Palm Sunday...memories of my own trip down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem

This year, we made a pilgrimage, a trip of a lifetime the Holy Land, Israel.   That trip has completely changed my life and the way I read my Bible and the way I relate to the beloved Bible Stories that I've heard all my life.   Today is Palm Sunday and I well remember a couple of months ago, standing on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem on near to the same exact spot where Jesus stood that day as he looked out over his beloved city and wept.   I remember the cooling breeze on my face, the sounds of the city below, the birds chirping in the nearby trees......and I remember the overwhelming sense of history and awe that I felt, standing in the same area that He stood so many, many years ago.
                           
View from the top of the Mount of Olives, The Old City of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley


We started out at the top of the Mountain, with a magnificent view of the old city sprawling out below us, just beyond the Kidron Valley. The sides of the Mount of Olives and the sides of the Temple Mount are now covered in cemeteries.  The Jews on the Mount of Olives, and the Muslims on the side of the Temple Mount, in front of the sealed-off Beautiful Gates of the Triumphant Entry (also called the Golden Gates). The gates are bricked up and sealed tight for hundreds of years now, and guarded by the dead Muslims graves because they feared that the Messiah would return as promised and would enter through those gates as prophesied, and they didn't want that happening.  Pretty drastic measures, don't you think?  As if a few bricks and mortar and graves could stop the power of our God! 
   

The Beautiful Gates (site of the Triumphant Entry), all sealed and bricked up

We stood there, taking in the scenery and we were approached by a man with a donkey who kept harassing us to "Take a Ride on his Jesus-Taxi" for only $5.    No one took him up on it.....I, for one, couldn't imagine riding down the narrow, steep roads on a donkey as a lark....almost as if poking fun of the way Jesus rode into the city on that day.   I did like seeing the donkey.....and it did bring the story to life for me, as I could only imagine more clearly the donkey he road that day.

Donkey on the Mount of Olives

I have read and heard preached why Jesus came into the city on a donkey.  A donkey is a docile, peaceful animal.  If he had come in on a horse (as he will in the End Times) it would have been a signal of war.  Horses were ridden into war.  Donkeys were beasts of burden, for peaceful times. And he rode the colt of a donkey. People laid their cloaks over the donkey and in the road in front of the donkey and the threw palm fronds down to cover the dusty road in front of him as if welcoming their King.  They lined the narrow streets, waving palm fronds and chanting "Blessed is He who comes in the name of THE LORD! Hosanna, Hosanna!"  Do we stand among the crowd?  Our hearts thrilling to see our King riding by.....tears of joy streaming down our faces as we bow and throw our clothing down to cover the dirty road and as we sing out praise with all our hearts?  Remember that these same adoring crowds on Palm Sunday are some of the same people who cried out just as passionately "Crucify Him!" but a week later.  Oh, yes.  Sadly, we are among the crowd.

The passage down the mount is steep and narrow

Can you imagine how Jesus felt?  He was receiving praise and adulation of the crowds, but He also knew what was coming.  He knew what would happen and he knew the hearts and minds of the people calling out to Him so joyously that day.  I can only imagine Him looking down into the faces of each person, making eye contact and feeling the pain of their inevitable betrayal even then. About half way down the Mount of Olives, we stopped at the place where it is said that Jesus stopped, to look over his beloved city and there, he wept for Jerusalem.  He knew the pain and desolation coming to them.  He knew they would refuse to believe and repent.  He knew they would pay a terrible and horrendous consequence for their unbelief.  And it broke his heart.  This was his creation, his masterpiece. His Holy City.  His people, his children.  His creation.  And they refused to know who he really was.   He said that he longed to gather them under his wings like a Mother Hen would gather her chicks to protect them.  This reminds me of how God hid Moses in the Cleft of the Rock and covered him with His hand to protect him.  Oh, the provision of God for us! 

 Mosaic inside the Church, built where Jesus stood to overlook the city and where he Wept.

                       The passage of scripture describing the events that took place at this spot.

I remember sitting there on the side of that mountain in the coolness of that January morning, just in silent prayer and thinking about the fact that Jesus walked these hills and valleys.  This was his home.  This is where so much of Bible History took place and the fact that I too was allowed to stand there and see these things come to life before my very eyes......it was very humbling.  As I head into this Holy Week, I do so with a mindfulness that I haven't had before.  The stories in the Bible aren't just dusty tales of another time to me now.   They are living, breathing stories with a place in time and space and having walked in the land myself, they are more than cloth pictures on the flannel boards of my Sunday School memories.  What a precious gift!!  Hosanna! Hosanna!!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of THE LORD!

                 Looking up at the Beautiful Gates, now blocked off by bricks and a Muslim Graveyard

                                Looking out over the City of David from the Mount of Olives