Greetings to everyone in Rochester! I would like to thank again all the members of Trinity who made our year there a wonderful experience for both me and Eve. Though I don’t have the pleasure of doing it in person, I would also like to share with you a little bit about my recent trip to the Holy Land with eighteen fellow Seminary students and a couple of teachers. I think one of the best words to describe the whole experience would be “intense” in all ways – physically, mentally, and spiritually, as we spent fourteen very full days traveling and studying across the length of Israel and Palestine. Our experience began on Monday, August 11 with two full days of in-class time before our departure. These days were focused on studying the geography of Israel in the context of the Bible, to help us better understand what we would be seeing and experiencing once we were over there, as well as going over some practical considerations about traveling in the Middle East. We left St. Louis early in the afternoon of Wednesday the 13th and arrived in Israel around 3:30 in the afternoon on Thursday, August 14, flying to Tel Aviv via Philadelphia. Right away, we met our local tour guide and bus driver and headed up to Jerusalem. During the trip, in addition to the Seminary professor who came along, we were accompanied by two guides. The first was Pastor Zelt from an LCMS congregation in Fremont, CA. He is quite an expert: he told us he’s visited Israel once or twice a year for about the last 20 years, both for academic study and as a tour group leader. Our other guide (called Dikko; the first syllable rhymes with “beak”) was an Israeli citizen, but as a licensed guide and an Armenian Christian he was able to travel with us in both Israel and the West Bank. So our first experience in Israel outside of the bus, before heading to our hotel to recover from jet lag, was a view of the Temple Mount and the old city from the Mount of Olives.

The next day, we hit the ground running. The whole day was spent in an area called the Shephelah, an area of low hills and valleys to the west of Jerusalem which formed the site for many of the conflicts between the Israelites and the Philistines throughout time of Joshua, the Judges, and the reigns of kings Saul and David. Some of the Biblical events set in this area were the sun standing still in Joshua 10, the battle between David and Goliath, the Assyrian siege against Lachish in 2 Kings 18/2 Chronicles 32. Pictured below is the valley in which David’s defeat of Goliath happened:

That evening, being Friday, was the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, which runs from sunset on Friday to sunset the next day. We took the opportunity to visit the Western Wall to see the Sabbath festivities there. And festivities is the right word! “Wailing Wall” is no longer the correct term – the atmosphere was quite a celebration, with loud groups chanting Hebrew prayers, as well as singing and dancing at some points. We didn’t stay long, but we were told that it would go on for hours.

The next day, we continued touring the area around Jerusalem in the morning before proceeding to Bethlehem in the afternoon. While the whole trip was special, if I had to pick the single best moment of it, I would probably choose Bethlehem. As I know some of you are already aware, there is a Lutheran presence in Bethlehem, and we visited Christmas Lutheran Church there. Founded by German missionaries and celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, it is situated just a few hundred yards from the Church of the Nativity. What made this stop so special, other than the presence of Lutherans in Bethlehem, was what has been found underneath the church. During some renovations a few years ago, they discovered a 1st century cave that had served as a family’s stable. While perhaps not the precise spot where Jesus was born, this gave us a much better picture of what it really would have been like than the actual Church of the Nativity, so built up and covered in icons and ornamentation. Pictured here is a manger, carved into the stone: We also had the chance to speak with one of the staff members at the Lutheran church, to hear about some of their struggles living as Palestinian Christians in an area in which the majority of the population in now Muslim. As long as they worship within the Christian community and confine their interaction with Muslims to social or educational projects, he said, they are left alone; but if they were to start any explicit, direct evangelism to Muslims or receive Muslim converts to Christianity into their church, they would immediately face a strong backlash. Please

continue to pray for the Christians in Israel and Palestine, as they often face extremely difficult circumstances from both Muslims and Jews in trying to live out their faith in the land where Christ himself walked two thousand years ago. We did, of course, also visit the Church of the Nativity (pictured below). While inside, we took the opportunity to sing a few Christmas carols. During one of them, Joy to the World, a group of Vietnamese Christians was in the next room and joined in the singing – the same tune, but in Vietnamese. What a wonderful reminder of the way the Gospel has spread around the globe, how we had each traveled thousands of miles from opposite ends of the earth to meet in that place where our Lord was born.

Our next experience took us into the Judean wilderness, heading east from Jerusalem down to Jericho and the Dead Sea. What a difference in landscape! When we first arrived, the Jerusalem area already looked drier and less fertile than many parts of America, but the actual wilderness seemed as barren as the moon. This is the area in which Jesus went for 40 days, when he was tempted by Satan. It’s also the area in which he sets the parable of the Good Samaritan, on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. It may look like sand dunes, but it’s all dusty rock, with many deep, sharp canyons carved in it; a very inhospitable area, to say the least, though there are indeed Bedouin herds of sheep and goats in the area, just as David led his sheep there three thousand years ago.

Over the next few days, we went to Jericho, Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), and the Dead Sea. I’ll try not to bore you with too many details and pictures; as we found ourselves, after two weeks of tramping around various archaeological sites, all the rocks start to look the same, no matter how ancient and historically important they are. Swimming in the Dead Sea was quite an experience, though “swimming” is too generous a word; being a full ten times saltier than the ocean, a person is so buoyant that true swimming is nearly impossible. That salinity plus a variety of other minerals in the water also make it very dangerous to drink – we saw warning signs exhorting us to see a lifeguard for emergency first aid treatment if we were to ingest any seawater. We spent time in the southern desert, the Negev and the wilderness below that. One particular area we visited was the Wilderness of Zin (or Sin, as it’s often written in some Bibles). This was one of the areas where the people of Israel spent their time in the forty years of wilderness wandering, before they were permitted to enter the promised land. We spent a very hot and tiring afternoon hiking up one of the canyons in this area, called Nahal Avdat, up to an ancient city which was formerly a stop along the Spice Route heading towards the Mediterranean and Europe.

A number of our other destinations included Masada, where the Romans laid siege to a group of Jewish rebels in 73-74 AD; En Gedi, a beautiful oasis and nature preserve in the wilderness; a salt cave and the traditional location of Lot’s wife; Beersheba and the Negev desert, an area where Abraham spent much of his time; and Caesarea Maritima, the city and port built on the coast by Herod the Great, where the Apostle Paul was held in prison and gave his defense to Festus and Agrippa (see Acts 25). After all this time in the south, in the land of the Patriarchs, we moved north to Galilee, where Jesus grew up and spent much of his ministry. Our travels took us from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee, around the Galilean villages mentioned in the gospels such as Capernaum, Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Magdala, then up through the Golan Heights to the furthest northern tip of Israel, at Caesarea Philippi and Mount Hermon. Galilee was without doubt the greenest, most fertile, and in my opinion the most beautiful part of the country. I had to constantly adjust my sense of scale, though – from how large the United States is to how tiny Israel is. In terms of land area, Israel is approximately the size of New Jersey. Two things in particular that struck me were the small size of the Sea of Galilee (really just a medium-sized lake, 7.5 miles by 13 miles) and the Jordan River (not even as large as the Zumbro, at least at this time of year; much smaller than the Tennessee River I grew up with).

The Sea of Galilee, as seen from the place we stayed for four nights as we toured Galilee and the north:

A lunch of fresh Galilean fish:

Dipping our feet in the Jordan River near Jericho:

The Well of Abraham at Beersheba; see Genesis 21:25-32. This well is over 230 feet deep and is likely the one mentioned in that account.

The Sea of Galilee from the Mount of the Beatitudes, the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount. A truly beautiful spot; we were given the privilege of having private time to read through the Sermon on the Mount here:

After several days in the northern part of the country, we returned for three final days in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the trip, we stayed in Jerusalem but our daily activities were in the surrounding area; at the end, we came back for the city itself. The primary focus of this was naturally the old city, especially the area on and around the Temple Mount and the geography of all the events of Holy Week. We were able to go up on top of the Temple Mount, and I must say it was a rather unnerving experience. There were quite a few groups of Muslims scattered around the top, sitting in circles – I don’t know if they were talking, reading the Koran, or praying. They paid no notice to us as we wandered around up there. However, when a small Jewish group walked past, it was a different story. Small Jewish groups are allowed onto the Temple Mount, but they are watched by both Israeli and Palestinian guards; if they show any signs of starting to pray or do any religious activity, they would be arrested immediately. As this group walked around, one or two of the nearest small Muslim groups would start to chant at them over and over again until they moved on to another area – “Allahu akbar”, over and over again, meaning “God is great” in Arabic. As the Jewish group passed near us, their guide spoke to us briefly and on learning we were Christians from America said, “That’s great. I’m glad you are here! After all, Isaiah said you would be coming.” We were rather stunned by that remark. Sadly, we weren’t able to have any further conversation with him. I can only imagine he was referring to Isaiah’s words, perhaps in Isaiah 2:1-4 in which the prophet speaks of all nations flocking to Zion, to the mountain of the Lord to be His people. But for an Israeli Jew to quote the prophet Isaiah to us about our presence on the Temple Mount, while being chanted at by Muslims, was to say the least somewhat surreal. Some of our other activities around Jerusalem included a trip underground to the excavated tunnels along the base of the Western Wall, to the museum and archaeological dig on the south side of the Temple Mount, through King Hezekiah’s water tunnel from 700 BC (2 Kings 20:20, 2 Chron. 32:30), and then to the Israel Museum, which was quite impressive. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has some of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display, as well as many artifacts from a number of the sites we had visited; it was wonderful to visit it towards the end of the trip, so we had a frame of reference for the place where they were found.

Looking at the Dome of the Rock, on the Temple Mount at the southern end:

We also traced Jesus’ footsteps in the final days before his crucifixion, beginning up on the Mount of Olives, walking down through Gethsemane into the Kidron Valley (which runs between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount), then up around the old city to the traditional site of the upper room, and on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the location of Calvary and the tomb. I’m not sure what to think about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, it’s been built and rebuilt over the centuries, covered in all kinds of statues, mosaics, icons, gold, and so forth that very little remains from the original site. Knowing what happened there, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, makes it perhaps the most important place on the planet; but I rather like the reaction of one of my fellow students as we were leaving the church. He simply said, “Well, he’s not here.” It’s rather unique that we visit this site, not because of who is buried there, but because of who isn’t. “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen!” (Luke 24:5-6). As amazing an experience as it was to visit Israel, and as helpful as I know it will be in understanding and teaching Scripture, the truly important thing is not the land itself, but that God chose it as the land to dwell among us in human flesh. The view from the Dominus Flevit church on the Mt. of Olives; see Luke 19:41-44:

(right) The entrance to a 1st century carved rock tomb, with the rolling stone to seal the entrance still intact. Not the actual tomb of Christ, but an excellent visualization of something similar:

A word about the security situation and the Gaza War: first, many thanks to all who may have been praying for our safety during the trip. Your prayers were certainly answered, as we all returned home safe and sound. We were undoubtedly protected by the Lord and His angels the entire time. When we left, a temporary cease-fire was in place for five days, which allowed us to see most of the southern part of the country with little interruption. We did heard rocket fire one time, while we were in Beersheba – just two loud booms, which we learned that night were rockets landing. Also, while we were in the northern part of the country, rockets were fired into Israel by militants in both Lebanon and Syria, but that never affected us or our travels. During the course of our trip, we never left Israel or the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, but we got as close as about twenty miles from Gaza, about fifteen miles from Egypt, about two miles from Syria in the Golan Heights, a few hundred yards from Lebanon, and about ten or fifteen feet from Jordan. The current (at least as I write this) cease-fire between Israel and the militants in Gaza took effect during our last couple of days in Jerusalem – we never knew quite what to expect on the news day to day, but again, as you can see from our safe return, God protected us through all our travels. I have to say that I probably saw more guns in any given day in Israel than the rest of my life combined in America. There were armed soldiers everywhere, both in the cities and the countryside. There were armed guards all over as well, whether traveling with various groups (our tour group did not have any kind of guard) or stationed at the front door of a hotel. As our local guide explained, security has become a way of life and a cultural value in Israel far beyond any daily necessity for it. It’s just the way things are for them. The signs of sixty-plus years of conflict are all around, in the constant presence of soldiers, in bullet holes and destroyed buildings from previous wars, in the ongoing tension with Gaza, and in hundreds of other things in daily life there. Our Lord said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and regardless of how unlikely peace in the Middle East may seem, I would ask you to join me in continuing to pray for just that, and to pray that our brothers and sisters in Christ living there would be strengthened in their lives and faith. A gate into the Old City of Jerusalem, heavily scarred by bullets from fighting during the 1967 war.

If you have made it to the end of this account, I thank and congratulate you; I’m sure it was already too long, but I promise I shared only the barest highlights. A full account of all we saw and learned in those two weeks, told in both words and pictures, would take hours and many more pages to tell (I’ve included 20 photos out of nearly 600, but many of those are just boring piles of ancient rocks!). Again, I’m sorry I’m not able at this time to share all this with you in person, but glad that I can send you all this much. I hope and pray that everyone at Trinity is well, and that God is continuing to work in Rochester through you!

Derek Waffel

One of our harder hikes, down Mount Arbel in Galilee: The entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem:

Inside Christmas Lutheran Church, Bethlehem. I believe it says “Glory to God in the Highest” in Arabic:

Beach area at the Dead Sea:

When you see this sign, you stay on the path. Minefields are no joke.