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I Don't Understand It!
As you read this Faith Focus, Martha and I, together with twenty-three other pilgrims, will be in Jerusalem. We will begin our day by visiting the model of ancient Jerusalem at the Israel Museum. We will then visit the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem; on our way to Yad Vashem, we will drive through some modern areas of Jerusalem and see how they have fused modern architecture and technology with the ancient past. After lunch, we will tour the Old City - highlights will include the remains of the City of David, the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock (the third holiest site to Muslims) and finally, we will walk the Via Dolorosa (the way of sorrow - the path that Jesus carried his cross) and end up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (a large church built over the location of Calvary and the Tomb). In the church, I will again climb the stone steps of Calvary and place my hand in the hole that once held the cross of Jesus, then I will sit for a few moments in the cave that was, for a short while, his tomb.
The Holy Land is special for me. While this will be my eighth visit, every visit feels like the first. Yet, as often as I visit and study this special place, I don't understand it! After all these years, the animosity continues. I can see the Jewish side (How can you live without secure borders? How can you live with the threat of bombs being dropped on you?); and I see the Arab side (The United Nations basically decided to give their land and homes to the Jews -without compensation! How can there be peace without justice?) After all the heartache and death, doesn't there come a time when a new generation says "there must be a better way"? And so, as I travel through the Holy Land, I will pray without ceasing that the children of Abraham finally find reconciliation.
In Faith,
Pastor Tim
P.S. The Lord willing, I'll see you in church on Sunday!
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