The draw of our group on our guide insisted that ‘normal’ tour guide boundaries be set aside.
In one incident, he risked his own career
in order to keep our group together. You see, due to the large number of tourist groups seeing the sites of biblical history, there was a strict time table. If a member of the group didn’t show up, the group would not wait for them. The late member would have to find a ride with another group.
This happened at the Western Wall of the temple. And when the supervisor of the guides pushed our guide to leave our team member behind, he stood his ground. It was evidence that his heart was becoming entwined with ours.
The Western Wall –
the place where, over dozens of generations, millions of pilgrims have come to desperately strive to be closer to God. Because Israel had wandered so far from God’s plan, He had been silent to them for hundreds of years. Silent right up to the moment when He came in the bodily form of Jesus the baby. Yet, once again, after 33 years of prophecy-fulfilling life, He presented Himself to the chosen people, and they missed it. Even after miracles, after wonders, after healing many hopeless people – they missed the day, they missed the man, they missed the event that all of history had led to.
In response, Jesus prophesied that their eyes would be blind to Him until the last days. And we see that blindness, oh so clearly, in the inability of almost all Jews to recognize the Messiah.
Even today, when confronted with Isaiah 53, the chapter that describes Jesus’ suffering and death in absolute clarity, most Jewish people do not see it.
That chapter is called “The Forbidden Chapter”
because rabbis discourage its reading by Jews. “It raises too many questions.” Yet, the blindness lingers until that day when their eyes will be opened, and the people of Israel will finally see that the Messiah has, indeed, already come – 2000 years ago.
Our guide notices
that our devotion to God is not focused on the wall (as amazing as that is) but on the heavens above the wall, on the Maker of the very stones that form the wall. He notices that our worship does not require proximity to the ancient wall, but sees as present, the One who was crucified about 2000 years ago, a mere 800 yards away.
Our guide is drawn past traditional ‘tour guide boundaries’ into friendship as he sees the history-long quest for satisfaction fulfilled in the historical truth of Yeshua the Messiah crucified. The achy longing of the soul finds relief as faith is released in what God offers through His son. And as we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, peace fills our hearts in receiving the love of the Creator-Savior.