The Big Picture

Our first day began at about 8:00 in the morning with an ascent to the Old City of Jerusalem by car. Our first stop was an overlook near the top, overlooking the Old City. This area is enclosed by the great wall built by the Ottoman Turkish sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent. It includes the temple mount where Solomon’s temple laid and now the Muslim mosque, the Dome of the Rock, which is topped with a spectacular gold dome that glistened in the morning sun as we looked on.
After rubbing my eyes to ensure I wasn’t waking from a dream, I began to try and drink in this scene and all the history contained within and just outside its walls. The idea was that we would first take in the big picture of these important sites and then look at them in detail within the days to come. Our overview was like fanning through the pages of a book….much of which we saw from a panoramic view atop the Mount of Olives. Scanning the horizon as we stood on the Mount Olives where Jesus prayed, was arrested, and then taken to be tried and crucified, we saw the Old City, the pinnacle of the temple mount where Satan taunted Jesus to throw himself off, the Dome of the Rock, the city of David, Mount Zion, Nehemiah’s wall, the Judean desert where Jesus was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights, and the building where the upper room may have been where the last supper and Pentecost may have taken place.Suddenly all the events I had read about in the Bible seemed to connect and find there place in a community. All of the biblical accounts of these events took place in a city that was probably only several miles across and had approximately 100,000 people. It was a community where Jesus interacted with all types of people in many different places. It was a place where Jesus walked, taught, worked, shopped and laughed. It was a place where Jesus didn’t just live amongst the people but loved them by bringing healing to the sick, restoring sight to the blind, giving mobility to the lame, hope for the hopeless and value and love to the dejected. It was the place where the God man who at the same time upheld the world by the power of his word, loved with all of the same earthly emotions we experience. Jerusalem represented the culmination of Jesus’ ministry and the fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption planned before the foundations of the world were created. Jerusalem was Jesus’ friend, his family, his home.

Shalom,
Lisa