“An end is only a beginning in disguise.”
Thus began our last day in the Holy Land, back at the heart of Jerusalem. We started with a trip to the Western Wall, this time not simply passing by but actually spending time praying with the hearts of those who were desperately seeking His face. The wall is split into 2 sections, one for the men and the other for the women. As I approached the wall, I noticed it was littered with hundreds of scrapes of paper, place in every crevice imaginable. Women wept around me, looking for and expecting a move of God. My heart was touched by the passionate cries for change, for mountains to be moved, and for miracles to arise. It was convicting to hear such expectancy and it moved me in anticipation.
After our time in prayer, we moved on to the big, daunting part of the trip: the Temple Mount. Anxiety roared in my head as we stepped closer and closer to the faith that was once my own. I felt like I was in a trance, like I could taste a life I had turned from lurking around me, about to pounce at any moment. I felt my stomach turn on approach and every lie ever spoken by the enemy whispered in my ear. It took everything within me to not just run. I knew this time would come, for I could not enter the land without confronting the voice of the past that had been buried by truth. All I could think of was the hatred felt by generations of Arabs and Jews before me on this hotly, highly contested piece of land. It made my heart weep to think of how many people would die just to have control of this portion of ground. Here where Abraham offered Isaac, where the Temple of God held it’s stand for hundreds of years, where Mohammad ascended to heaven, where the bitterness between brothers took deep roots, and the anger I had known for too long had its source.
I turned away and breathed endless prayers on my lips, tears streaming down my face as I knew deep in my soul that I would not allow the enemy to win any longer. I walked away from the group, telling myself and the Lord that I think I now understood the reality of how broken His heart must be over the fallout of place that He had dwelt in. The fallout of the choice of pride over love. I knew I had sinned myself, harboring embitterment towards my Jewish brothers and sisters. I had let my own pride overcome, my fear of showing weakness take over when humility and grace were the true answers. I knew I could not solve this problem myself and while that may make me hopeless for a moment, I knew it makes me turn to the One who knows me completely.
I had struggled for too long trying to prove that my people were not all ugly, all anger, all evil. I had wrestled with making sure that people could see the good in the Arabs too. But I knew deep within me, I had felt the dirty, nasty parts for myself. I knew I had felt rejected, cast to the side, spit at and thrown away by my own culture. I had felt too American to be Arab and too Arab to be American for so long. My identity contended between these two sides – both good and evil and I knew I could fight no longer. The reality is – every person and culture has their good and bad sides, it is only human of them. So, exhaling in repentance and forgiveness, I looked at that Temple Mount and knew it could not control me anymore. I had look my enemy in the eye and told him no longer would this be who I choose to be. My identity is in Jesus, the Creator, the Healer, the Binder of Wounds, and ultimately, my home and citizenship is in HEAVEN.
Leaving the center of the complex, we entered into an archaeological museum known as the Davidson Center. This contained a market place from the Second Temple time to early Islamic periods, with remnants of an Umayyad era palace, and other artifacts. We stopped section of the wall, where Mohammad claimed to have tied his horse before his ascension to the heavens. We saw timelines that mapped out the area from the beginning to modern time.
Then we headed towards the Southern part of the Wall. This place was special, for here would have been the steps Jesus and other Jews of his time would have taken up into the Temple during pilgrimages on the holy days of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. King David himself would have taken these steps and with that in mind, we took turns reading the 15 psalms known as the Songs of Ascent as we climbed these same steps. The experience was incredible, for I had read these psalms many times but never truly understood that they were meant for the context of ushering in a heart prepared to worship the Lord. To enter the temple, you prepared your heart for repentance, glorifying Him above all else, for an attitude soft before the King above all Kings! I highly recommend reading Psalms 120-134 with eyes and ears ready to receive, under that same posture as many believers before us.
We then went on to visit the Temple Institute, found in the Jewish quarter, an incredibly fascinating movement to rebuild the Temple as Solomon’s once was. This was something wild to see, live replicas of each part of the Temple ready to come to life from the lampstands to the tables of showbread, from the Levitical robes to the Ark of the Covenant itself. It was marvelous, yet terrifying to think, that a movement to bring this to life was out there. Our tour guide expressed many concerns about this for the possibly could launching the nation into war with the Arabs to reclaim the Temple land for themselves once again, disrupting the peace and relationships they have been working so hard to achieve these last decades.
Not totally sure how to handle the information given to me, we left the temple and stepped back into noise of the city. So we enter my absolute favorite part of this trip for me, free time in al souq. Souq or marketplace, holds a very near and dear place to my heart. While many shy away from the bombardment of shop owners, the buzz of shoppers, the clamor of objects being moved around, the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread, sweets, and meat roasting on spits, the shine of jewelry and spools of glamorous fabrics, the illuminating sight of hundreds of herbs, spices, teas, coffee, nuts, and grains, I craved being engross into it forever.
As a kid raised mostly in America, I thought it strange how much commotion occurred around me when I last visited my birth town at the age of 10. You’d sleep to the sound of taxis honking and music blaring all night and awake to vendors selling their produce by shouting or using a megaphone. Neighbors weren’t quiet and the roar of live being lived never ceased. No matter where you went, something was always happening. I had gotten so used to it, I missed the lack of it in America quickly. I knew from the childhood that I was from a tribe of wildly, passionately people and suddenly being re-immerse in that felt natural.
A friend and I marked out our return spot on a map and so we wandered. Meandering down every street and alley of the Muslim District of the old city felt like heaven on earth. We stopped in shop after shop breathing it in, buying everything from a tea set to dozens of spices. I shared and explained different foods, spoke to many shop owners in my native tongue, many giving me the best deals once they discovered my heritage, and walked around in awe of all of how instinctive this all felt. By the time our 3 hours were up, we had walked the entire sector 3-4 times. I truly did not want to leave – it was truly extraordinary.
