"His
Land has Gripped my Heart!"
by
Sharon R Hale
Why does my heart yearn
to visit the Land of the Book? Woody
and I just experienced our twelfth pilgrimage to Israel
and yet my heart longs to return. What
is the gripping factor?
I well recall in February
1979 our first visit to Israel. I was one who was never really
that interested in a trip to the Holy Land. However, I found myself, along
with my husband and a group from our congregation, on our way.
We had just completed our long flight across the Atlantic, flying over
the Mediterranean Sea, and saw the warm sandy beaches of Tel Aviv.
As we circled around for our landing, a strange warmth came over me,
something I had never experienced before. Having
flown on ELAL, we had already had the Israeli flavour, watching a number of Jews
with their prayer shawls, some with their phylacteries, and other religious
dress; eating Hebrew food, and listening to the Hebrew music on our headsets.
I had a sense of belonging, a sense of oneness.
The plane landed and as we walked down the ramp, I watched many of the
Jews kneel and kiss the soil. They
had come home. This feeling began to
overwhelm me as tears filled my eyes. I, too, had come home.
What a surprise to me! It was
my Father’s home, the home of His Son, given specially for me.
What a wonderful sense of belonging!
That first visit I was
mesmerized by all that I heard and saw. We
had taken a number of our congregation from St John’s
Citadel with us on the tour and we shared such incredible moments together.
Four of us stood at the base of Gordon’s
Calvary
and sang, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
Indeed, it did cause me to tremble! A
guide at the Garden Tomb went on to say later that it really was too bad that at
the base of such a sacred site, an Arab bus terminal has been built which
creates continuous noise and hubbub, making it almost impossible to have a time
of quiet meditation and contemplation. My
heart was asking, where else would Christ rather be?
As he spoke, the words of General Albert Orsborn came to me,
“O
is not this Christ midst the crowds of today
Whose
questioning cries do not cease?
And
will He not show to the hearts that would know
The
things that belong to their peace.
And
how shall they hear if the preacher forbear
Or
lack in compassionate zeal?
And
how shall hearts move with the Master’s own love
Without
his anointing and seal.
Except
I am moved with compassion,
How
dwelleth Thy Spirit in me?
In
word and in deed burning love is my need;
I
know I can find this in Thee.”
Also in the garden at
Gordon’s
Calvary
is a winepress – often overlooked by the tourists.
In fact, I have yet to see anything of substance written about it, except
to say that it was only excavated in 1924, and thought to be about the largest
in all of Israel, and to be of pre-Christian origin.
A winepress is a trough dug into the ground and all surfaces are covered
with stone. The base is slanted so
that it leads down to a drain in the bottom at the lower end.
The most succulent grapes were selected for winemaking, and brought to
the winepress. The press would be
heaped up with grapes and slaves would be brought in to stomp on them.
After hours of stomping, the grapes are so mangled they are no longer
whole, the skin is torn, the flesh is crushed, but under the base is a cavern
with the most marvellous grape juice ever.
Each time I visit there, when I am standing there alone, I often ask the
Lord what the next crushing will be for me, not an easy thing to ask.
You see, in order to be like Him, we need to go through the same
suffering that He went through for us. It
is with the purging, with the fire, with the crushing, that we come out as pure
wine!
Again, General Albert Orsborn’s song came to mind,
“My all is in the Master’s
hands
For
him to bless and break;
Beyond
the brook his winepress stands
And
thence my way I take,
Resolved
the whole of love’s demands
To
give, for his dear sake.”
So many moving
experiences have happened in me.
In the years as we have
visited, over and over again, there are some places I see that “tradition has
it.” In other words, there is no
authentic documentation of that exact location, but is somewhere in that general
area. We soon learned that the most
important thing is that we acknowledge “the holy thing behind the holy
place.” Many sacred sites, as you
travel through Israel, have churches, cathedrals etc. built over them that have become places of
worship. As our long-time guide,
Isaac Gronberg, so often has jokingly said, “If we didn’t cover them,
tourists would have carried them all home by now!”
Prior to our visit to the
Holy Land
in October 2007, I had picked up a novel paperback entitled, “Jesus, the
Lord, Out of Egypt,” written by Anne Rice.
“With the Holy Land in turmoil, seven–year-old Jesus and his family
leave Egypt
for the dangerous road home to Jerusalem. As they travel, the boy tries to
unlock the secret of his birth and comprehend his terrifying power to work
miracles. Anne Rice’s dazzling,
kaleidoscopic novel, based on the gospels and the most respected New Testament
scholarship, summons up the voice, the presence, and the words of Jesus,
allowing him to tell his own story as he struggles to grasp the holy purpose of
his life.” It was exciting.
I also read the novel, “Hadassah:
One Night with the King” by Tommy Tenney.
What a marvellous book on the life of Queen Esther.
I then was excited to see the movie, “One Night with the King,” the
true story of Queen Esther.
This, no doubt, flavoured
my thinking upon my arrival in His land on our recent visit.
I am particularly drawn
to the authentic sites and places where Jesus walked.
Woody and I love to stroll along the shores of Galilee. How moving it is to know that you
are walking along the very shores that Jesus walked along so very long ago.
The Mount of Beatitudes warms my heart as I sit on the knoll of the hill,
that broad expanse, and visualize Jesus standing there preaching the greatest
sermon ever preached about the blessed people, speaking with the thousands who
sat right where I am sitting.
Standing at the base of
the “hill” at Caesarea Philippi (Banias), I can see Jesus turning to his
disciples after being with them and sharing his life with them, then saying,
“Who do men say that I am?” Peter’s
answer resounds in my ears. “Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
What made Peter so sure, more than the others?
Often in visiting the
“traditional places” I don’t seem to have the same warmth towards them
without a real challenge to myself to see the “holy thing behind the holy
place.” Strange as it may seem,
when I visit the Church of the Nativity is Bethlehem, it is such a place to me. I love
the Shepherd’s Fields where no doubt the shepherds were actually watching
their flocks by night, but to see Jesus being born in a manger that is covered
in marble, with hanging lanterns and candles around it, does not create
excitement in me. This last visit
there, as I awaited my turn to enter the grotto at the place of the manger, I
really was not anticipating anything that emotional.
(God forgive me!) As I stood
in front of the manger I saw the 14 point star representing the 14 tribes from
David to Jesus, and inscribed in Latin, “Here Jesus Christ was born to the
Virgin Mary.” To encourage myself
to take a moment of true worship I knelt at that place and God through His
Spirit came to me, surprisingly, in a very emotional way.
I was overwhelmed as the words of the chorus came to me:
“He
came right down to me, He came right down to me,
To
condescend to be my friend, He came right down to me.
Because
He loved me so, Because He loved me so;
He
bled and died, was crucified, Because He loved me so.”
General Albert Orsborn
That was God’s
special meeting place with me this time.
What an amazing encounter – and not at a place I would have ever
expected. I will always see the
grotto differently from hereon. Isn’t
He marvellous?
Every visit we have
made to Israel
has had something very special for me. At
the end of our stay in Jerusalem, we always have a “farewell
dinner program” where everyone has opportunity to share what has been special
to them, or what their pilgrimage has come to mean. For
each person it seems to be something totally different from the next one.
Who can tell me as one person I am not special to Him?
I’m also indebted to
Salvation Army writers who have given us such deep, thought-provoking music,
packed with doctrine, which continue to bless and inspire me daily in my walk
with Him. It’s interesting that
all three special songs that have come to me in recent pilgrimages are from the
pen of General Albert Orsborn.
I am so grateful to God
for the privilege He has given me (in fact, us) of walking where Jesus has
walked. At a convention this past
summer, we learned a chorus we used as our theme chorus this last visit,
“I’ll never be the same again, I’ll never be the same again. Since
I walked where Jesus walked, I’ll never be the same again.”
It became our theme song on our last pilgrimage.
How simple yet so profound!
Now you
know why I am forever longing to return!
Written by:
Sharon Hale, Major –
Retired Salvation Army Officer, living in Courtice
ON
CANADA.
Sharon
is married to Major Woody Hale, and together they have conducted 12 pilgrimages
to
Israel
and associated Biblical countries, including
Egypt,
Jordan,
Greece,
Island
of
Patmos, Ephesus, Turkey, along with Jordan.
Sharon
can be contacted at
wshale@sympatico.ca,
www.creativeventures.ca, or
905-440-4378. Copyright
February 2008.
Home
Holy Land 2011 Tour
Itinerary
1
Itinerary
2
Itinerary
3
General
Information
Testimonials
2010
Why
Visit Israel
How
to Choose a Tour
Photos
Tour 2008
Photos
Tour 2010