During my recent move, I came across some photos taken on a trip to Israel in 2004.
The first is a shot of the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee where it is thought that Jesus stood (after His resurrection) and called out to the probably depressed disciples drifting aimlessly in their boat, having caught no fish all night, saying to them: "Come and eat with me." (John 21:12)
I stood where perhaps Jesus once stood and I imagined the broken and discouraged hearts of the disciples seated together in that boat, not really fishing, their thoughts on all that they had experienced in their three years or so following Jesus...only to have it end like this? How could their Jesus, their Lord and Savior, Son of Heaven come to earth, have been so brutally tortured and crucified? Where was He now? They knew He had been resurrected for He appeared to them in the room where they were all huddled together in "fear of the Jews" (John 20:19) shortly after His death, and then again eight days later (John 20:26). But what now? He wasn't with them now. They were alone. What were they to do with all that they had experienced and witnessed? What had it all meant?
Then there came the voice calling to them from shore: "Come and eat with me."
Though His immortal body was unrecognizable to the disciples (perhaps it still retains the great scarring of his torture and death), Peter recognized the sudden miraculous filling of their net with fish as being possible only through Jesus, and was compelled by a surge of great hope to dive into the waters of the Sea of Galillee knowing that the boat couldn't possible get him to his Lord, the hope of his salvation, soon enough! (John 21)
And there, on that shore, so early in the morning perhaps that no others were around, Jesus not only dined with those who loved Him, but He even cooked the meal and served them (John 21:9, 13), a simple breakfast of bread with fresh fish cooked over a small fire (perhaps the fish was the red-bellied tilapia, known as St. Peter's fish, that is found in the waters of the lake-sized Sea of Galillee).
Yet Jesus provided them with so much more than just food; for they were once again in His presence, and for these men devoted to Him, there was no better place to be on earth.
During times of grief, pain or suffering of any kind, what better picture could we have than to know that Jesus is calling to us to "come" to Him? The photo is now on the bulletin board hung on the wall above the desk where I write this blog; it provides comfort to me during this period in my life when I find there is no other place of solace to be found except in His presence.
And there is one other photo above my desk as well. It is the second of my most treasured photos of Israel, and it also speaks to me of comfort and of hope...in the soon coming of the Lord to take me home with Him.
It is a photo of the eastern gate that leads in and out of the walled city of Jerusalem. It is named the "Golden Gate."
This gate leads to the Temple Mount, being the closest one to the area that once was occupied by Solomon's Temple and by the second temple built after the first temple's destruction. But even the second temple was destroyed, as Jesus prophesied, in 70 A.D.
The photo was taken from the Mount of Olives. Between the eastern gate of the Temple Mount and the further eastern Garden of Gethsemane (the Garden being located at the base of the hill known as the Mount of Olives) is a somewhat deep ravine known as the Kidron Valley. A walk of perhaps half an hour is needed to traverse the valley between the Gate and the Garden ("a Sabbath day's journey" according to Acts 1:12...a mere 2,000 cubits; or 2,000 times the length of your forearm). It is through this valley that Jesus walked after the Last Supper on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:1). It is the same valley that David crossed as he fled Jerusalem to escape from Absalom (2 Samuel 15:23).
I recall thinking, as I stood taking that photo shot from the Mount of Olives, that one day the feet of Jesus would touch this very same ground again. And He might perhaps take that short walk once more entering Jerusalem through that very gate, no longer riding on a lowly donkey as He did once before, but this time as the Prince of Peace that He always was and always will be; perhaps still riding that "white horse" of Revelation 6:2.
This eastern gate is the only one of the exterior gates into Jerusalem that is closed. Here is an excerpt by Wikipedia that explains how it came to be so;
"The Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, sealed off the Golden Gate in 1541. While this may have been purely for defensive reasons, in Jewish tradition, this is the gate through which the Messiah will enter Jerusalem and it is suggested that Suleiman the Magnificent sealed off the Golden Gate to prevent the Messiah's entrance. The Ottomans also built a cemetery in front of the gate, in the belief that the precursor to the Messiah, Elijah, would not be able to pass through the Golden Gate and thus the Messiah would not come. This belief was based upon two premises. First, according to Islamic teaching Elijah is a descendant of Aaron making him a priest or kohen. Secondly, that Jewish priests are not permitted to enter a cemetery. This second premise is not wholly correct because a kohen is permitted to enter a cemetery in which primarily non-Jews are buried such as the one outside the Golden Gate."
But walls made by the hands of mere men will not keep the Holy One of God from passing through that eastern gate in the future.
It wasn't until I returned home from that trip to Israel and was reading scripture, that I happened upon these passages in Ezekiel and then I understood that the gate had to be sealed, God even using the Muslim Sultan to help fulfill biblical prophecy, in order that it could be opened once more by the only One who could ever open it again according to God's own words:
"Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said the LORD unto me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. Then brought he me to the way of the north gate before the house: and I looked, and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD: and I fell upon my face." (Ezekiel 44:1-4)
If I understand this first passage well, it points to what will take place in future. But the second passage, that follows here, points to what took place over 2,000 years ago when Jesus voluntarily died on the cross to become the peace offering to God for our own sins:
"Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the LORD, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offeriings, as he did on the sabbath day: then shall he go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate." (Ezekiel 46:12)
There are two arches on the eastern gate, one arch is named Repentence, the other is named Mercy. The One whose vast and great sacrificial love brings us to fall on our faces before Him in sorrowful repentance, the One who personifies and is Himself Mercy beyond all measure, showing mercy to all of us who deserve it not at all, is the One whom I long to be with, and to whom I pray as did the beloved disciple John: "Even so, come Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22:20)
How I long for His soon coming...
The first is a shot of the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee where it is thought that Jesus stood (after His resurrection) and called out to the probably depressed disciples drifting aimlessly in their boat, having caught no fish all night, saying to them: "Come and eat with me." (John 21:12)
I stood where perhaps Jesus once stood and I imagined the broken and discouraged hearts of the disciples seated together in that boat, not really fishing, their thoughts on all that they had experienced in their three years or so following Jesus...only to have it end like this? How could their Jesus, their Lord and Savior, Son of Heaven come to earth, have been so brutally tortured and crucified? Where was He now? They knew He had been resurrected for He appeared to them in the room where they were all huddled together in "fear of the Jews" (John 20:19) shortly after His death, and then again eight days later (John 20:26). But what now? He wasn't with them now. They were alone. What were they to do with all that they had experienced and witnessed? What had it all meant?
Then there came the voice calling to them from shore: "Come and eat with me."
Though His immortal body was unrecognizable to the disciples (perhaps it still retains the great scarring of his torture and death), Peter recognized the sudden miraculous filling of their net with fish as being possible only through Jesus, and was compelled by a surge of great hope to dive into the waters of the Sea of Galillee knowing that the boat couldn't possible get him to his Lord, the hope of his salvation, soon enough! (John 21)
And there, on that shore, so early in the morning perhaps that no others were around, Jesus not only dined with those who loved Him, but He even cooked the meal and served them (John 21:9, 13), a simple breakfast of bread with fresh fish cooked over a small fire (perhaps the fish was the red-bellied tilapia, known as St. Peter's fish, that is found in the waters of the lake-sized Sea of Galillee).
Yet Jesus provided them with so much more than just food; for they were once again in His presence, and for these men devoted to Him, there was no better place to be on earth.
During times of grief, pain or suffering of any kind, what better picture could we have than to know that Jesus is calling to us to "come" to Him? The photo is now on the bulletin board hung on the wall above the desk where I write this blog; it provides comfort to me during this period in my life when I find there is no other place of solace to be found except in His presence.
And there is one other photo above my desk as well. It is the second of my most treasured photos of Israel, and it also speaks to me of comfort and of hope...in the soon coming of the Lord to take me home with Him.
It is a photo of the eastern gate that leads in and out of the walled city of Jerusalem. It is named the "Golden Gate."
This gate leads to the Temple Mount, being the closest one to the area that once was occupied by Solomon's Temple and by the second temple built after the first temple's destruction. But even the second temple was destroyed, as Jesus prophesied, in 70 A.D.
The photo was taken from the Mount of Olives. Between the eastern gate of the Temple Mount and the further eastern Garden of Gethsemane (the Garden being located at the base of the hill known as the Mount of Olives) is a somewhat deep ravine known as the Kidron Valley. A walk of perhaps half an hour is needed to traverse the valley between the Gate and the Garden ("a Sabbath day's journey" according to Acts 1:12...a mere 2,000 cubits; or 2,000 times the length of your forearm). It is through this valley that Jesus walked after the Last Supper on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:1). It is the same valley that David crossed as he fled Jerusalem to escape from Absalom (2 Samuel 15:23).
I recall thinking, as I stood taking that photo shot from the Mount of Olives, that one day the feet of Jesus would touch this very same ground again. And He might perhaps take that short walk once more entering Jerusalem through that very gate, no longer riding on a lowly donkey as He did once before, but this time as the Prince of Peace that He always was and always will be; perhaps still riding that "white horse" of Revelation 6:2.
This eastern gate is the only one of the exterior gates into Jerusalem that is closed. Here is an excerpt by Wikipedia that explains how it came to be so;
"The Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, sealed off the Golden Gate in 1541. While this may have been purely for defensive reasons, in Jewish tradition, this is the gate through which the Messiah will enter Jerusalem and it is suggested that Suleiman the Magnificent sealed off the Golden Gate to prevent the Messiah's entrance. The Ottomans also built a cemetery in front of the gate, in the belief that the precursor to the Messiah, Elijah, would not be able to pass through the Golden Gate and thus the Messiah would not come. This belief was based upon two premises. First, according to Islamic teaching Elijah is a descendant of Aaron making him a priest or kohen. Secondly, that Jewish priests are not permitted to enter a cemetery. This second premise is not wholly correct because a kohen is permitted to enter a cemetery in which primarily non-Jews are buried such as the one outside the Golden Gate."
But walls made by the hands of mere men will not keep the Holy One of God from passing through that eastern gate in the future.
It wasn't until I returned home from that trip to Israel and was reading scripture, that I happened upon these passages in Ezekiel and then I understood that the gate had to be sealed, God even using the Muslim Sultan to help fulfill biblical prophecy, in order that it could be opened once more by the only One who could ever open it again according to God's own words:
"Then he brought me back the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. Then said the LORD unto me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD; he shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. Then brought he me to the way of the north gate before the house: and I looked, and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD: and I fell upon my face." (Ezekiel 44:1-4)
If I understand this first passage well, it points to what will take place in future. But the second passage, that follows here, points to what took place over 2,000 years ago when Jesus voluntarily died on the cross to become the peace offering to God for our own sins:
"Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the LORD, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offeriings, as he did on the sabbath day: then shall he go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate." (Ezekiel 46:12)
There are two arches on the eastern gate, one arch is named Repentence, the other is named Mercy. The One whose vast and great sacrificial love brings us to fall on our faces before Him in sorrowful repentance, the One who personifies and is Himself Mercy beyond all measure, showing mercy to all of us who deserve it not at all, is the One whom I long to be with, and to whom I pray as did the beloved disciple John: "Even so, come Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22:20)
How I long for His soon coming...
No comments:
Post a Comment