The Mount of Olives, the rise in elevation just to the east of the city, is where many famous Biblical events, including the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday), the Betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Ascension, are supposed to have happened. Various churches on the hill remember the different events. One church in particular, the Dominus Flevit, remembers when Jesus wept (Luke 19:41) as he entered the city before Palm Sunday. ("Dominus Flevit" literally means "God wept.") As such, the church is gorgeously built in the shape of a teardrop. In this video, we sing "Amazing Grace" while looking out a famous vista of the Dome of the Rock through the glass window at the front of the Dominus Flevit. A fitting song for the place that remembers where Jesus wept a week before he sacrificed himself, no? We've been singing worship songs in many of the places we've been going. The view and the experience is unreal.
What a powerful image -- the image of our God weeping over the brokenness of creation and the fate of the city as he enters what he knows will be his final week before saving the world. This recalls 2 Samuel 15, in which David weeps on the Mount of Olives as he leaves Jerusalem in the vile hands of Absalom. Here we see the contrast: David weeping over the city as he leaves, and Jesus weeping over the city in the same spot 1,000 years later, but as he approaches. We didn't go as far as analyzing what that means, but might I suggest that here Christ has come to transform; Christ has come as one who approaches, as one who is the Worthy Lamb, as one who gives his body for the sake of humanity. David fled when the city was in the hands of evil (a very noble deed considering the larger Davidic story, which I will not go into now); Christ approached. While David's flight was a smart move, the fact is that he is human; his flight was, in a sense, inevitable, for Christ is the only Redeemer.
When you stand on the Mount of Olives and look to the west, you see the city of Jerusalem. If you look to the east, the terrain quickly transforms into the Judean wilderness. Without skipping a beat, Jesus could have fled from the soldiers in Gethsemane. He would have been in the wilderness (the "shadow of death"?) in a very short time, where no one would pursue him. But he chose to stay. Our God chose to approach the city, descend into the Kidron and up to the Eastern Hill, for the sake of our sins - praise be to Him. What love is this?
The western slope of the Mount of Olives is covered in graves, a cemetery because the soil is unfit for the living to take residence there. Instead of flowers, families put rocks on the graves to honor their loved ones. The rocks in the foreground are on top of a grave; Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock stand mightily in the background.
A threshing floor next to the fields of Bethlehem like the one in the Ruth/Boaz story in the book of Ruth (see Ruth 3:6). Wheat threshing floors are huge - large enough for multiple parties to sleep next to their wheat in order to protect it over night (ahem, Boaz, ahem).
Jumping off ruins of columns at the Herodion, Herod the Great's ancient "pleasure palace" just outside of Jerusalem! Herod was obsessed with himself, along with Roman and Egyptian architecture.
After having been to the Herodion and seeing the grandeur that a man built to honor himself and seek his own pleasure, we traveled to Bethlehem. There, we talked with a Palestinian Christian (amazing man) and went on to the Church of the Nativity, where tradition says stands in the place where Christ was born. We see here the humbleness of the cave-home in which Jesus was most likely born. As another student reflected tonight, am I imitating Herod, building temples to myself, or am I imitating Christ, clothed in humility?
A beautiful example of all generations coming to worship in the Church of the Nativity.
Christ is all,
Philip
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