Jesus' Tomb, Crucifixtion and SO much more!!!

So today being January 5, 2011, it is 9:07 here in Israel and 1:07 in the great US of A. The time thing is still killing all of us. We are all pretty jet legged and it doesn't help that we are walking around for four hours daily, up and down hills. You know how old people always say they had to walk up hill both ways to school and back, well if someone from Israel told me that they would be telling the truth it is full of hills and i will get to that later.


Jan. 4, 2011
Best day of the trip so far, well it was the best because it was like our first day but it was so spiritually and emotionally awesome! I can't believe the things i am seeing over here. My favorite part of the trip so far was going to the Holy Sepulcher. The Holy Sepulcher is a church that is pretty much place around the most significant places of the Christian faith. You walk into the church and the first thing to the right is a staircase that leads up to Golgatha, where Jesus was Crucified! WOW! I haven't been up there yet and i am itching to go, but just knowing that the savior of all men and where it took place was only like 30 feet away is so powerful! Then you go to the right, around a bend and there you see this box like thing with steel gerders and a round like thing sticking out of the top of it. Well this is actually the place where Jesus was buried, they had to put up a holding place around it to secure it from earthquakes and well people that would want to ruin it. So you go stand in a long line and then when it is your turn you come to the first of the two rooms where a piece of the rolling stone is actually placed and you can look at it and touch it. Then you go into the second room and that is the supposed burial place of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who of course isn't there because of his resurrection 3days after burial. I also have not been in this but just standing there knowing that this is where Jesus rose from the dead is so unbelievable it is just amazing! I get goosebumps thinking about this. Then behind that is a room for the Armenian prayer and worship. There is a little shrine in there and off to the left is a whole in the ancient bedrock. This is actually a place where people think Joseph of Aremathea was buried, now this is the guy who went and got Jesus body down and buried Him. I actually went into the tomb and that was really cool! Then we strolled along the rest of the day looking at a bunch of sites in the Old city, like the pools of Bethesda, St. Anne's church, Waling wall and many more things. Another one that stood out to me was the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is the place where Gethsemane is, where Jesus was arrested and betrayed by Judas, and where Jesus is said to be returning. There are graves everywhere along the hills of the Mt. of Olives and mostly Jewish. They believe that when Jesus returns they will be the first to be risen and taken into the Holy City where Jesus will reign. The most interesting part of that is that the Muslims have burial plots all along the Eastern Ridge, which is opposite the Mt. of Olives, where the Old city is, and they believe that by putting their dead there Jesus will have to defile himself and become unclean to get into the Holy City. Very interesting idea by the Muslim culture, just goes to show that there is still fighting but in strategic burial placements.

One more thing i wanted to point out is that the almost shocking thing to me what that with the grave site of Jesus body and the where he was crucified were so close to each other. They were literally within a football field for sure. It was so close. That amazes me. When I read the Bible i have this sense that everything is so far away from each other and i don't realize that Bethlehem is only 5 miles from Jerusalem. Just awesome. Also it is said that the church of the holy Sepulcher can not  be the place of Jesus' death and resurrection because it is inside the city walls but when you look back to the time of Jesus' day Herod's wall of Jerusalem is not including the site of the Holy Sepulcher and in fact when it says that Jesus was taken out of the gate and was crucified, there was a gate built right by the Holy Sepulcher.

So to wrap up yesterday as it were I just wanted to point out that this place is so AWESOME! I wouldn't personally live here but just the idea that Jesus walked in the places I am walking and that my Lord and Savior died and then rose again only a half mile from my living area is just amazing and mind blowing!