29Nov2010 Day 7

29Nov2010 Day 7

We went up Mount of Olives to visit the various sites:

First in line was the Church of Ascension (a ‘new’ site, run by the Muslims). It has a foot imprint on one stone slab in the church there, said to be the footprint of Jesus just before His ascension.

 

We next visited the original site of the ascension, the Pater Noster. It was built by the Crusaders, and was uncompleted. It has murals of the Lord’s Prayer in 163 languages. We entered a large room of low height, made of rock and sang the Lord’s Prayer there. There were tiny rolls of paper stuffed into small round crevices in the rock wall.

We went to the Sanctuary of Dominus Flavit, where Jesus cried over Jerusalem

(Luke 19:41 - As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.). The church there is small and located halfway down the slopes of Mt Olives. From the grounds, we had an unobstructed panoramic view of the Temple Mount and its surroundings.

For the Muslims, their holy sites are Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem (according to importance). Next to the Golden Gate are Muslim burial sites. Those buried there, just outside the gate, might be those who want to be the first to rise when the Messiah comes (said to return through the Golden Gate). The Dominus Flavit is designed like a tear drop. Here, they store the tears of the mourning relatives in a container and bury the container with the dead person. For Jews, they don’t use coffins. They embalm their dead. They also bury their dead in the fastest possible time. When the person dies in the morning, he will be buried by the afternoon. Nee joked that there will never be stories of dead people coming back to life after a few hours or days. The job of handling the dead is the women’s as the job is considered impure, and hence no men will handle it. The opening of Jewish tombs is 5 hands wide and 7 hands high. As for the stone over the hole, the larger the hole, the richer the dead person. One year after the burial, the Jews would put the bones of the dead into a box. The length of the box is based on the length of the longest bone (leg bone) of the dead person. At this place has been planted 2 trees called Zizipus – the tree from which Jesus’ crown of thorns was taken.

.

Nee explained the Jerusalem cross. It consists of a large square cross and 4 smaller crosses. The main cross represents Christ and Jerusalem, the beginning and centre of Christianity. The four smaller crosses symbolize the four books of the gospel and the spreading of the Word from Jerusalem to the 4 corners of the earth.

We went to Gethsemane. It is at the foot of Mt Olives. ‘Geth’ means press, and ‘semane’ means oil. This place used to be a production centre of olive oil. To press olive oil, three presses are needed, and a lot of strength as well. The first oil pressed out is offered to God. The trees at Gethsemane today are between 2000 to 3000 years old. Olive trees, even if hacked down to the base, will still live on because their roots will not die. Later, the stump will still give out shoots. This, we were told, represents Jesus’ life – one that will not die. In Roman times, the people had to pay taxes according to the number of olive trees they owned. Hence, some families would cut down their “extra” trees in order not to pay so much tax. Rev Niam shared that when Jesus was at Gethsemane, as He faced the cross, He knew that His disciples were still an unaccomplished lot. It must have been very tough for Him.

We ate lunch at a Chinese place called Mandarin Chinese Restaurant (2 Shlomzion Hamalka Street, Jerusalem 94146, Israel. Tel: 972 2 6252890). The owner of the restaurant is reputed to have risked his life to feed the Israeli troops while Israel was at war. He did that even though his restaurant is situated at a junction where crossfires were often exchanged. This restaurant has been operating since 1958. In the street, we saw some Orthodox Jewish men wearing plaits and broad rimmed black hats, as well as long black coats.

We saw the steps used by the poor people in the Second Temple period for entry into the Temple grounds.

We entered through Damascus Gate, to visit the Wailing Wall. Security checks were carried out on visitors. We were told that, as the Wailing Wall is the remaining wall of the temple, it is extremely important to the Jews. Mondays and Thursdays are Bar Mitzvah ceremony days. Jews wear the prayer shawl over their heads when praying so as not to be distracted. The Jews would face the wall and cry out to God for the restoration of the temple. The first temple was destroyed by the Byzantines, while the second temple was destroyed by the Romans. The women go to the right side of the wall to pray, while the men go on the left. In the men’s section are cupboards that hold the Torah. Men have to wear headgear whole praying. For those who did not bring any, they can take a free kippah (a small circular hat that is also called a yarmulke). Those who wish to, can keep the kippah as a souvenir.  I saw a 13 year old boy surrounded by many well-wishers and someone carrying a huge professional camera to record the event. The boy was wearing a prayer shawl (called a Tallit in Hebrew) around his shoulders. Nee signed us up for a tour of the western wall excavations. The tour guide was a young Canadian lady who came to Israel for her graduate studies and stayed on after that. She brought us underground to see the work that has been done. She also used two different models to illustrate her explanations. With one lighted Second Temple model, she illustrated that the bedrock beneath the Second Temple was pretty high on the left end of the Western Wall. Herod tried to diminish that disadvantage by building towers there, as a well as by creating a moat.

She showed us a huge stone (14m long, 5m wide, 570 tonnes heavy) in the western wall. This is believed to have been quarried from the valley and brought to the temple. When the Romans tried to completely destroy the temple, by digging out every stone, when they saw this particular huge stone, they couldn’t move it. Hence they tried to chisel holes out of it. The guide said that this stone is a microcosm of the Jewish people who have weathered years of persecution. When we were walking in the tunnel, we saw excellent examples of Herodian masonry, all very well preserved. We stood on the original street used 2000 years ago right on the north end of the western wall. We also walked through the Hasmoenean aqueduct, whose the water still remained. We were told that the water is from rainwater that has seeped down through the rocks into the underground pool. The Maccabees were part of the Hasmoenean Dynasty. The guide also led us to the Women’s Prayer Wall in the tunnel nearest to the Holy of Holies. Some local women were there, deep in prayer.

Nee told me the Israelis have to do 10 years of compulsory education. Most of them study for 12 years as their government will pay for all 12 years of education. She also said that Israeli students have to learn 3 languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English. They also have to do 3 years of national service in the army. Girls too.

Nee kept asking us to pray for rain in Israel as, for more than half a year, they have only had 1 hour of rain. Even the schools are asking the children to pray.

We went through Herod’s Gate.

From the bus, we saw the path we had taken today down Mount Olives. It looked really long and steep from where we were.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

We went to the Bethesda Pools (500m by 60m). It was huge during Jesus’ time. It was used to clean off the blood of the slain lambs.  The church here is called St Anna’s Church. We sang “He’s Able” in the church.

Passed the Lion’s Gate.

We went to Mt Zion. When the Ottomans came to rebuild the wall, Mt Zion was left outside the wall. Hence the 2 architects were slain because they had failed to include such an important site within the walls.

We went to the room of the last supper, which is also the place where the early church prayed and spoke in tongues. The Muslims chose the design of Pelicans to commemorate Jesus giving His flesh for others’ sins. Luke 22:7, John 13:5. Jesus served them with love (by washing their feet). We then entered King David’s tomb. Women on the right.

We also went to St Peter in Gallicantu. The Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu is a Roman Catholic church located on the eastern slope of Mount Zion, just outside the Old City of Jerusalem in Israel. The church takes its name from the Latin Gallus cantat, meaning “at the cock’s crow.” This is in commemoration of Peter's triple denial of Jesus “... before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times” (Mk 14:30). This spot is also believed to be the location of the palace of the High Priest Caiaphas. The Pilgrim of Bordeaux, who visited the Holy Land in 333 A.D., stated in his Itinerarium Burdigalense, “As you climb Mount Zion from the Pool of Siloam, you come upon the place where the house of Caiaphas once stood.” The place consisted of an upper church, a lower church and underground caves. In the caves were holes pierced in the pillars and walls. We were told that these held the chains of prisoners. There is also a pit (a 10 foot drop) in which Jesus was said to have been locked up. There was a Bible placed there, with Psalm 88:1-8 printed in it in different languages. Rev Niam read us the Mandarin version. That was when my torch finally came into useful service!