Day 18, Last Day: Weapons

I heard the explosions this morning, as I was gazing down on the city of Jerusalem catching my breath from the steep climb up the Mount of Olives. 

It was only the beginning of a fitting last day in the Middle East: beauty, violence, iced coffee, traveling drama, and good friends. And, unplanned dessert on an Amman rooftop.

I concluded it must be gunfire, since 8am is hardly a good time for fireworks. (I’m familiar with the same reasoning in my own hometown.) Straining my ears, I faintly picked up a distant chanting.  Just in a few weeks, I’ve learned to pick out the phrase “Allah Akbar” and I was pretty sure that was what I was hearing now, although from far away.  I strained my eyes as well, but the golden dome of the mosque and the Temple Mount was too far away, although I was close enough to occasionally see people walking.

 Like this:  
I walked back down. The gate to the Garden of Gethsemane was open now and I slipped inside. I read the four accounts of Jesus’ last night there and leaned my head between the metal bars for an unobstructed look at the olive trees and brown dirt, conceivably similar to his surroundings.  I cried, thinking of the pain and yet the need for death.
I mentally recited one of my favorite poems: 

All those who journey, soon or late,

Must pass within the garden gate.

Must kneel alone in the darkness there, 

And battle with some fierce despair. 

God pity those who cannot say, 

“Not mine but thine”, who only pray, 

“Let this cup pass”, and cannot see

The purpose in Gethsemane.

I walked back across the Kidron Valley and began the long walk around the old walled city of Jerusalem.  The gunfire had quit. I met a lady who concurred that it had been gunfire on the Temple Mount, although with the help of Twitter, I found that the clash had been a combination of firecrackers, thrown at police, and stun grenades by the police in return. No casualties.

Temple Mount Clash according to Israel
What it would do for those clashing factions on the Temple Mount to understand that Jesus was the perfect Lamb! How their lives would change if they could personally embrace the submission of Christ in the face of death… Or for that matter, the submission of their father Abraham, in following God’s command to kill his own son.  

This is why I’m sad about the sign. Close to Gethsemane, written in English and French, is a beautiful sign. 

  
This is a country where almost every sign is written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and where English is not the first language of most natives.  The most beautiful words I saw about Jesus are geared toward people who probably already know him. Even Pilate, writing his sign just across the valley 2000 years ago,was better with his sign, making sure that everyone knew the criminal was the King of the Jews.  I wish these beautiful words would be an easy read for every Jew or Muslim who walks by.

I was mulling this over as Kevin, Rosetta, and I boarded a bus to the northern border once again.  

“Don’t let me forget my baklava,” I told them as I tucked it into an overhead compartment

The bus bumped along through Palestine’s acres of palm trees and greenhouses amidst the desert dust, and I even got a nice glimpse of the Dead Sea for the first time. As we rode we hoped that we would not have a six hour border crossing again.  

However, shortly before arriving at the border, we suddenly began to just hope that we would have a border crossing. Traffic came to a dead stop because of an accident. I should say our bus did and the one car in front of the bus. Up until that time the police had been letting the traffic through. We missed the road by two vehicles, and we were told it might take an hour for them to clear the road. We didn’t have an hour–it was about 6 o’clock in the border was going to close at 7 o’clock. 

I went into a small state of mental panic. If I missed the border tonight, my chance of missing my flight to Chicago tomorrow would be much higher. 

“There’s nothing we can do,” Rosetta said. “So I guess we may as well not stress.” 

It was great advice but it also reminded me that the one thing I could do was pray. God you’re going to have to arrange this I told him or bring glory to yourself through whatever happens.

I was in the process of texting my friends to ask them to pray for us as well (now about 6:16) when Kevin came bounding in the bus door, from where many had gathered outside.

“This guy will take us to the border, he said. “Let’s go!”

We understood that time was of the essence. Rosetta and I leapt up grabbed our things and hurry down the bus steps. Do you have the baklava? Got it, I said. Kevin yanked our two suitcases from underneath the bus and the three of us under the curious eyes of a whole line of cars ran off the curb of the road and into the dusty Palestinian ditch.  Dust poofed up around our shoes and thorny green weeds grabbed at our ankles as we sped across the ditch toward a dusty gray Jeep Kevin pointed out.

“I feel like a refugee,” Rosetta hissed.  And across the Jordan River the most super full moon you’ve ever seen was just sliding into the sky above the mountains of Jordan.

“He was just kind of sitting off to the side watching,” Kevin said later of the man in the Jeep after a failed attempt to find a taxi. 

We piled in, luggage everywhere, and our driver turned the truck away from a line of cars on a detour lane, and across the uneven field.  We clung to our luggage, bouncing helplessly through the dirt. Does this man know what he’s doing? Then he turned back to the main road. Surely he wasn’t going to try to go down through the  ditch? Careful not to lose too much speed, he nosed the truck down into the ditch, just missing a post, and up the other side onto the beautiful paved Israeli highway. We, unlike the masses, were on our way to the border on the highway! 

Rosetta thought he was a Jew because he was talking Hebrew and asked Kevin if he was a Jew.  All I know is he was a clear answer to prayer. What man in a Jeep, especially one that is running out of gas like his was, just sits beside the road watching traffic, available for taxi service?

“I do this for God,” he said, but we pressed some money on him anyway. At one point as he barreled down a shortcut toward the border he simply began to laugh. I guess at the whole situation. Maybe because he was an angel sent from God. You never know.

I was still afraid the border could be closed or something but we pulled up and leaped out and the security guard unbuckled the blue strap and let us in with the brisk question, “Do you have any weapons?”

Yes, ma’am I do, I should have said.  It’s this thing called prayer, and it makes stun grenades and fireworks and rioting look like poor alternatives.

Big long flight tomorrow again! I appreciate your prayers.