Thanks to the generosity of Lord Carey of Clifton and  the trustees of Tantur,  I have just returned from an amazing two weeks in the Holy Land. The journey  from Ben Gurion airport to Jerusalem is only 40 miles but is a steady climb until the city is reached some 2400 feet above sea level. Jerusalem means ‘City of Peace’ yet it has a long history of fighting and destruction. In its 4000 years of existence it has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. Now the old city and the new live side by side revealing its complex history.

For a first time visitor this evokes much  excitement as you explore the very  places where Jesus lived out parts of his ministry. Events and contexts unfold before your very eyes. Are these the steps that Jesus mounted when he entered the temple mount? Is this the route Christ carried the cross, the Via Delarosa, with its narrow and twisting steps, the pushing and shoving of the people tightly packed into those narrow alleys? Is this the cell where he spent an agonizing night after the questioning of Caiaphas? The place of the skull for his final agony? And the tomb; was this his final resting place? 

All this rest with the burnt out buses in the Palestinian quarter where a suicide bomber blew himself up with other passengers just wanting to get home after a busy day. The Israeli soldiers armed with their guns and riot gear, patrolling the streets ready for action. The closed off Armenian quarters, protection from what? The wall separating part of the city, and the tension in the air like a finely tuned violin. Is this the Holy Land? The land of so much hope and promise.

Tensions prevail amongst the Jews  and the Palestinian

people who call Jerusalem home but for the Christian,

with no rights  or power, life seems very precarious.

 Oppression and persecution second nature. So many

leaving for a better life, a safer place to call home, to

 worship freely and profess their  faith without fear.

Suddenly, like techno colour imagery  there is a

blurring of the centuries; is that the pounding of the

Roman soldiers coming to put down the zealots, or the young Israeli soldiers rushing to the Jewish quarters to prevent a show down between the Ultra Orthodox Jews and some Palestinian teenagers.  Is the pushing and shoving  in   the noise and the heat that same  crowd that shouted crucify, crucify, or the throngs of tourist that now fill the old city? As I sit quietly in the area of the wailing wall are the cries of the people prayers for healing and reconciliation in this troubled land. Have we really moved on over 2000 years later?

Now in the safety of my home and the trappings of comfort around me, it is hard to imagine all that I have seen and heard just a week ago. Time to reflect, pray and seek answers for questions to hard even to understand. Sadly,  I come back to the words of Albert Mosedale

 ‘Jerusalem, city of God, your name proclaims Gods peace, yet ringed with anger, hatred, your tension doesn’t cease. Amazing is this paradox!’

(from Reflections in the Land of Jesus by Albert Mosedale –New Wine Press). Please continue to hold all the people of the Holy land  in your prayers  and reflect upon the reading from Psalm 118:5-6 and be blessed.