Israel Day #8: Love And Peace

Then we explored parts hidden beneath the City of David. Some of us chose to walk through knee high water for a twenty minute trek through Hezekiah’s Tunnel, a thin passage chiseled beneath the city to lead to fresh water at the Pool of Siloam.

We remembered Jesus performing a touching miracle with a man blind from birth. “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” Jesus said. After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing (John 9:5-7, NIV).

Next we visited Yad Va Shem, the Holocaust Museum. For ninety minutes, our tour guide took us through the entire story of possibly the darkest days in our human history. Photos. Images. Recordings so real people. The museum was so terrifyingly moving. There are no words or images to sum up what we witnessed.

As we head into our final day, we move from death into the abundance of eternal life.

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Day 8 – Saturday, March 12 – Notes from Rev. Steve Allen

The Temple Mount- Genesis 22, 2 Chronicles 3-7
Palm Sunday- Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, John 12:12-19
Mt. of Olives- Mark 13:1-8, Matthew 24:1-8
Garden Of Gethsemane- Matthew 26:36-46, Luke 22:39-46
Church of the Holy Sepulchre- Mark 13-15

Today, on our final day, we have two words. Our Hebrew word of the day is shalom, peace. “Peace be with you.” “Rest in peace.” Jerusalem itself means “in the city of peace.” Our second word of the day is agape. Agape is the Greek word for the highest form of love, sacrificial love.

From the beginning of our trip we’ve seen how the covenant between God and people involved sacrifice. Abraham made sacrifices to God to express his devotion. And we’ve seen how the Israelites continued to reconnect with God by making temple sacrifices for many hundreds of years thereafter. However, today we look at the life of Christ who replaced that need for animal sacrifice with his own act of supreme personal sacrifice.

For many years it was through sacrifice, animal sacrifice, a person was brought back into a right relationship with God. Yet through the prophet Micah, God makes cast a new vision of a sacrificial love which brings lasting peace. He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:9, NIV). Our oneness with God is restored through sacrifice, not of animal sacrifice but rather the sacrifice of our will. Jesus himself shows us this new way. He said, “Abba!  Father! You can do anything. Take this cup ⌞of suffering⌟ away from me. But let your will be done rather than mine” (Mark 14;36, GW).” This is sacrificial agape love: “Father, let your will be done rather than mine.”

We will follow the footsteps of Jesus as he shows us what it truly means to agape love. We will take the same walk Jesus took down the Mount of Olives. We’ll stand in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus struggled to make the ultimate sacrifice of love, giving his life for the forgiveness of all. We’ll travel the Via Dolorosa (which means “the way of the cross”) as the drama of that sacrifice unfolded. We’ll go to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, where God’s redeeming love and Christ’s resurrection are vibrantly celebrated.

We will then close our trip with a visit to the Garden Tomb. We will witness with our own eyes the empty tomb which could not hold the resurrected body of the living Christ. In the sacred space of the garden, we will participate in holy communion where we will be given the opportunity to recommit ourselves to a life of agape love when we return home to our ordinary lives.

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“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35, NIV).

…Sue…