Walking Where Jesus Walked - Part Five

I'm conflicted about how to share where we visited today and what it all means.  Let me explain: we started off the morning being the first group at Vad Yashem - the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.  We walked through the center and heard stories from the survivors of the World War II event that shook the Jewish people and the world.  It was a deeply moving experience, especially since most of these stories were told by older adults who were just children at the time. 

The most poignant moment of the tour was walking through the Children's Memorial, an underground cavern that takes only five lit candles and through positioning of mirrors transforms them into a starlit sky of 1.5 million lights, each representing each child who was a holocaust victim.  As I walked through the memorial, a calm voice chanted the names of each child.  It will take the voice over seven months to say all of the names of the children who were killed during that horrific time.  So many children.  So many innocents.  So senseless.  So tragic.

That is how we started our day.  Every one of our group was silenced by what we heard - what we saw - what we felt.  While many of us had parents who understood the impact the holocaust made, we could only respond from a distance in years.  It made me feel helpless.  Powerless.  I wanted to help those children, but knew that I wasn't able to.  Vicki Tiede, our tour leader, challenged us to consider speaking out whenever we see injustice in our communities and the world.  Seems like such as small thing to ask when you consider the magnitude of what happened during that terrible era.  Yet such a small thing is sometimes the hardest thing we might ever do. 

After leaving that location, we visited the Israel Museum where a model scale replica of the Old City of Jerusalem was built.  It was an amazing look at what the city possibly looked like right around Jesus' time.  The detail was amazing.  After the short ride from the Holocaust experience to this one, we were forced to move on from the emotional heartbreak to a more neutral position of learning.  We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls and learned how they were preserved, giving authority to God's Holy Word as those documents provide authentication.

Then the focus of the day changed.  We went to a Jerusalem marketplace.  Wow!  What a location.  It was literally bedlam!  There were foods of every kind.  Shops with bakery goods.  Clothing stores and places that sold every kind of nut imaginable.  The people were just as varied.  All shapes - all sizes - all colors - all ages.  Every one (except me) seemed to know exactly where they were going.  The memories of tragedies of long ago began to fade.  Erin and I stopped in a candy store and purchased 12 ($4) shekels worth of various kinds.  Then it was on to Bethlehem and the West Bank, Palestinian occupied territory. 

In some ways, we were reminded of the strife that gripped our imaginations earlier in the day.  We heard that most Palestinians just want to care for their families.  Just like the Israelis who just want to be safe and make sure no one group will ever persecute them again.  We were riding along a narrow road (what am I talking about, all the roads are narrow!) when a car was trying to pass our bus on the left while coming down a hill.  The car didn't see the car ahead and we heard brakes screeching and the sound of metal, plastic and glass in a collision that took place right at the back of our bus.  We looked back and saw the two drivers, getting out so they must have been okay.  I can't believe they were very happy though.

Our last two stops for today were the Church of the Nativity and the Shepherd's Fields.  There were hundreds of people waiting to make the trip down the stairs to see the grotto where Jesus was held by his mother Mary as she placed him in the manger.  This was a very cool place, even though we were there in March.  After about an hour long wait, we were each able to reach down and touch the place where the baby Jesus was laid in the manger. 

A little later we listened to our tour leader share a devotion while we were at Shepherd's Fields - a location believed to be the place where the shepherds were frightened by the angels but left to make the four mile trip to the manger, to see the child who would save the world.  We sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" on that hillside so far away from our homes, our traditions, our families.

I realize many of the children who perished in the Holocaust were Jews, but I have a hope that Jesus was right there with them when their lives were tragically ended at such a young age.  I have this hope because of the covenant the Jews still have through Abraham - "I will be your God and you will be my people" says the Lord. 

The child of Bethlehem has come to give every one hope - children who may have lost hope, marketplace participants who wander about looking for something in life, people who lives collide in momentary crashes, people who are just tending to their own business on the hillsides of their lives.

The Child of Bethlehem gives each one of them (and you and me) a reason to hope.