Jerusalem and Bethlehem

We had our second day in Israel today, this time in the central part of the country as we visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Our first stop of the day was the Mount of Olives where we had a beautiful view of the Temple Mount area, dominated by the Dome of the Rock from across the brook of Kidron. As you can see we had a beautiful clear day. You could see the entire Old City from here. It was hard to stop taking pictures as the view was so spectacular.

Next we drove down into the Kidron Valley to visit the Garden of Gethsemane. While very impressive to be in this garden, the formal nature of it, with stone paths and evenly spaced, ancient olive trees did not leave me with a strong feeling of this being a place where Jesus visited.

Next door is the Church of the Agony which contains the place where Jesus prayed the night before He was crucified. The front of this church was very impressive, with the four pillars topped by statues of the four Gospel writers, each holding an open book to their passage of this event' and topped by a beautiful mural.

After this we headed into the Old City of Jerusalem. to see the Temple Mount close up as well as visit the Wailing Wall. I prayed Psalms 46 and 95 at the wall. The women's side is much smaller than the mens' side, yet had about as many people. Mary said it was 3-4 people deep so she, unfortunately, could not get very close to the wall.

Next up, we continued our walk across the Old City by walking up the Via Dolorosa, the path where Jesus walked to his crucifixion. As with the Garden of Gethsemane, the tightly packed vendors calling out for your business made it hard to visualize the significance of walking this path.

We took the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which contains the site of Jesus' crucifixion as well as His tomb. It's a little hard to believe that they have the exact spot of His crucifixion, down to preserving the hole the cross made in the ground, but that's the claim. People were also venerating a rock slab where His body was supposedly laid to be prepared for burial. After this we headed out the Joppa gate for a bus ride to a buffet lunch in a kibbutz and on to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is in Palestinian controlled territory so we had to pass through a double checkpoint and through "the wall" (which is a result of the 1994 peace accord) to see it. That was kinda eerie - like passing into another country. The "wall" came about to stop suicide bombers who were targeting civilians in supermarkets and pubic areas. It's a 12-15 foot high cement wall that marks the border of Palestinian controlled territory. According to our guide, once it was finished in 2003, all suicide bombings have stopped so it has been effective.

We only had one stop in Bethlehem, at the Church of the Nativity. I found it quite humorous that there are actually three churches on this site. A Greek Orthodox that sits on top of the famous grotto is in the middle, with a Roman Catholic church on one side and an Anglican church on the other. Due to a pending worship service, we were not able to visit the actual grotto, but we were able to visit the another part of the same cave under the Roman Catholic church. That area had several smaller rooms carved out, one of which commemorated the Blood of the Innocents. The Greek Orthodox church is also the oldest church in the Middle East since it was not destroyed in the 6th century along with the other churches since it contained an image of the three wise men.

That brought today to a close. On to Egypt and the Pyramids tomorrow!