I found this cool painting and had to take a picture of it. The Lion of Judah! It is one of the ongoing themes of this trip, that Jesus is not only the Lamb that was slain, or the sacrificial lamb, but also the Lion of Judah. It's still hard for me to believe that Jews think that Jesus was a fairy tale. Ruth reminds me frequently that the Jewish Messiah that they are waiting for will be of the seed of David, or the son of David, as they say, and yet it is Jesus, according to Revelation 5:5 " And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."
I have to say the more that I'm here, the more sympathy I have for Jewish people. They have so many customs, rules, and traditions, and they know the Torah fluently and live by it. And yet they've missed Jesus. It's hard to wrap my brain around that. And to know that my own salvation has come through the Jewish people. And to see the fulfillment of so many prophecies over them, from the Diaspora or dispersion from 70 AD to the immense and numerous persecutions including the Holocaust to the now restored Jewish State, Israel. However, the other part is that God is not done with them. It's part of the everlasting Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17. They have been preserved and will be restored. God keeps His covenants to the letter. It is one fascinating story.
Well on our way through the Old City, I met this very nice Jewish couple, and we stopped and had a beverage together. He spoke better Spanish than English, oddly enough, and they told me they were going to New York in two weeks.
This picture is one of my favorites, because it has the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall, two of the most significant places here in Jerusalem. I haven't been inside the Dome yet, it's controlled by a Muslim organization, and of course it houses the rock of Abraham, a symbol for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
On our way out, we passed through the Armenian quarters and this Jewish band was playing. It made me laugh because I just think it looks funny. These orthodox Jews rocking out! The music wasn't quite rock n roll, but it was good.
So, we left the Old City, and we walked back to Ben Yehuda. Ruth needed to do some shopping for a Shabbat dinner that she invited me to last night. And I went home.
Yesterday, I got up and went to Christ Church for lunch and met Christine (left) she's from Florda and now lives here working for the ministry Vision for Israel http://www.visionforisrael.com/
and Doris (right) from Germany who's volunteering for a month. They were great to talk to and we ended up chatting for three hours.
Later in the day, I took a taxi to another part of Jerusalem to have a Shabbat dinner with Ruth and her family. Every Friday at 6:30 pm starts the Jewish Shabbat (our Saturday, their day of rest) So they have a special meal with special prayers and songs and readings from the Torah. I have to admit, I was not as patient as I should have been, mainly because we really didn't get to eat until almost 9 pm, I was starving and I didn't understand any of the Hebrew nor the customs, but Ruth explained them somewhat. But I got over it after eating FINALLY! Another lesson I'm learning, is that it takes a lot of patience to follow Judaism. But a lesson learned.
Until tomorrow. . . .
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