Peace

Our Israeli tour guide's name was Alan. Except for the time that we were in Jordan, Alan led us from site to site, explained historical events, read us Scripture, and helped us picture the Holy Land at the time of Jesus. Alan told us many stories - including his own.

Alan was a secular Jew who grew up in New Jersey. His family didn't practice religion and he didn't really care to know anything about it. When he was a young adult he visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The experience changed him. It affected him so deeply inside that for the first time in his life he felt a desire to know more about his people. So he went to Israel. He lived in a Kibbutz (small Jewish community) for awhile and finally decided to become an official citizen of Israel. He has been there for 25 years now - and has become an expert of the history, the land and the culture. He is now a practicing Orthodox Jew - very devout in his faith.

One evening during dinner conversation, the Pastor over our group, Dale, was asked if he had ever spoken to Alan about his faith and about Christianity. Since they have been good friends for many years, naturally they have had many of those conversations. Dale said that although many things affect Alan's beliefs, there are two main reasons why he can't buy into Christianity - even though he has way more Biblical knowledge than I have.

First, he can't get past God's first two Commandments (Exodus 20:1-2):
1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything...For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God...

You see, Christians have come in an built churches over everything and anything they think might be remotely related to Jesus - enormous shrines with gold and gody crosses, candles and pictures. The best (or perhaps worst) example was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. When you walk in the church there is a rock - a wet rock - where they supposedly laid out Jesus' body after the took Him down from the cross. People were laying all over that rock ... wiping the water on their faces and their bags and their crucifixes. Bowing down to it and kissing it. And then you go up some stairs and there is a line that you can stand in - to see the rock of Golgotha. When it's your turn, you can crawl under a golden alter and reach your hand into a hole, to touch this "holy rock" - surrounded by ornate golden ... stuff. Then on the other side of the church you can wait in another line to enter this walk-through shrine of a room, which holds supposedly the tomb of Jesus. Again - gold threw up all over it. I just couldn't do it. It was so disappointing. And yet these churches are everywhere. They are at Gethsemane, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Mount of Beatitudes, over Peter's house at Capernaum, Feeding of the 5000 church ... the list goes on and on. To a Jewish person, to Alan, it seems like idolatry. I completely understand.

The second thing Alan can't get past is the Holocaust. Hitler, who was responsible for slaughtering of 6 million Jews (11-17 million people when you count the non-Jewish disabled, homosexuals and religious and political opponents), was a Christian. He used the Bible to justify his actions. He used the words of Martin Luther to further his cause. Over half of the Jewish race, wiped off the face of the earth in the name of Jesus. He just can't understand how a Christian could do this - and doesn't want to be any part of what Hitler was apart of. Regardless of the argument, I don't understand either. We went to Yad Vashem while we were in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The site covers 45 acres containing a Holocaust History Museum, Children's Memorial (that honors the 1.5 million children who lost their lives), and the Hall of Remembrance that houses the names of every known person who was murdered. There is also a garden with trees planted in honor of every known non-Jewish person who risked their lives to save a Jew. I have been to Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany, and this memorial site brought back that same solemn, sad, eerie feeling that I felt there. It is hard to wrap your mind around all that happened during those seven years. I didn't think I could even make it through the Children's Memorial - nothing inside of me even wanted to enter. Their pictures, their faces, but 1.5 million lights are reflected in there, representing their lights that were put out early - it hurt my heart. The Holocaust still haunts most Jews.

I've been thinking a lot about Alan lately - about the path he has chosen. I've always respected Jewish people - I love to learn about their history and their culture. I think I understand their struggles a lot more now having been to their land. They have been fighting for their existence for thousands and thousands of years. Did you know that every Israeli person is mandated by law to join the Israeli army for at least three years when they turn 18? No college, no way out - you must serve your country. They are still fighting to survive. I know that the other side has their arguments, too. I was able to hear some of both sides of the story ... and the division among the land and the people is very sad. I'm sad they don't have the freedom and forgiveness Jesus can bring.

We are blessed to live in this country, to be Americans. We sit and argue about our differences, but our division is not actual life or death to our families. From the beginning, Alan and Shimon(our bus driver) would say, "Say a prayer for peace in Israel." By the end of the trip, I understood why that is so important to them. For the ritual of it all, I stood at the Western Wall and I prayed... "Peace for Fellowship" and "Peace for Israel."