Processing Holy Land Tour-2

It was amazing what we saw, where we walked, what we observed, and what we heard. We visited many churches and saw many ruins of ancient cities, buildings and the like.

As I continue to process this trip in my mind and heart I am reminded of two words that we heard quite often by our guide on our tour “tradition says”. Let me give you a couple of examples of where we heard those words. We were leaving the Mount of Olives for Jerusalem and we stopped at a garden and church complex. That was what they called the teardrop church. Tradition says this is where Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem. We traveled on to Gethsemane. There is a large garden of stately old olive trees. A beautiful church was erected in this garden. This church was built around a large rock in the back corner where tradition says that Jesus knelt and prayed at the rock asking the Father to remove this cup of suffering from Him. There were numerous other places where we heard those two words.

Do those words add to or take away from what we saw? They don’t add to because they reveal the uncertainty that this is the exact place where Jesus said this or prayed that. Neither do they take away from the experience. We were certainly in the land and the area and did not have to be at the exact spot to reflect on these many events in the life and ministry of our Savior Jesus Christ. Being so close just made the Scriptures that we read come alive all the more. I did not expect nor desire tradition to come alive but I did expect and desire the Scriptures to come alive. Let the Word of God be alive in you today and always.