I wrote this while in Israel, having visited the site of this amazing miracle.  Enjoy!

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When Jesus hath landed saw he that a large crowd hath gathered.  He hath compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  So he began to teach them many things.

Now was the day was far spent, so his disciples cometh to Jesus. "Verily, this is the middle of nowhere and it is getting very late," spake they to him, "Tell the crowd to scarper, so they can grab some nosh from the nearby villages."

Part one of our visit to the Holy Land is over, part two is about to begin as we head to Galilee.

Some of the highlights of our trip so far...

1) The first sight of Bethlehem, that most famous of towns. Wonder at being in this special place, but sad to see the wall snaking around that town.

2) Visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was almost certainly crucified and rose again.  Four of us singing "When I survey the wondrous cross" in the Calvary chapel and our voices filling the church.

Have you ever been told that the Bible is a complete fiction made up of different fairy stories and that it cannot be true?  Does this sound familiar to you? This is something that's been said to me, and to be honest I had no answer, because all the events that are depicted in the Bible took place between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago - and how can you possibly prove any tradition that's that ancient? Well believe it or not, you can.

This morning was harrowing.  We visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum here in Jerusalem, which was something I wasn't looking forward to, I didn't enjoy, but I know it was important for me to visit and to be confronted with the reality that people are capable of doing terrible things to each other. 

Today was an emotional day.  We visited Bethany, where Jesus' friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha lived and where Jesus wept before raising Lazarus from the dead.  We then traced Jesus' steps from the Mount of Olives - where Jesus wept over Jerusalem and prophesied its forthcoming destruction:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.  The days will come on you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.  They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." (Luke 19:41-44)

This was the view we had from this point:



Obviously the view is the same as it was 2,000 years ago, but nevertheless there was something quite breathtaking about the view we had.  It was also profoundly moving to realise that this city that has known so much conflict is still worth weeping over.

We then walked down to the Garden of Gethsemane, where the following happened:

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray."  He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he said to Peter, "are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

In the past couple of days, our group has covered 33 years of Jesus' life.  Yesterday we visited the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (as the Catholics call it) or the Church of the Resurrection (as the Greek Orthodoxes call it) in particular, which marks the place where Jesus almost certainly was crucified, buried and rose again. 

Today we visited the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. 

These two churches had many things in common.  The first is that they have been places of worship and of Christian pilgrimage for many centuries.  In fact, the early church worshipped at the site of the crucifixion (where the Church of the Resurrection is) from as early as thirty years after the death of Jesus.  The second is that both churches are incredibly ornate, especially when they mark the spot of Jesus' birth ...

and his death ...

I hadn't seen pictures of these sites before, so the grandeur took me by surprise.    At first I found it off putting - I would have preferred the sites to be simple and to look like they would have done when it all happened. This would, of course, have been impossible, even if this region hadn't been subject to constant conflict over the padt two millennia - the mere presence of the millions of tourists who have visited these holy places over the centuries would have ensured that the sites were eroded. 

Firstly, I must apologise in advance.  This blog entry has been written at 10am Israeli time, I have had only 20 minutes sleep in the past 24 hours and I have spent the past 12 hours getting here - of which 5 hours were spent waiting around in airports - so I may not be as coherent as I'd wish to be!  But enough of that - the good news is that I, and the rest of the group from theological colleges across the UK (there are around 35 of us), have arrived safely.  We're staying in Tantur Ecumenical Institute.

Have you noticed that the majority of our worship songs are of the "I love Jesus, isn't he great? We just want to bounce up and down with perma-smiles on our faces!" type?  I know this is a sweeping generalisation, but being a worship leader, the majority of the songs I choose for congregational worship are focused on God's goodness, greatness and worthiness (which, of course, we're very happy about all of the time) and on how much we love Jesus and how much we want to serve him all the time.  Even as i write, the band is practising for chapel this evening, singing "My Jesus, my saviour", which proclaims ... "i sing for joy at the work of your hands, forever I love you, forever I'll stand, nothing compares to the promise I have in you."  All of this stuff that we sing - about God and our expression of how much we long to please him - it's all true and I love singing songs to God about how good he is and expressing my awe of him.  But I don't think that it tells the whole story, because all of life is not hunky-dory.  Sometimes it's far from it.

"Three Lions on a shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming
Thirty years of hurt, doesn't stop me dreaming."

Three Lions - Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds

The church below is the one of the two churches where I've been placed for my main placement at St Helen's, Selston and St Mary's, Westwood, where I'll be almost every Sunday until Christmas.



The church serves the twin communities, Jacksdale and Westwood - not even the locals can tell you for certain where one begins and the other one ends! Jacksdale and Westwood are former mining communities, with industries in coal, clay and iron.