Going [Back?] to The Holy Land

I cannot, of course, presume to speak for others who have gone to The Holy Land. However, speaking for myself, I must say that my first trip to The Holy Land has been a profoundly impacting experience. This has been so on many levels. Before I go let me explain that I am using the phrase The Holy Land to refer to this geographical area where at least most of the events of the Gospels took place to avoid some of the religious and political divisiveness that might occur if I refer to it only as Israel or only as Palestine, let alone begin to use both terms. That is because what is now known as Israel only covers a part of that territory. Likewise, what is known as Palestine does not constitute the whole area referred to. Of course, there are many who would not even refer to Palestine as a state, but that begins to lead to the discussions that I want to avoid, as they are not germane to what I am writing about here.

The most basic level that I would describe, would simply be the sense that one has now been on the earth in the same places where so many characters one has learned about since childhood spent their lives. So many stories that one was told took place here. Most important, of course, is that this was a spot of geography to which God chose for his son Jesus, the Christ, to come to live, die and be resurrected. Reading and studying the scriptures will never be the same. There is ever that sense in one's mind that one can identify with where what one is reading about took place. There is in some indescribable way a new depth to what one reads in the Bible.

At the same time, it did not really take long for the sense to grow that this is a place I want to return to. Some of that is because the first trip only opened up many more areas of unanswered questions related to the recent history and experience of those who live in this land between The Mediterranean Sea and of the Jordan River, questions that can best be answered by going to more places and meeting more people than we did on our first eight-day trip.

However, it goes deeper than that. I am not sure what those of our tour members who have been there multiple times would say about why they have returned, but besides what I said above, I think it has something to do with the basic sense that this is where much if not all of God's history has its focus. I don't know about all of those prophecies that are being interpreted by some to suggest that events such as the establishment of the State of Israel mean the end of this era and Christ's Second Coming are more imminent than ever. Jesus himself told us not to worry about these sorts of things but to carry on with our lives, watching and waiting. When he was on this earth, he said he himself did not know, only The Father. He specifically warned about many who would make predictions about his return that would prove false.

But I think my feelings and thoughts about going to The Holy Land are echoed in prophetic passages from the Old Testament scriptures like Zechariah 8:23: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: in those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’" Or, Isaiah 2:3: "Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Finally: Isaiah 55:5 “See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, for he has glorified you."

The only missing part(s) here yet are that with all that is going on between the Israelis and Palestinians, one does not yet see that God can be with the Israelis with the way they ignore repeated passages from their own scriptures and lessons they were to learn from their own history in how they treat the Palestinians, so I am not sure we can learn much from the Jews there yet. We are certainly not, for the most part, at the point where we can 'grasp the cloak of a Jew, ' at least not most of them, and expect to go there and get lessons in how to live as God's people.  However, it will come. In God’s time. To be sure, He is also working with and through those Jews who want justice done and human rights respected, but they are still only a prophetic minority in their own state. Now, if anything, we see God at work with the Christians there who are mostly Palestinians, and that is where we need to be. We must ever be working where God is at work.

10 Things about the Holy Land You Probably Did Not Know

Having just returned from an extensive 8-day learning tour of The Holy Land, I thought I would share with you the following:

1.    The Holy Land is comprised of two nations: Israel and Palestine. To be sure, Israel and its number one ally, the US, do not recognize Palestine as a state, but almost every other nation in the world does.

2.     The Christian Church has been present in The Holy Land since the time of The New Testament and is still very much alive there. And some of you thought it was all Jewish or Muslim.

3.   We have The Christian Church to thank for sparing the so-called holy sites, some of which are in Israel (e.g. Jerusalem and in Nazareth) and some of which are in Palestine (e.g., Bethlehem).

4.  Ramallah, the seat of government in, and Bethlehem, also in The West Bank of Palestine, have Christian mayors by law, as established by former PLO leader, Yassir Arafat.

5.     Buildings in Palestine or Palestinian areas of Israel can be distinguished by large black water tanks on their roof. This is because Israel controls the water in The Holy Land and only turns it on for Palestinians several hours a day, often beginning at 4 AM. This causes sleep problems for many Palestinian mothers who get up at that hour to do the laundry before the workday begins.

6.    The Palestinians, Jews and Christians who lived in The Holy Land since the time of Jesus coexisted peaceably for the most part until the formation of the nation of Israel in 1948.

7.     The Christian churches you see in The Holy Land today only date back to the fourth century AD/CE at the earliest.

8.   Against the wishes of Britain, who was in control of The Holy Land at the time, and the United Nations, Israeli terrorists at the time of the founding of the state of Israel, evicted the residents of over 500 Palestinian towns and villages from their homes, often at gunpoint. Despite promises given at the time, none have been allowed back home since then - 1948.

9.    There are still a number of refugee camps to house these Palestinians, e.g., in Jerusalem itself, and Bethlehem (three in that area), with all the limitations that refugee camps have with infrastructure and resources (i.e., not connected to the hydroelectric or water and sewer networks that surround them), run by the United Nations in The Holy Land, in which Palestinians have lived since 1948 when they were expelled from their homes by Israel. Some are large enough to qualify as cities in their own right.

10.  On the other hand, since 1967, when Israel took over control, i.e. “occupied” Palestinian territory, over 500 Jewish communities have been established illegally, according to international law, on these occupied territories. These are often referred to as "settlements," which for many may suggest small pioneer-type communities, when in fact many qualify size-wise as cities in their own right and have all the infrastructure and benefits of any modern city, including a network of obviously illegally built highways connecting them, which are often entirely off-limits to Palestinians, or at least only open with severe restrictions, as in “checkpoints.”