{"id":85,"date":"2014-10-21T06:55:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T03:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=85"},"modified":"2015-05-02T15:01:28","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T12:01:28","slug":"up-to-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2014\/10\/up-to-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Up to Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0\u00a0Jim and Judy Kutz<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Stained glass window in the Al Aqsa mosque<\/p><\/div>\n

Early this morning we went up to Jerusalem from Bethlehem.\u00a0 There we saw many great wonders that we have heard about since childhood.\u00a0 We saw the strong and ancient stones of walls, buildings, temples, churches, and holy places raised up through rich cultural designs and religious aspirations; layers of them laid down by one civilization after another, usually by violent conquest, and all of them occupiers of the land that native peoples called their home.\u00a0 These natives go back to Jesus\u2019 time, always hiding in the shadows, always dancing to the occupiers\u2019 music, but always practicing their own heritage.\u00a0 What a complex confusion it has turned out to be!\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t get away from droves of wandering, milling, meandering foreigners from the ends of the earth, all filling their eyes and flash cards insatiably.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Pools of Bethesda, Jerusalem<\/p><\/div>\n

Would that all people come to Jerusalem the same way Jesus did when he was twelve years old for the Passover feast (Luke 2); full of masterful spiritual discernment and human wisdom, obviously and intentionally being about God\u2019s business.\u00a0 What if tourists and pilgrims were so?\u00a0 Or the pray-ers in Al Aqsa mosque or in the Holy Sepulchre Church or at the Western Wall, all places we now visit to see if we might unravel the violence\/God\u2019s business puzzle of the present?\u00a0 The question can stretch out starting in Jerusalem to the Knesset, the ISF(Israeli Security Force), the settlers, the West Bank and Gaza and to the end of the earth.\u00a0 What if the high ideals and rhetoric of many nations actually ended up on the ground as justice?<\/p>\n

What if we all cried over Jerusalem as Jesus did and ask longingly and lovingly, \u201cWould that even today you knew the things that make for peace!\u201d (Luke 19).<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>Of course we know the old, old story and the fact that Jesus\u2019 life boiled down to the final word offered by Roman-occupied Jerusalem.\u00a0 Even all that lonely, sweaty praying in Gethsemane didn\u2019t stop the pain and death, nor the controversy over what that one death actually means for humanity.\u00a0 But then many voices through human history, sometimes faintly faithful, sometimes fatally courageous, bear witness to God\u2019s final word stamped on the world in the extreme paradox of cross\/resurrection.<\/p>\n

The paradox is still in play.\u00a0 There is a blight under the dividing walls here, like ugly plastic bags blowing everywhere and no place at the caprice of a haughty wind.\u00a0 But if anything, we\u2019ve been reminded over and over again on this trip of the beautiful, brave hope of those who anchor their lives on resurrection, on unseen, but expected joyful future.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its unmoved ladder<\/p><\/div>\n

Maybe that future was glimpsed through the painfully beautiful colored windows of the Al Aqsa mosque, reminding us that in spite of mindless, hard building material, the light will not be stopped.\u00a0 There it was again at the deep Bethesda pools where a man waited 38 long years for someone to help him into the water when the angel disturbed it (John 5).\u00a0 Jesus came and healed him within 38 seconds, at least that\u2019s how one can imagine it.\u00a0 Could there be such a surprising healing like that now?\u00a0 God knows.\u00a0 \u00a0And again it was there in the amazing acoustics of St. Anne\u2019s church that made us into a choir of professional angelic singers.\u00a0 And so again, maybe even more powerfully, in the reflection time in our single hearts while sitting in a church pew, the still small voice adding to ours and others like us into people of faith\/practice.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s down again from Jerusalem in the cool of the evening to Bethlehem, our last night in the Holy Land Hotel where we broke bread many times over the past week, and maybe remembering Jesus from time to time in the process and what Paul meant by, \u201c\u2026until he comes again\u201d (1Cor. 11).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0\u00a0Jim and Judy Kutz Early this morning we went up to Jerusalem from Bethlehem.\u00a0 There we saw many great wonders that we have heard about since childhood.\u00a0 We saw the strong and ancient stones of walls, buildings, temples, churches, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2014-october-nov-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}