April 2, 2008/Wednesday
9:32pm (Jerusalem)
The day started with a wonderful laugh. My mother told me a great story about my daddy. First, it is important to understand how our hotel rooms are laid out. The shower and sink are in a separate room from the toilet. It has a room to itself.
About 5:30am daddy got up to go to the bathroom. He decided to be real quiet so as not to wake up my mother. He stumbled across the dark hotel room. Instead of turning on the light he backed into the bathroom. So, he used his foot to gauge the distance from the door to the toilet. There was a slight problem. He wasn’t in the room with the toilet. He backed in and proceeded to sit down. This is when he fell in the floor. Mother woke up listening to him laughing while sitting in the bathroom floor. That is a great way to start the day.
Since I posted last, we have seen a ton of stuff. We have covered a lot of territory. We arrived in Jerusalem on March 29. There is no way to describe a trip to Israel. We started by touring the rabbinical tunnels. We toured the temple mount area where the big Dome of the Rock is. We went up to the Western Wall. We have been in Bethlehem. We went to Nazareth. There we attended an Arab Christian Church. You name the sight and we have probably seen it. We hiked the Kidron Valley. We walked down the Via Dolorosa. It has been a wonderful journey.
I have to say that the highlight for me was going down into the pit where Jesus was kept the night before his crucifixion. This pit is underneath the place where Caiphas, the high priest is supposed to have lived. Every year I say that this is not going to get to me. I say that simply because I don’t understand why it always does.
I was standing in the pit yesterday. A man from our group, who came with us last year, decided to speak. He began to tell us that he was in a pit of his own when he stood there last year. He continued to speak and say that since last year, God had brought Him out of that pit. As he spoke I was attempting to contain myself. But, the emotion was thick. There I stood with 30 other people in the dark pit where Jesus was kept awaiting His crucifixion. I felt as though I would explode. I remembered a pit of my own.
I was thrown back almost a year and a half ago when Jason Espey and I hiked down into and out of The Grand Canyon. It was there that I realized how deep a hole I had been in. When I reached the top, I knew that I had not just physically climbed out the biggest hole in the world; I had also broke out of a painful time in my life. It is this kind of experience that I feel when I am in this pit where Jesus was.
Yesterday, while standing in that pit once again, the guy sharing his life sang a song called “East from the West” by Casting Crowns. When he began I was fine. It was when I realized what he was singing that I began sense a deep pull on my emotions. He sang about how God has forgiven us. He sang about the reality that my sins and your sins have been taken care of by the sacrifice of Jesus. Crammed in this tiny, deep, dark pit – the words resonated against the stone walls. Emotion rolled over me. Once again, I found myself broken. I was weak.
On Sunday, a guest preacher shared a passage with us. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness,” (II Cor. 12:9). I would love to overlook the fact that I have weaknesses. It just isn’t that easy. I am weak. I have always been weak. If ever I have looked strong, it is the grace of God. In this passage, Paul shares that he has a thorn in his flesh. In other words, he states that he has dealt with an issue all of his life. He had even asked for God to remove it three times. People debate what this thorn was. My thoughts on that are, “Who cares?” It was evidently an awful thing. And before we get to pious, we all have thorns as well.
We are weak and fragile. We pretend that we are strong and tough. We are not. As a matter of fact, our weaknesses are our greatest assets according to Paul. He even boasts in his weakness in this passage. In that pit I was in touch again with the power that comes from weakness.
Today, we went down into the Negev Dessert. Some of the guys and I climbed Masada, about 1,700 feet. It was a tough and hot climb. It felt good though. The view was amazing for the entire climb. The Dead Sea was the back drop. I can’t tell you how beautiful it was.
We ate a place Jericho that has amazing food. I was looking forward to that all year.
We ended the day today by floating in The Dead Sea. I gave myself a mud bath.
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