Old Testament Walk Throughout Jerusalem

Yesterday we went on another trip into Jerusalem called our "Old Testament Walk" even though we actually saw quite a few New Testament sites. We started out in the Old City part of Jerusalem again but eventually throughout the day we made our way outside of the walls of the Old City into a few other parts of Jerusalem. The first site we visited was the remnants of one of Hezekiah's walls. This wall has also been called the "broad wall" because of how wide it is, which you can kind of see in the picture. It was estimated to be about 8 meters high and somewhere between 4-5 meters thick. The reason Hezekiah needed a wall so big was because the Assyrians were on their way to siege Jerusalem, but ultimately the wall isn't what gave Hezekiah success but rather due to his faith in the Lord, the Lord conquered the Assyrians. And the Lord prevented Sennacherib (the Assyrian king at the time) from conquering Jerusalem, this can be found in Isaiah 37.

After that we walked through the Old City a little bit more until we arrived at our next site. This site is one of the proposed sites of where The Lord's Supper took place with Jesus and His disciples. The meal that they were celebrating that night was the Passover meal. It was

 interesting to find out how much this changes your understanding of the text when you remember to keep in the context that this meal was the Passover meal. The Passover meal was to celebrate one of the most important events to ever occur in Israel's history, the Exodus. Through the Exodus the Israelites began to find the identity of who they were as God's chosen people and so at the Passover meal it was a time of reflection back on who they are. And when Jesus made the statement "do this is remembrance of me" it was a huge statement not just some simple statement that we see it as today. This meal was from then on to be centered around Jesus Christ. While there we read Luke 22:7-23.

After this we walked until we ended up at a cemetery, which surprisingly contained the grave of Oskar Schindler (some of you may recognize the name from the movie Schindler's List). This German saved around 1200 Jews during the holocaust. 

Even though that was cool to see it wasn't the whole reason why we went to the cemetery. We went farther into the cemetery until we arrived at the outer wall which overlooked the Hinnom Valley that surrounds part of Jerusalem. We find this valley mentioned in Jeremiah 7:30-34 as a place where high places were built to false gods and people were sacrificing children even though the Lord did not command this and as a result the Lord proclaimed judgment on this place and that it would eventually be known as the "Valley of Slaughter" because dead bodies would be placed there out in the open where the birds of the air could eat them.

Next we saw some ruins from part of one of Herod's walls that surrounded the temple mount. The ruins we saw were many large stones that used to be part of the wall surrounding the temple mount but during the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. these stones were pushed over and fell to the ground. 

After that we headed to a 

place near the Gihon Spring known as Hezekiah's tunnel. This tunnel stretches 1500 feet underground from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam. The tunnel built by men during Hezekiah's time was used as a way to allow water into the city and was especially useful during times of siege. We then got to actually go down and walk through Hezekiah's tunnel all the way from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam. It was amazing! The tunnel was just wider then shoulder length and most of the time I was bending over because the ceiling wasn't very high. Oh and the best part was that water still flows through there and at one point the water was up passed my knees but that was just for a short bit and the rest of the time it was around ankle deep maybe a little higher. And when you turned off your flashlights it was pitch black in there, there was no lighting or anything. It was really cool to experience that and a lot of fun at the same time. After making it out of the tunnel we got to go into the pool of Siloam. The pool of Siloam is mentioned in John 9 in the account of Jesus healing the blind man and the pool is the place where Jesus tells the blind man to go and wash and is where is eyesight was restored. What an amazing picture of Jesus Christ's compassion!

Jerusalem-The Old City

Yesterday I went on my first field trip for my Land and the Bible class. We went to the Old City in Jerusalem, which was amazing we saw so many different things it was hard to take in it all. But first of all it was cool to see as we approached the city the wall surrounding the Old City. Contrary to what I thought before this isn't the wall of ancient Israel but actually is a wall built by the Turks in the 1500s and is actually not even built in the same places as the all of ancient Israel. As we entered through the gate it was interesting to see that near the gate is a large wide-open space and there is a good amount of people moving in and out of the gate and also just walking throughout that space. This helped me better understand what is meant in the Bible when people are talking at the city gate such as the story of Absalom where he stood near the city gate talking to all the people in order to turn them from David. 

After we entered the city we went to the Citadel 

which is a stronghold used by Herod. The Citadel also very well 

could have been where Pilate lived during the time of Jesus and could have been the place where Pilate tried Jesus. So we got to go to the very top of the Citadel and from the top you can pretty much look over the whole Old City and see many of the buildings. We were able to roam around the Citadel for awhile and see the different parts of it and everything.

After the Citadel we started to head farther into the Old City and we got to walk through some of the streets until we reached a church called "Christ Church". This was the first Protestant church to be built in the middle east and it is one of the few Messianic

 churches located in the Old City. It was cool because when we went there one of the deacons of the church spoke to us about how hard it was to build a Christian church in the area 

and so he gave us the basic history of the church and then he went on to explain to us the difficulties that the church faces today especially when dealing with Jews. He explained that although many Jews come and visit not many will accept the message. Then while there we ate lunch out in one of the courtyards and to my surprise we actually had Pizza Hut for lunch and it was really good. 

After eating some pizza we headed back to the city and walked around some more until we came to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is believed to be the location of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and the location of His tomb. Although it is not positive that this is the exact location it still was a humbling experiencing when thinking about the fact that this could be the place in which Jesus conquered sin and death and essentially conquered the world, this could be the place where the most amazing act of love may have taken place. 

After this we moved on and ventured through the city some more and we headed more to the eastern side of the city. As we got further we started to get to more of the crazy market areas where the street is pretty narrow with a bunch of venders along the sides and people shouting a bunch of different things but I have no idea what any of them were saying... It was interesting to really start to experience a different culture especially in that way. 

Then we got to walk along the top of the wall on the eastern side of the city for awhile until we reached a spot on the wall where we stopped for a little while. The place we stopped was in clear view of the Mount of Olives.

 So we read Zechariah 14:1-5, which is a prophecy of the return of Jesus Christ and how He will set foot on the Mount of Olives. So in plain sight of where we were standing Jesus Christ will one day return to that very site...amazing! How cool it was to see a place that I have heard so much about in the Bible but was never able to picture until now.

Day 1 and 2

Well right now I am drawing near to the end of my first full day here in Israel. We arrived yesterday at the airport a little before 3 in the afternoon after about 14 hours of flying and a few hours of layovers. Yesterday we didn't really do too much except arrive here at the campus (which is about 10 miles outside of Jerusalem), unpack, and then eat dinner. I finally had my first Kosher meal ever last night! Besides a few interesting items the food was ok I enjoyed the pita bread mainly during that meal. During dinner last night one of the professors recommended that we stay up till 10 before we go to sleep so we adjust better but....at about 7 me and cody were already struggling to stay awake so we decided to try and stay awake till 8 which we barely managed to do. Then this morning we had our dairy meal of the day which was breakfast and to my surprise I thought breakfast was pretty good. It was interesting to see fish and salad for breakfast but the eggs were pretty good and the kind of cereal I tried was also good, it tasted like Smacks (for those of you who know what Smacks are). After breakfast we had some orientation stuff and we walked around the campus a little bit getting more and more acquainted with it and then we ate lunch which was pretty good too. After lunch we then had our first class, which was for our Land and Bible class. We went over the syllabus for a little and then we went on a little hike to a place very near to our school called Kiriath-jearim. This place is within view from our campus and it turned out to be a place with some pretty cool historical events. Kiriath-jearim was a city in the Old Testament that was located at the spot where three territories of the 12 tribes connected and these three tribes included Judah, Benjamin, and Dan. But the more interesting fact about this city was that this was the location where the Ark of the Covenant remained for many years until it was finally moved by David to Jerusalem. As we walked along one of the highways up to the hill top we were probably walking along the same path that the people traveled in order to bring the Ark to Kiriath-jearim, so that was pretty cool to walk along that same path and then we went to the hill top where the Ark most likely had rested for that time. There is now a monastery located on that hill. After we went up to Kiriath-jearim we continued to walk further down into some cities and then we returned a little while to the campus in order to eat dinner and then after dinner I have pretty much nothing to do until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I have class for a short bit and then we are taking our first official field trip to Jerusalem! So I'm excited for that and we are going to the Old City part of Jerusalem and it should be a good time. Well I hope everything is going well back home! Love you guys!

T-Minus 11 Hours!

Well in approximately 11 hours our flight will be taking off to New Jersey and from New Jersey to Israel. It will for sure be a very long day of flights and travel but it will be soon worth it. Then begins our 3 1/2 month trek to Israel. I'll miss you all greatly whether your family, or you go to Valley Bible, or your at TMC you will all be in my prayers these next few months and I pray that the Lord would be working in all of you each and every day to draw you near to Him and that you would grow to love Him more and more. I hope that the Lord will work great things at Valley Bible and TMC, I'm sure He will. I'll try to keep this up to date as much as I can and just put some posts up of things I'm experiencing in Israel (geography, culture, food, etc.) and also the things that the Lord is teaching me while I'm over there. I hope you all enjoy this blog and if you feel like wanting to talk you can send a message on facebook or send me an email to williamscm@masters.edu and I'll be sure to respond as soon as I can and I would love to hear from you but also feel free to follow the blog and see what is happening in Israel. Alright I think that is about it for now, so the next post will most likely be from Israel Lord willing! Have a great spring everyone and I'll be seeing you all when its warm again!