I Walked Where Jesus Walked



I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2008 during the Week of Passover.  I shall never forget it. It was the experience of a lifetime.

I walked along the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus walked while carrying the Roman cross on the way to Golgotha. And I went to the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, during the week of the Passover celebration. There I placed six prayer notes in the Wall and prayed for my family, the friends who had given me the notes, and for peace in Jerusalem and the world. I was overcome by God’s holy presence and driven to my knees in tears of joy and thanksgiving.  I thank God for that unimaginable spiritual experience.

I cried along with many other pilgrims as we walked out of the darkened dome building of the Children's Memorial Hall in the Holocaust Museum.  We cried for the lost lives of one and a half million children who were murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust during World War II.  We had to cry.  It was so painful.  And we cried for the six million souls who gave up their lives in the Holocaust.  We will never, never, never forget.

I sat on a small stone bench beneath the olive tree to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane and basked in the April sunlight under the 1500-year old olive tree with its ancient, gnarled branches.  I went on a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee and walked up the hill to the Mount of Beatitudes and looked over the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus walked on the water and saved his  friend Peter from sinking into the depths of the Sea.

There Jesus rested, while the billows rolled on the Sea and the disciples called out “Master save us,” and you calmed the Sea and saved them. I have been on a boat upon the Sea of Galilee and seen where you looked out over the shore where the disciples were eating breakfast, and you came to them, just as you have come to me before in a dream.

I walked where Jesus walked as he performed the miracle of turning water into wine, and the miracle of the dove descending down from the heavens following the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan. I stepped into the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized and where Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

I have looked up and seen Mount Hermon in northern Galilee where the Bible tells us the oil of anointing poured down onto the beard of Aaron. I praise you O God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel and Leah. I have walked where Jesus walked, seen what Jesus saw in Jerusalem and Nazareth and Galilee and Bethlehem of Judea.

I have traveled through the desert of the Negev in southern Israel where Abraham and Sarah stopped to drink from the wells at Beersheva. I have looked up at the hill Carmel where Elijah brought down rain and fire and defeated the gods of Jezebel and Ahab. And in all these places where I have been honored and privileged to visit, I have witnessed God’s glory and majesty, and I have felt Christ’s holy presence with me. Israel is a beautiful country that the Jewish people have restored to its former glory and loveliness, just as the prophets foretold. And I saw that it was good.



Thank you, Lord, the creator of the universe, for all you have done. Baruch HaShem Adonai Eloheinu - Blessed are you, O Lord our God. Baruch HaShem - Blessed be the name of the Lord.  Amen.