Israel in Eight Days - Part 2

Our last day in Israel began with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, which remembers the six million Jews killed in the holocaust, including 1.5 million children, with stories, maps, pictures, videos, and left-behind shoes. They were gathered from all over Europe, the Middle East and Africa to work, die, march, burn, and starve because they were Jewish.

The stories of those who were complicit begin with the Nazi party and officers, but extend to those who remained silent—some in the Church didn’t speak out and countries around the world refused to receive refugees. One story captures the inhospitality of other countries toward the refugees. The Saint Louis ship left Europe filled will Jews trying to escape to Cuba. After four days they were forcibly removed and sent to Miami, where they were also turned back to Antwerp. They divided into groups and entered back into danger, except for the few who were able to go to England. Much of the world rejected the Jewish refugees. They were turned away, often back to their death.

The Cantor sang songs of lament at the Valley of the Communities. We walked through the Children’s Memorial commemorating the children murdered during the Holocaust with five lights refracted by mirrors to display 1.5 million stars in the dark room. We walked the garden of the righteous, trees planted for Gentiles like Oskar Schindler and Corrie Ten Boom who rescued Jews.

I went to the Hall of the Names, the database that includes about four million “testimonies” of holocaust victims. Their names were collected from family and friends to verify their death and debunk the holocaust deniers. I searched for our guide’s family—his father’s wife, eleven year old daughter and nine year old sons were all murdered. His father married another survivor and had Ze’ev. They escaped through Slovakia to Israel in 1949 when he was just 18 months old. Ze’ev grew up in a kibbutz, served in the military and fought in all the wars. Walking through the memorials with him makes all of it so real and tangible.

Late morning we walked through the Second Temple steps and road that Jesus, his family and disciples would have walked when Jesus was a child, and when they came from Galilee to Jerusalem for the festivals. We saw the cornerstone which fell to the ground. We sat on the temple steps and reflected on the significance of the Temple as the place of the Holy of Holies, the foundation rock upon which Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac, and where currently stands the Dome of the Rock mosque. This is where the people came for festivals from all over the world, and yet it was destroyed in 70 AD. No longer could they come to the temple; no longer would there be sacrifices. Synagogues became places of prayer and worship, and decentralized Judaism and Churches became the place where the Holy Spirit dwelled among and in the people to be the “temple of the Holy Spirit” “wherever two or three of you join together.

Peter wrote to the first century church in northern, Central Asia Minor (Turkey), who were persecuted as they came back from Pentecost with the good news of Jesus in Bythinia, Cappadocia, Pontus and Galatia. Peter affirms who they are and who Jesus is in their midst:

     As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and
     precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a
     holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For
     in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and
     the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this
     stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has
     become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that
     makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what
     they were destined for.  But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
     God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of
     darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the
     people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
     Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which
     wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they
     accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he
     visits us. (1 Peter 2:4–12 NIV)

This is the church—living stones built together into a spiritual house to bring praise to God, a royal priesthood, his people, a holy nation. As Paul teaches in Romans 11, we have been grafted into Israel as God’s chosen people. This is an essential ecclesiology for the early church and their mission. How would they spread the message of Jesus with no temple, no political or social power? Through the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church whose churches all throughout the empire were empowered for their mission to declare God’s praises as those who have been delivered from darkness into light.

This is the church from the beginning of Acts—“wait here and you will receive power, and you will be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” This is the Church. This is our church.

There are five reminders of the temple as we gather for worship at SBPC: (1) the tiles of the chapel are offset and varied in size and color to mimic the Jerusalem stone walls, (2) the steps up to the Patio are broken up by landings, like the steps up from the Kidron Valley and to the temple, (3) the water feature/fountain is like the purification baths adjacent to the temple reminding us of our baptism, (4) the date palm trees, and (5) the Jerusalem limestone communion table reminding us of the steps, the walls and the streets of the temple.

Later we walked through the City of David: the foundation of David’s temple, just to the south of the city walls where the Kidron Valley and the Valley of Gehenna intersect. We walked down the water project built by Hezekiah to divert water up to the city through the underground aqueduct—1,500 feet of darkness and cold water up to your knees, ending at the Pool of Siloam where Jesus asked the man born blind to wash in John 8.

We ended our day at the Garden Tomb (Golgotha, the empty tomb and the place of the resurrection) discovered 150 years ago. Our guide shared the skull-like face on the rock above the bus station and the importance of a personal relationship with Christ because of the cross and the resurrection. We walked through the tomb, shared insights from our trip about who God is, and shared communion.

Before and after our dinner, Amy and I transitioned our roller bags to backpacks with clothes and equipment for our two months in Spain. I’m excited about what 34 of us experienced together, and I’m very excited about what the two of us will experience together as we walk six hours a day from albergue to albergue on the Camino de Santiago.

Today we fly into Barcelona with some down time enjoying the pintxos, Sagrada Familia, and walking the city. We will begin the Camino around May 10.