I think our group set a record for number of biblical sites visted (bsv) in 14 days (bsv x 14 = mucho Bible places). I think we also set records for: jokes-per-minute, bladder-problems-from-dehydration-as-%-of-group, annoyance-of-trip-guide-per-day-for-being-late-to-bus, and qualitative-variance-of-bathrooms-visited-on-one-trip. Picture: a morning boat ride on the Galilee was our most powerful worship experience - Bible study followed by worship songs like Nicole Mullen's 'My Redeemer Lives."
Aside from setting such impressive records for the Holy Land, the past few days have been monumental for each of us. All we've been learning came together as we visited the sites of the last (passion) week of Jesus' ministry. Picture: group worship in acoustically beautiful church at Bethpage, site of Palm Sunday celebration.
Picture: rock in Church of Garden of Gethsemane where we prayed alongside pilgrims from around the world (noticed Ethiopian and Polish groups beside us) - I prayed the words of Jesus in the garden for me and LFC - a willingness to 'drink the cup' assigned to us, including suffering, and a full submission to live out 'thy will not my will.'
Picture: a tomb from the same decade as Jesus' crucifiction - Jesus' body would've been laid on the bench/slab at the back, then later after decomposition bones WOULD HAVE been placed into an urn and inserted into one of the niches. Except his body was gone!
I wish for you, friend, this same immersive spiritual & biblical learning experience one day. Lake Forest Church and Gordon-Conwell Seminary will take another trip to the Holy Land sometime within the next two years (hopefully together) - I can't wait to see the next wave of our tribe who will have the privilege of this experiential learning. Picture: Me and Angie with dear friends and fellow founding core group members of LFC Sam and Velda Frowine - what joy to share this together 16 years later; LFC dudes Sam Frowine, Doug Falcone and TJ Haycox free climb down this cliff - some of us took the scenic route down into the valley Jesus travelled between Nazareth and Capernaum.
Here's what I can tell you is the bottom line from my trip - I am more in love with God's self-revelation through His Word (the Bible) than ever, and I pray that this elevated passion is a concrete gift to our church for a long time to come. And I am more profoundly convinced than ever that the Living Word of God, Jesus, was and is the embodied culmination and fulfilment of 2,000 years of preparatory revelation to God's chosen people, Israel. Picture: Me sitting on the Moses Seat in the excavation of the synagogue at Chorazim, a place where Jesus taught often and did many miracles. The Moses Seat is where rabbi's in Jesus' day would give their interpretation of their Bible (the pink is a water-cooled wrap lent me by dear Marilyn from LFC).
To complete our pilgrimage, we celebrated communion together on Saturday at the reputed site of Jesus' empty tomb. From Karen's accapella "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord," to the beauty of serving one another at the Lord's table, it was a fitting ending. As the sending-out-good-word (benediction), I told everyone that the the tomb was not our final place of pilgrimage - our final pilgrimage is one that doesn't end until Christ returns or takes us home: our individual path away from the empty tomb, into the world. Picture - light shining out of the empty tomb of Lazarus, traditional site, in the West Bank village of Bethsaida.
I invited the team to bless one another based upon sites we had visited. It was beautiful to receive the prayers of everyone for us to live out the faithful responses or results we learned about at each site (example: like the woman at the well, when Jesus points out our sin may we be quick to repent and joyful to tell our friends about such a wonderful forgiving LORD).
My favorite memory is the privilege of baptizing my friend Teresa Sharp in the Jordan river, where John the Baptist baptized Jesus, then the rest of us 'remembered our baptism' by making the sign of the cross on our foreheads with the water and remembering who God says we are because of Christ-in-us: 'Behold my beloved son (or daughter), in whom I am well-pleased" were God's words at Jesus' baptism. It was 107.6 degrees.
I've written little to you about the safety situation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A few quick snippets - at Teresa's baptism, notice the other bank in the above photo, that's Israel's border with Jordan (the country) and is highly militarized. We were told strongly NOT to touch the rail that separates the sides of the river. As we got close to the river, signs said 'don't leave the road, mine fields all around,' and soldiers were in bunkers, including soldiers with machines guns on both sides of the river. As I baptized Terersa, a man on the Jordanian side made the sign of the cross toward us as a friendly gesture. Picture: Israeli soldiers with Teresa Sharp just before her baptism.
We moved between sites in Israel and the West Bank sometimes several times daily with no problems because of the clearance of our leaders. We met a number of Palestinian Christians (many of us did not know they existed) who deepened and nuanced our previous understanding of the conflict, including: Picture: Christian young man at Bethlehem Bible College (Bethlehem is in the West Bank) who was an atheist in Gaza when the grace of Jesus found him, now studying for ministry.
Picture: Dr. Salim Munayer (professor at Bethelehem Bible College and Fuller Seminary) gave us a lecture on the conflict, unhelpful barriers to lasting solutions, and Biblical practices of reconciliation that give hope. He has founded an organization for reconciliation that, among other things, takes 12 Israeli youth and 12 Palestinian youth into the desert on camels for a week. He asked us for volunteers to help with these and other camps (Davidson students? any others interested? check here Musalaha) His most recent book is "Through My Enemy's Eyes: Envisioning Reconciliation in Israel-Palestine." I am inviting the president of his college to speak at Lake Forest sometime when he is in the U.S.
On Wednesday evening Nov 19 @ 7 pm I will be giving a focused lecture and presentation based out of this trip: "How Geography Assists Biblical Understanding." It will include some yummy Middle Eastern food, so I'd love to see you there.
In the meantime, I am glad to be home and EXCITED to teach God's Word this Sunday at LFC-Huntersville! I may lift right out of my shoes for real this time, as I teach on worship and the Psalms, asking the question "How to live a Centered Life?"
