of my usual Holy Land trips with a service and communion with Dr. Charles and Hilary Price in The Garden Tomb (John 19:41). Wonderful, wonderful time of teaching and fellowship.

We then travelled by bus around to The Lion Gate on the east side of Jerusalem and walked all 14 Stations of the Cross ending at the Church of Holy Sepulchre. My favourite station is Station V - Simon of Cyrene carries the cross (Matthew 27:32). I love it because it shows the true humanity of our Lord... so overcome with spiritual and physical suffering he needed help to make outside the city to Golgotha (Philipians 2:8) but also because it shows us - as his disciples - that when we go through trials, there is no trial that we can encounter which our Lord cannot relate to (Hebrews 4:15). Along the very crowded streets of The Muslim Quarter we passed shop after shop and were jostled a lot by the thronging crowds.

Following lunch and more walking through the Old City we made our way to the House of Bread - Beth-Lechem - Bethlehem (Luke 2:4) as we say English... where across from the Church of the Nativity we saw them erecting Manger Square's Christmas Tree! To imagine these narrow crowded streets thronged with Christian pilgrims in a few week's time to celebrate our Lord's birth... it must be AMAZING to be there.

You know today in Bethlehem alone I listened to a choir of Eastern Orthodox nuns sing the Magnificat in Manger Square, a pair of young 20something German pilgrims sing Stille Nache (Silent Night) in German at the Church of St. Anne (Mary's mother) and a group of Phillipino believers sing O Holy Night and O Come All Ye Faithful in English in the candle-flame blackened grotto which contains the cave where tradition dictates The Christ was born (Luke 2:12). What a world-wide family of believers we belong to! It was so encouraging... but also challenging for me to realize that all over the world people know Christ but EVEN MORE need to come to know Him as their Redeemer and King (John 3:16).