Go Israel 2009: Mount of Olives and the Descent to Gethsemane

Saturday, and half the trip (5 days) have passed. it's crazily quick.

first proper day in jerusalem.. and our first location is Mount of Olives. That's where:

- Jesus rode in on palm sunday
- Jesus sweat blood in garden of gethsemane

near the start of the descent (Palm Sunday strech)

piggie and me.

it's just me, and the wall, and the city behind. and just me.

along the climb down, there were vast stretches of GRAVES. as in coffins graves. heaps of people being buried. why? because they believe when Jesus comes again to judge the dead, he will start from the east (where Mt of Olives is), so they buy all the grave spots there, because they want to be the closest when it happens. (zach 4:14)

There's a double gate that is sealed now by the muslims because they want to dash all Jews' hope of a Messiah (how mean).

us looking at the stretch of coffins

close up of the coffin

see the little hole for the candle? Apparently it's super similar to the Qing Ming tradition the chinese have. apparently coz i'm not that certain really. i've never been to a qing ming thingy.

in the past, they used to pile stones over the area where the dead body is buried. (last time no proper concrete coffin mah) why again? practical reason of preventing smell, and also to serve as a sort of monument. reminds me of how the chinese will carve names and all that on their grave stones.. quite a bit of similarities there huh..

fyi, one spot here can cost anywhere from 40-100 THOUSAND US bucks. die rich.

After their bodies ferment and when there is no space left in the graves, they will collect the bones and store them into boxes according to families. how ineteresting! one box per family.

camera went through the grails

From left..

to right..

to further right..

Apparently, in the past, there was only 1 city outside the city. all else was found IN the city. that's how important the city was. In Jesus' time, the city used to be much bigger than it is now. 40% bigger! today it's 221 acres, so it was probably 400 acres last time!

Where the Golden Dome lies, you will be amused that it's non-christian/jewish. it's actually muslim!! they built it there because it's their "third holiest place". (i know, compared to Judiasm's and Christianity's FIRST holy place) but oh well, nothing's ever fair is it.

but where the Golden dome is used to be King Solomon's temple that he built, and King Herod's re-built temple (twice bigger than King Sol's, coz he wanted to impress the Jews and win their favour)

me with the golden dome.

That place is also known as Mount Moriah. That was where Abraham brought Issac to sacrifice him. almost. But God is always good! :) and Abraham knew that! (Read Hebrews 11)

So you ask, why MOUNT Moriah when it looks so FLAT?? because it USED to be a mountain, but silly king Herod decided to flaten the ground as it would then be more practical a worship place. prior to the flattening, people had to worship at the SLOPES of the mountain, which made it very inconvenient for everyone. whereas if it's flat, everyone's on the same level, and it's easier to see what's in the middle. this also enlarged the city. more platform.

The city has 36 thousand people, mostly muslim (28,000) and only 4000 jews!! interesting huh..

Here, Moshe told us a lot about where everything was. like "on the left is XXX and on the right is XXX", so a bit hard to explain here. but all was very interesting.

this picture looks in from the east (we're taking the picture on Mt of Olives).

to the left of the globe is Caiphaias' house, the high priest of that time. also, there's the upper room there, and where tradition says that David's tomb is.

to the rightish side is golgotha, the garden tomb. where most believe Jesus died, and was buried. Pontius Pilot also lived somewhere there..

and in the middle, that's me! =D

Right at the bottom of the Mount of Olives lies the Garden of Gethsemane. Where Jesus wept, sweat blood. Gethsemane means "Oil Press", where they used to have the olive presses. Signifying how Jesus was pressed, crushed for our iniquities. He produced blood (like oil) for us. thank you Lord..

This was the place where His disciples were asked to pray and watch, but they fell asleep. Moshe believes it's because they had just come from the upper room Passover Feast, and therefore have not only stuffed themselves, but also drank easily 4 cups of wine. how not to fall asleep right?

here we are at the gate

entering Garden of Gethsemane

further into the garden

dad (pretending to) pray

from a nice top view

me and piggie

dad and his two girls

a little write up

The Church of Agony was built to commemorate the rock where Jesus actually wept and broke down. don't ask me how they knew which rock it was. guess it's more symbolic than anything else lah..