Happy Palm Sunday!  We came home last weekend after spending a week in Israel.  JJ and I had been talking about taking this trip for several years and are blessed that we were able to go this year.  Several of my friends have been asking for pictures, so since I am finally recovering from jetlag over the last day or so (I didn’t think it would take me a full week to readjust to the 8 hour time difference), today is a great day to begin sharing some of my pictures and experiences.  The timing of our trip is ideal since we literally were walking the Palm Sunday road a little over a week ago, which gives me an entirely new perspective on remembering the Passion Week this year.

Here we are at the top of the Mount of Olives, which is covered with graves of people who want to be first in line when Jesus comes back.  When the graves are visited, the visitors leave stones instead of flowers since stones do not wither and die, but leave a constant reminder of the visit.  Some of the graves have piles of stones on them and some only a few.  Someone asked our guide, Erez, (who was AMAZING – an Israeli born Messianic Jew who has been giving tours for the past 23 years.  He was a wealth of knowledge of history, scripture, and architecture) what is required to be buried on the Mount of Olives today and his tongue-in-cheek answer was “money.”  The grave of the prophet Samuel is there, which was present before the time of Jesus, which just amazes me.

The Palm Sunday road starts at the top of the Mount of Olives.  The road is now paved, but I can imagine what it would have been like as a dirt road.  The road is very steep and windy and must have been a slow ride for Jesus on the donkey, due to the angle as well as the crowd of people that would have been on each side.  As I walked down the hill, I wondered what kind of thoughts Jesus had as he entered the city – I’m guessing a combination of sadness, anticipation and I’m tempted to even add some joy regarding the fulfillment of his purpose to eliminate the division between God and man.  Pastor Stephen reminded us this morning that when a king entered a city that he intended to conquer, he rode in on a stallion, but when he entered his own city or a city that was ruled by a friend or ally, the king would ride in a donkey to signify that he came in peace.

The Garden of Gethsemane is at the bottom of the hill, a highway now runs through the middle of the Kidron Valley, and the Beautiful Gate into the old city is at the top of the Kidron Valley opposite the Mount of Olives.  I had previously imagined that the Kidron Valley would be a much larger, deeper valley, but everything is very compact in Israel.

Standing in the Garden of Gethsemane was a solemn experience for me to think about the mental anguish that Jesus went through as he prayed 3 times to ask if there was some way out of what he knew what was coming, yet yielding to the Father’s will each time.  The tree above is estimated to be 2000 years old and may very well have been present during Jesus’ time.

The day that we went to visit the Nazareth Village, our tour guide for the day, Caroline (I ran into UNC reminders three different times during our trip), showed us an olive press and told us about the process involved to extract olive oil.  The olives are first crushed by a millstone (which was much larger and heavier than I would have expected – now I understand why throwing a millstone over the wall of a city could kill several people at once) into a paste, which is then transferred into mesh baskets.

The first pressing (producing extra virgin olive oil) was collected with only the pressure of the olives in the baskets.  This oil, the first fruits, was sent to the temple for anointing and prayer.  The second pressing (producing virgin olive oil), was collected with half of the weight of the olive press applied to the baskets.  This oil was used for cooking and healing.  The third pressing (producing olive oil), was collected after the full weight of the olive press was applied and this oil was used to light their lamps.

Caroline told us something very interesting after that – I thought that the residuals would simply be discarded, but she said that what was left over was used to start fires.  I find it interesting that after Jesus prayed/was pressed 3 times and eventually gave his life, that the Holy Spirit came (as Jesus told the disciples that it was good for them for Him to go, as the comforter would come after his departure) as tongues of fire.  I’m certainly not saying that the Holy Spirit is a left over, but there is purpose in everything Jesus did from start to finish.

More pictures and memories to come.  Here is a picture of Erez, our tour guide.  If you go to Israel (highly recommended!), look him up.  Most of our group was from Texas, so I had to get a picture on the day he wore his Texas shirt.  🙂