Holy Land Pilmgrimage cont
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount
We started the morning going through tight security into the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and down the Rabbis’ Tunnels adjacent to the Western Wall. Trips are usually booked many months in advance and so we were lucky to get a late cancellation. The tunnels under the old part of Herod’s Temple are as close as the Jews are allowed to the most sacred Holy of Holies in the Temple (now controlled by the Muslims). Indeed some believe that the Ark of Covenant is buried somewhere beneath the Temple tantalisingly close, but no further excavation under the Temple Mount can be negotiated at the moment.
We saw several of the original stones that Herod had moved with his army of slaves into place in order to level off 
Mount Moriah and protect the Temple from earthquakes - one was 30ft long and 10ft high – it is unknown how stones that large were quarried or moved into place. We walked on one of the original pavements (far under the present ground level) that Jesus would have walked on as he entered the Temple.
We came out into bright sunshine where many Jews (men separated from women) were fervently praying at the Western Wall and placing prayers on folded slips of paper in the cracks in the wall. After stopping for coffee and a visit to a Christian Bible shop (and a play in the playground for the children) we walked through the narrow streets and Arab bazaars to Christ Church, the first Anglican church in Jerusalem, a simple, light church that started the modern revival of Jerusalem, bringing in stonemasons from Malta who 
inspired the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the early 19th century. They gave us lunch in their coffee shop before some of us went out bartering for goods in the narrow streets of the Suk, while others enjoyed the sun before walking the ancient walled ramparts of the old city.
The Israel Museum and the Holocaust Memorial/the Biblical Zoo
We started out for the Israel Museum, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the massive model of 1st century Jerusalem. The model of the city recreates Jerusalem as it existed before its destruction in the Jewish War of 70AD, based on historical sources such as the Gospels and archaeological discoveries that confirm some of the places mentioned in the Gospel accounts.
We watched a short film about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a Bedouin shepherd boy, and then spent time in the Shrine of the Book looking at the 2000-year-old paper, including the remarkable seven metre long Isaiah scroll.
After lunch the children and the young at heart visited Jerusalem’s biblical zoo, with lions, elephant, rhino, leopards, giraffe, apes and monkeys, birds of all types, snakes and penguins as well as a Noah’s Ark. Meanwhile the adults visited Yad Veshem, a memorial to the Holocaust. The approach is lined with an avenue of 400 trees bearing the names of the “just men” who helped save Jewish lives, most notoriously Oscar Schindler. The museum includes the very personal account of survivors of Hitler’s final solution, and a flame flickers in memory of the millions killed in Nazi concentration camps.
On Friday morning we left a windy and cloudy Jerusalem, but as we started dropping quickly below sea level into the desert the sky cleared and the sun became hot. The wind was warm as we stopped briefly at Ein Gedi, the Spring of David, which is a small oasis with palms and vines in an otherwise barren area. It was then on to Masada, a massive fortress on a rock like a giant ship in the mountainous desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. Herod the Great built it as a great palace with vast storerooms and giant water cisterns, but it is most known for the siege which ended the Jewish uprising of the 1st century AD. The Roman legions laid siege before building an enormous ramp to break down the walls, but when they entered they found that almost 1000 Jews had died at their own hand rather than live as slaves, with only 2 women and 5 children hiding from the self-slaughter. Gruesome lots on shards of clay pots had been drawn for 10 men to kill the rest.
We moved on to a happier lunch spot at the hot desert caves of Qumran. In 1947 a Bedouin boy threw a stone into a cave and found an earthen jar that contained one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We saw the settlement of the Essenes, a strict Jewish sect, who separated from Jerusalem to keep themselves pure in the desert. They copied the Bible onto paper before hiding them in jars which have been kept well preserved by the dry caves for two thousand years.
Then on to the Dead Sea for a swim and a rest on the beach. This is the lowest place on earth some 400m below sea level and many of us floated in its salty water – no splashing allowed as the water stung the eyes and mouth. The youngest 
children did not enjoy the stinging feeling, but many of the adults were invigorated by the experience and slapped on the mud hoping to look young again. The shop did a roaring trade in beauty products!
We finished the day with our usual short act of worship centring around Yehuda's amazing personal testimony of how he suffered permanent paralysis, was healed by what can only be described as a miracle from God, turned to Jesus Christ and brought healing to others.
Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath. The Israelis have been praying for rain and today it rained!
The thunderstorm overnight had not cleared the air and the view over Bethlehem on the hill across the fields from our Kibbutz was dark with rain clouds. The rain and hailstones poured down as we jumped off the bus on the Mount of Olives, a hill just to the east of Jerusalem. We looked down over a sea of Jewish graves and tombs, all crowded across the hillside. It was too wet and cold for the children and so they retreated to the bus to return to spend the morning in the swimming pool and playing games. The more intrepid picked their way carefully down the Palm Sunday route and imagined Jesus riding on a donkey to enter Jerusalem for the last time. The golden onion domes of St Mary Magdalene gleamed in the occasional sunlight and at the foot of the hill was the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and rested before he was arrested. We visited the Church of the Nations nestling in the garden among ancient olive trees, some 2,300 years old.
We dried out in the warm bus before starting on the Via Dolorosa, the traditional route of Jesus’ journey to the cross with its 14 stations. Thunder and lightning exploded overhead as we reached the second station and the narrow cobble streets were turned into rivers. We dashed for cover in the bazaars of the Souk during a torrential downpour of hailstones before arriving at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This contains the likely site of Golgotha with the rocky hill still visible beneath the ornate golden Greek Orthodox altar, and under the great dome is a 19th century chapel containing huge queues of people waiting for a glimpse of Jesus’ tomb. We gathered in the much simpler and bare Syrian chapel with 1st century tombs still in their original state, before heading to a café for a light Falafel lunch and back on the bus to the hotel to dry out and warm up.
The trip finished with the children joining us for a visit to the Garden Tomb, a beautiful garden outside the city wall with a 1st century tomb preserved in exactly the state of Christ’s tomb. It is set next to a cliff that resembles a skull: a garden just like that of Joseph who asked Pilate for the body. The beautiful simplicity of the garden and the bare tomb was far removed from the ornate opulence of the Holy Sepulchre and it was a fitting place to finish our trip to the Holy Land. Back at the hotel we met to break bread and share wine in a simple service to remember what we had just seen and pray, giving thanks for all the experiences we had during the week and particularly for Polly and Yehuda, who had worked so hard to make the pilgrimage so memorable. Then to bed to snatch a few hours sleep before our overnight journey to the airport and home.
Pilgrimage Caption Competition
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The Three Wise Men?
