This is just a small portion of the view, focussing on the Temple Mount. It is on Mount Moriah that Abraham took his son Isaac to be sacrificed, and where God stopped him at the last moment, supplying a ram, caught in a thicket, as the sacrifice. Mount Moriah is where Solomon built the first temple, which was destroyed and rebuilt around 500BC.
In this photo, the eastern and southern sections of the old city wall are visible, just beyond the road which cuts to the picture in two. On the Temple Mount the Moslem shrine to the Prophet Mohammed, called the Golden Dome of the Rock, can be seen.
In the foreground are Jewish tombs on the Mount of Olives.
You may be wondering what the stones on top, the small window and cans are for. Each time the grave is visited a stone is placed on top - flowers would soon wither in the heat. The window is for a lighted candle - maybe the cans contain small candles, like tee-lights.
There are few tress and hardly any olive trees on the Mount of Olives - these were the only two we could see at the top.
This man was offering a 'donkey taxi' down the steep 'Palm Sunday' route to Gethsemane. I was disappointed we were not waving palm branches.
On the night Jesus was betrayed he met with his disciples in an upper room. They shared a Passover Meal together and Jesus explained how he was to become the sacrificial lamb, the meal was remembering. He took the bread and broke it saying "This is my body, broken for each one of you". Then he took the Cup of Redemption at the meal and said "This is my blood, poured out for you." He spoke of what was about to happen, telling them to remember his sacrifice each time they shared the meal from then on. Today, Christians celebrate the meal and call it 'communion', 'breaking bread' or the 'eucharist', depending on their prefered denomination.
The site now regarded as this room is in Mount Zion, directly above where King David's Tomb is located.
This is the exit from the Upper Room. From here Jesus and his disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane - the word means 'olive press'. In those days the Mount of Olives would have been covered with olive orchards, and the fruit would have been brought to Gethsemane for pressing to make olive oil.
Today, visitors cannot enter the garden, but in places you get fairly close to some of the olive trees.
Some of the trees have most unusual trunks, sprouting fruiting branches at odd angles.
Some have enormous trunks and have been dated over 2000 years old. They still produce olives.
Returning to the narrative about Jesus... After he was arrested, tried and sentenced to death, he carried his cross outside the city to a place called Golgotha, the 'Place of the Skull', also called 'Calvary' which means 'bald place', for crucifixion.
It was a quarry where stones for the construction of Herod's Palace and extensions to the city wall were mined. It still retains a skull-like image on its crumbling surface. Today the cliff face overlooks a busy bus station, but can be seen from a viewing platform in the Garden Tomb, close by.
When the Roman soldiers had confirmed that Jesus was dead, his body was taken down and laid in a tomb hewn out of the rock. It is easy to see that this tomb could well have been the place where Jesus was laid. There is so much credible evidence, relating to the tomb and its location, which convinces me.
You enter through a small opening, which has a channel running in front for the sealing stone to be rolled in front. There is a small window, which throws light onto the place where Jesus was laid, although it is still very dark inside.
The place is not a raised platform but a hollow, showing the end for the feet. The head end (behind the wall to the left) has a slightly raised area, as a pillow.
A plan of the tomb helps to make things clearer, with the body laid in section 4.
On the Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead, as he told his disciples, and appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden.
This sign on the door states the angel's declaration to Peter and the other disciples who ran to the tomb to see for themselves.
This is the heart of the Gospel in John chapter 3, verse 16,
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. "
1 comment:
Very beautiful!
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