Jerusalem

Friday we spent the entire day in Jerusalem. Where to start? There was so much to see and experience and ponder that it is impossible to really describe and even more impossible to fully experience. This is the land where it all comes together in every sense. The old city is divided into quarters between Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians. As you travel through the city you move easily between the different quarters, but it is like stepping from one world right into another. The Jewish Quarter was very peaceful and clean and quiet and well kept. Stepping from there into the Muslim quarter was quite a shock - crowded, noisy, busy, dirty (graffiti everywhere) with vendors everywhere. The Christian quarter was unfortunately more like the Muslim quarter than the Jewish quarter, not very clean and vendors everywhere.

I was thinking about the significance of how old Jerusalem is divided and how three of the world's great religions come together there and thinking about the last days and what will happen there between those religions. In an important way, it's really symbolic the way the city is established.

This is a picture from inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where many believe Jesus was crucified and buried. It was extremely ornate. This is a picture looking up in the great dome above the site of the sepulchre.

This is an arial shot of old Jerusalem from the top of the Luthern Church of the Redeemer with the temple mount in the background. The view from the top is much different than the view from the narrow winding streets below. In the upper left (white building below the grove of trees near the top of the mountain) is the BYU Jerusalem center where Tammy studied for several months before we were married. I had a chance to drive past it, but unfortunately won't get the chance this trip to visit.

One of the most impressive things that I experienced was the Garden of Gethsemane. It's hard to describe the feelings that I felt there so I won't try, but I will just say it was a very nice experience. This is a shot of one of the ancient olive trees in the Garden.

The other really impressive thing for me was what is believed by some to be the place Christ was crucified - Golgotha - the place of the skull. It wasn't so much the site as it was the guide that took us there. He was a Christian from England there serving as a missionary in the Garden Tomb area. While we were sitting in a quiet grove talking about Golgotha, the guide bore a simple and beautiful testimony about his belief in Christ. It was really touching to me.

This is of course the Garden Tomb where many believe Christ was buried and from where he resurrected.

Here's an opposite shot of the temple mount looking down from the top of the Mount of Olives. In the foreground is the vast Jewish cemetary. Jews want to be buried as near to the temple as possible as they believe Christ will come first to that place. The Dome of the Rock is built directly on the temple mount where the temple built by Herod was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.