University group visits Holy Land
By Janet Carriker Green, ’62
Flashback: Sitting in Dr. Marling Elliott’s New Testament studies class in the spring of 1959, I am transcended from the top of the Judean desert mountain to the top of the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem where Satan is tempting Christ. I see it in my mind so vividly as Prof. Elliott teaches to the text in his own inimitable way. And at some time during the past four years, Jim Bross, a fellow student at the university my freshman year, also sat in that same classroom and had a similar experience. Our Professor Elliott was unforgettable, but never did I imagine that 51 years later Jim would be in Israel leading a tour of the Holy Lands and I would be on his tour. But it happened! He was no longer just an alumnus of the Southern Wesleyan University, but he was Dr. Jim Bross, a recent SWU professor emeritus.
In the summer of 1997 I was in Central and visited Dr. Elliott in his home. During this visit he walked me over to a picture of Jerusalem he had hanging on his wall. I asked him if he had ever visited the homeland of our Savior, the Holy Land that he had spent his career making come alive for his students; he simply replied, “No.” When I asked why, he told me that he did not want anything to tamper with the vivid pictures of it that were in his mind. This I respected, because it was his perspective.
And many times on our trip I began to understand his perspective more and more because I had to wrap my mind around many concepts: what was the actual site, what was the traditional site, what changes had the multiple civilizations made, and what had the newer excavations actually revealed and much more. But, yet, for me, nothing could ever compete with the fact that we were in the Holy Land, the land where Jesus traversed, the land where our Savior walked and ultimately paid the price for our salvation. My constant prayer was that the Holy Spirit accompany us on this pilgrimage, and I constantly felt His Presence. For this first-time pilgrim, our tour was amazing, and our experiences were awesome! I will share!
Our group of 10, including of Dr. Jim Bross Sr., Jim Bross Jr., Sheila Crawford, Valerie Ramsey and myself (all SWU alumni), Annette Carrigan, Ruth Harris, Pam and the Reverend Phillip McAlister, and Joyce Young left Douglas Airport in Charlotte, N.C., just before noon on Nov. 29, 2010, and arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel, late afternoon on Nov. 30. We spent our first night in Israel in Netanya and were joined by a group of 16 other tourists from Dallas, Tex.
The next morning we made our way up the coastline to Caesarea, constructed by Herod the Great in 20 B.C. and named for Augustus Caesar. It was the official residence of the Roman governors, including Pontius Pilate. There we viewed both ancient ruins and a renovated Roman amphitheater still used today. One of the ruins we saw was the room where the Apostle Paul was held and talked with King Agrippa and Bernice during his imprisonment before being sent to Tarsus.
We then traveled to Mt. Carmel and visited a monastery on the traditional sight where Elijah had God bring down fire on his watered altars, pitting the power of his God against the Baal priests and their god. Our next visits were to Megiddo, where the Battle of Armageddon will be fought, and to Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle.
The next five days we trekked from early mornings to late afternoons seeing as much of the Holy Land as we could see. Crossing the Sea of Galilee by boat, visiting the site of the Mount of the Beatitudes, the Mount where the loaves and fishes were multiplied and the shore of Galilee where Peter was told by the Christ to feed his sheep, then renewing our baptismal vows in the Jordan River brought joy to our hearts.
Exploring the sites of Nazareth and then via Bet Shean traveling through the Jordan Valley to Bethlehem, we caught our first sights of the Judean desert and Jerusalem, the city built on a hill. It was an easy one and a half hour trip by bus, but my mind tried to imagine how hard it must have been for Joseph and Mary, the soon-to-be parents of our Lord, to make that long trip on foot through the desert to reach the city where their lineages began.
Bethlehem held special sites for us: the Church of the Nativity, marking the spot of Christ’s birth, and the Shepherd’s Field. Singing Christmas carols there in the Shepherd’s Field brought a keen sense of awe and wonder to us. The Palestinian encasement of the city saddened us. The inhabitants of Bethlehem have to enter and exit the city through the Palestinian checkpoints.
In and close to Jericho we saw Elisha’s Spring, Jesus’ Mount of Temptation and the traditional sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed to see our Lord. We traveled to Masada, Qumran, Bethany (Lazarus’ city), and to the Dead Sea, passing the site of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River.
Our next two days were spent in and around Jerusalem. We drove to the top of the Mount of Olives to look over the city and went to the place of the Ascension, and visited a garden tomb that some propose to have been where Jesus was buried and resurrected. We visited the Upper Room, the Rock of Agony upon which Jesus prayed the night before his arrest and the Garden of Gethsemane, where we had the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Him.
Walking the narrow streets of the old city, we saw where Christ had His triumphal entry through Stephen’s Gate. We revisited his trial and crucifixion from the Praetorium where He was tried by Pilate and the Ecce Homo Arch where Pilate proclaimed to the people “Behold the Man” to His walk on the Dolorosa (the seven stations of the cross) and to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built on the sites where traditionally it is thought that He was crucified and His body was ultimately resurrected.
Upon leaving Jerusalem, we visited the western wall of the temple now known as the Wailing Wall. As I placed my hand on the wall to join those praying there, I felt the witness of the Holy Spirit as if it were an electrical shock. His power permeated the premises. I felt that it was His wall, His holy place; I felt His validating our pilgrimage to His Holy Land. What an awesome place to be, what a glorifying experience! Thank you, Dr. Bross, for your foresight in planning such a trip!
Southern Wesleyan University