Walking Where Jesus Walked: Palm Sunday

Morning broke over the Holy Land and blue skies were everywhere.  How could it be otherwise?  It was Palm Sunday and our tour group was ready to go to the Mount of Olives for the event of a lifetime: taking part in the Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem.  The weather did not disappoint and neither did the procession.  Palm Sunday in Jerusalem was everything that we thought it could be and more!

We needed to get there early because of the sheer number of people taking part.  There was no possible way to tell how big that number was, but it was a lot!  We weren't the first ones getting ready - others had already shown up.  For us, the route began at the Church at Bethpage on the Mount of Olives.  It would mirror the route that Jesus had taken nearly 2000 years ago.  That would be impossible today because of the many houses and streets that have been built up since then.  The route would take the procession down the Mount of Olives past the Garden of Gethsemane and up into the Old City of Jerusalem, stopping finally at St. Anne's Church.  Our tour guide told us we would be bowing out after half of that journey.  Turns out, that was great news!  


As the 2:30 p.m. start time grew closer, more and more people began to show up.  There were people from so many nations - Germany, Africa, Asia, America, Israel - just to name a few.  Many came dressed with the same colors to identify themselves (we wore our lime green baggage straps with pride - they also helped to keep us together!)  Many brought musical instruments - guitars, drums, singers.  Many had palm branches and if they didn't have one, the local Israeli boys were only to happy to sell them one - never mind that it was a torn off branch from an olive tree.

Many of us had never seen anything like this.  Once the procession began, we waited for the first few "official groups" to pass by - boy scouts, girls scouts and other local groups.  Then we joined the procession.  We held tightly to each other, weaving our way through the procession like a religious conga line.  In front of us a delegation from Germany was singing "10,000 Reasons" in German - we sang it in English.  Halfway up the first hill, a group from Africa had moved in behind us and provided some very cool music for us to sing along with and dance to (if we felt like dancing).  You can hear them in this video we posted on our church YouTube site.  Palm branches were waving everywhere.  Every so often we would see an Israeli police officer or an Army soldier or two - we felt very safe in that wonderful, chaotic moment.

People were so nice all along the way - it was as though any differences that might exist between countries or nations or religions just fell away.  Everyone was there for one reason: to celebrate the King of kings!

I'm not certain that the full impact of what we experienced has set in yet.  We were all exhausted, but in a good way.  Still weary from the procession, we sat in restful silence in our bus ride back to the hotel.  Through the help of our tour guide, Moshe, we were able to upload a couple of videos for the First UMC worship service - I heard that everything went well.

We leave Israel tomorrow - one final stop at the Garden Tomb and then Erin and I travel to Tel Aviv ahead of the rest of the group as we return to Rome.  It's been an amazing trip - one that I would recommend to anyone in the future (Vicki is planning another tour in 2020 - put it on your prayer calendar as you consider what it might be like to be transformed!)  One comment shared by one of our group was especially meaningful - I'm paraphrasing "All the things that all the ministers have tried to teach me all make sense now.  It's been better than any Bible study I could have taken."

More to come as I put my weary feet up and get some rest.  I appreciate your willingness to travel with me these past few days and your prayerful support as we walked in the places where Jesus walked.