Walking Where Jesus Walked
“I walked today where Jesus walked … Bethlehem … Galilee … Mount of Olives … I knelt today where Jesus knelt … Gethsemane … with Him by my side, I climbed the Hill of Calvary … I walked today where Jesus walked, and felt Him close to me.”
Somewhere in my childhood, I’d heard the lyrics of this classic Bill Gaither hymn. But I’d forgotten them until I had the privilege of participating this spring as journalist and team member of BCM International’s second Holy Land Tour. On March 28, 2011, a group of thirty-three from across the USA and Canada boarded a plane in Newark, NJ, to fly to Tel Aviv, Israel. Giving leadership were BCM president Dr. Martin Windle, BCM International Representative Dr. Bob Evans, and well-known authority on biblical history, archeology and Hebrew, Dr. Homer Heater, president emeritus of Washington Bible College/Capital Bible Seminary.
For twelve days we toured Israel from Caesarea on its eastern seacoast to the Jordan River along its western border, from the Golan Heights and ancient city of Dan in the north to Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat on the Red Sea, crossing the border there into Jordan to visit Petra. We saw Megiddo, stood atop Mount Carmel, sailed the Sea of Galilee, visited the fortress of Masada and Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. For four days, we explored the sights, sounds, and smells of Jerusalem where Christ spent His final days. We prayed at Gethsemane and broke bread of Communion at the Garden Tomb.
Though I’d traveled in 30+ countries on five continents, this was my first trip to the Holy Land, an experience I’d never expected to enjoy in this lifetime. In truth, I never really considered that walking the physical setting of my Savior’s earthly life would make much difference. After all, I had my Bible, a lifetime of flannelgraph lessons and a vivid imagination. I could visualize well enough.
Of course I couldn’t. Those who told me before this trip that I’d never truly be able to describe it to others, that they in turn must see for themselves, were right. But I can say conclusively that a personal encounter with the Holy Land permanently changes one’s perspective on Scripture, prophecy, even politics. As my team members would agree.
View of Mount Carmel
Lin shares, “I’m a visual learner. Now when I read the Bible, I have a sense of the entire country of Israel, how close things are to each other, how small the space is in which so much happened.”
Diane adds: “It’s brought history to life for me. I’ve always hated studying history, but this is living history, HIS-story.”
Pennsylvania resident Inge Sabo who has taught BCM Bible Clubs for decades, sums up: “This trip has been the ultimate Bible Club Lesson, an incomparable object lesson never to be forgotten. I hope to share my new understanding of Scripture with those I come in contact with, and by His grace bring someone to the saving knowledge of Christ.”
Words don’t exist to communicate twelve incredible days. But here are a few tour high points:
Israel: Such a small country for its rich and tumultuous history! Smaller than the state of New Jersey, only 424 kilometers (263 miles) from north to south, averaging less than 50 miles wide. With more than half its land area a waterless desert, Israel is only a diminutive blot on a map of the Middle East. Why did God choose such a tiny backwater, instead of the mighty Roman, Babylonian, Persian, Greek empires, in which to step into human history? Perhaps because within the microcosm of such a small nation, one single Life walking its dusty paths, speaking and healing in its small villages and towns, turning upside-down its social, political, and religious structure, could have a far greater impact than in an empire’s capital… A life-changing impact that would multiply until a small nation’s borders could no longer contain it, and the world as we knew it would be changed forever.
Sea of Galilee: It sits in a basin 700 feet below sea level, lush, green hillsides rising steeply from its banks to create a natural amphitheater. So when Jesus “went up on a mountainside and sat down’’ (Matthew 5:1), fishermen, villagers, and farmers all around the lake could see crowds gathered up on the slope and hurry around on foot or boat to hear Jesus preach and bring their sick to be healed.
The Dead Sea: Okay, floating in the Dead Sea truly is indescribable. The closest comparison is being a multi-limbed beach ball.
Jerusalem: Driving up from the desolate wasteland of the Negev and Sinai peninsula into the forest-clad peaks, ridges, and valleys across which modern Jerusalem now sprawls, I grasped for the first time how beautiful this land must have appeared to the tribes of Israel after forty years of wilderness wandering. The ruins of David’s original walled city still climb steeply up the flank of Mount Moriah (Zion) with remaining stones from the Temple crowning its summit. Now I understand the Psalms when they speak of “let us go UP to the house of the Lord.”
Mount Carmel: I’d always pictured a mountaintop, not a high tabletop mesa rising in the middle of Jezreel’s vast, flat plain. Meaning that when Elijah faced off with King Ahab and 400 priests of Baal, his companions on Mount Carmel weren’t the only spectators. Towns and villages across northern Israel would have witnessed that lightning bolt with which Yahweh proclaimed victory over Baal.
Mount of Olives: This favorite retreat for Jesus and His disciples offers a spectacular view of the Temple Mount, all Jerusalem, the plains of Judah, Samaria’s hills, and even beyond Israel’s borders. Suddenly Jesus weeping there over the city of Jerusalem, then later telling His disciples from that same vantage point to take His gospel to “Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” has a much richer meaning. And why Christ would choose this beautiful spot for His return to earth (Zechariah 14:4) makes total sense.
Garden of Gethsemane
Gethsemane: The olive grove where Jesus prayed His last night on earth is now hemmed in by modern Jerusalem, its walkways crowded with tourists. But a few ancient, gnarled boughs still bear witness to the Son of God laying down his own will to take upon Himself the cross. Team member Don was deeply impacted by Gethsemane:
“I thought of the agony Christ went through. Not just the physical agony, but the agony of taking on my sin, humanity’s sin. This is why He prayed, ‘Let this cup pass from me.’ But He loved us enough to take our sin upon himself.”
Place of the Skull (Gordon’s Calvary)
The Garden Tomb: Is it the actual tomb where Jesus lay? If we can’t really know this side of heaven, it certainly fits the description. As Corrie Evans shared, “What matters is that the tomb was empty, because Christ is risen indeed!”
BCM’s Holy Land Tour did not focus only on the past.
The modern state of Israel is as fascinating as its ancient ruins. Nineteenth century travelers to Palestine, a province then of the Ottoman Empire, uniformly describe a desolate and deforested wasteland. As a child, I’d read of reforestation projects and reclamation of wastelands pioneered by the returning Jewish aliyah in decades prior and following Israel’s independence in 1948. So I was personally curious to see how those projects had developed.
The sheer extent of change was unexpected. Thick forests of pines, oaks, eucalyptus, olive orchards, and fruit-bearing trees cloaked every mountainside. Flat plains that had been swamps a century ago are now filled with wheat, barley, vineyards. Ledges carved up cliff-sides were planted with rosemary, sage, mint, and other herbs. Even in deep desert, we drove past kilometer after kilometer of tall date plantations and greenhouses made possible by drip irrigation, salt water desalination, and other cutting edge hydro-technology.
The Garden Tomb
“The Bible promises that Israel’s deserts will become fertile fields (Isaiah 32:15),” comments team member Pam. “Driving past all those date palms, greenhouses exporting flowers and vegetables all over Europe, we were witnessing those Scriptures coming true.”
Perhaps a bigger surprise was the lack of tension and invisibility of security measures our group encountered. Passing from Israeli territory into the West Bank was a pause at a highway intersection. The Arab neighborhoods of Ramallah overlooking our Jerusalem hotel were no less prosperous-looking or accessible than those on the Israeli side. We saw far more Israel Defense Force (IDF) recruits on educational tours at biblical sites than on duty.
Yet Israel is so small that we stood at times on hillsides where we could see at once into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, a reminder that the country is ringed by enemies that seek its annihilation. While we were there, a missile from Gaza blew up a school bus in another part of Israel from where we’d traveled. An Arab-Jewish spokesman whose first-century virtual reconstruction of the Temple we’d just watched was murdered by Islamic extremists for teaching peace to Arab school children.
A reminder of this world’s only true Source of peace. We were privileged to visit Bethlehem Bible College. A prosperous West Bank city under control of the Palestinian Authority, Bethlehem today bears no resemblance to any Christmas pageantry. But sharing with present-day followers of Yeshua Messiah who carrying Good News to the land of Christ’s birth proved far more inspiring than exploring the medieval Church of the Nativity.
What made this Holy Land tour different than others?
Team member Dan sums up what so many tour participants have expressed, “A common love in Jesus Christ is a sense of community I’ve never experienced while traveling before.”
Earl adds, “I’ve been on other such trips. This has been so different because we’ve eaten, talked, fellowshipped together in that mutual bond we have in Jesus Christ.”
Nor was BCM’s 2011 Holy Land Tour only about enjoying each other. As Elliot shared, “We’re ambassadors for Christ wherever we are. While in Israel, we talked with IDF recruits. I shared with one woman who was deeply afraid for her future. Every time we make contact (with guides, hotel personnel, local citizens), we are encouraging them by our own behavior, either toward Christ or away from Christ.”
Did I personally come back from Israel changed forever? I couldn’t really say. But impacted profoundly? A definite yes. I will never read Scripture in the same way. I will never hear the news in quite the same way. I come back with at least some small understanding of the passionate love and pride Israelis have for the soil they’ve reclaimed. The complexity of this small nation’s problems and place in world history and politics. The impossibility of true solutions until hearts are changed on both sides and brought into reconciliation, Jew and Gentile, through the love of Yeshua Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Above all, I come back with a fresh burden on my heart to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May the peace of God transform the hearts of its inhabitants. May the sheltering arms of El Shaddai protect its neighborhoods from enemies. May the day come soon when it will truly be what it was meant to be, but has yet been in its history: a place of peace, of worship, and a light to all the nations of the earth.
