...about Nine Ladies Dancing

I wrote this for the local newspaper and it appeared this past Wednesday.


Today is the ninth day of Christmas, thus the reference to Nine Ladies Dancing. By now many of the gifts from last week’s Christmas celebrations might be put away, some forgotten, some maybe even broken. You might be tired of leftover turkey. Hopefully you’ve recovered from New Year’s Eve celebrations. Now you might have credit card statements to look forward to, more likely to dread. You think you spent a lot on Christmas gifts? Think about the bill for the gifts the “True Love” gave in the song.

• 12 Partridges in Pear Trees
  
• 22 Turtle Doves
  
• 30 French Hens
  
• 36 Calling Birds
  
• 40 Golden Rings
  
• 42 Geese a-Laying
  
• 42 Swans a-Swimming
  
• 40 Maids a-Milking
  
• 36 Ladies Dancing
  
• 30 Lords a-Leaping
  
• 22 Pipers Piping
  
• 12 Drummers Drumming

It’s not exactly a list you’d consult when you need a gift idea for your true love (except maybe the golden rings). And I think this gift giver went a little overboard.

Now I’m not one of those who constantly complains about the commercialism and materialism of Christmas. I do think that some people do go overboard, not necessarily with 42 Swans a-Swimming etc., but by spending way beyond their limit or by not setting a limit at all.

I like giving gifts at Christmas and I like getting gifts as well. I’ve been through 42 Christmases and I still like getting frivolous toys like some new video games and DVDs to mindlessly while away the hours in front of the TV. Sometimes a bit of escape can be a really good thing.

I guess you’d expect a pastor to come up with the good Sunday School answer that Christmas isn’t really about the giving and getting of presents. Or maybe the next best thing might be something about the “spirit of giving.” But this year I told my own kids that Christmas is really all about getting.

If you really think about it that’s what Christmas is about. Not primarily about the fat man in the red suit, although that’s part of it too. Christmas is about the greatest gift ever, given to all people. That’s the message the angel had for the shepherds on the first Christmas. “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

See, Christmas is all about getting. And this “spirit of getting” lasts all year. Salvation isn’t restricted to the 12 days from December 25 to January 5. It’s a gift “for all the people” all year round and their whole lives long. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May the peace of Christ rule in your hea

Nativity of Our Lord 2007

Nativity of Our Lord — Christmas Eve
December 24, 2007
Luke 2.1-14 [15-20]
Thomas Arth

The hills are bare at Bethlehem,
No future for the world they show;
Yet here new life begins to grow,
From earth's old dust a greenwood stem.

The hills are cold at Bethlehem,
No warmth for those beneath the sky;
Yet here the radiant angels fly,
And joy burns new, a fiery gem.

The heart is tired at Bethlehem,
No human dream unbroken stands;
Yet here God comes to mortal hands,
And hope renewed cries out: "Amen!"
Royce J. Sherf

Many of you know, but some may not know,
that a couple of months ago I participated in a tour
called a Bible Lands Discovery Tour.
We were a group of 25 people from B.C., Alberta,
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario and
we started our tour in Egypt, traveling on to Jordan,
and ending up in Israel.
While in Israel we visited some of the sites
where some of the events in the life of Jesus took place,
or may have taken place,
and one of those places was Bethlehem.

I was looking forward to visiting Bethlehem.
I wanted to see Christmas Town.
Not the place up at the North Pole
where Santa and his elves make preparations for tonight's deliveries.
I was looking forward to seeing the first Christmas town.
The place where Mary delivered to us a Saviour.
The place where shepherds heard the angels' hymn of praise
and a message of good news of great joy for all people.
Someone on the tour who had been to the Holy Land 10 years ago
warned me that I'd probably be disappointed,
but I didn't want to hear that so I ignored it
and continued to look forward to visiting Bethlehem.

Well, it wasn't what I expected.
Oh, I knew I wouldn't be seeing the Bethlehem
of our Christmas Greeting Cards.
I knew it wouldn't be a tiny village
that had a few inns with stables out back.
Maybe if I'd done a bit more research
I would have known what to expect.
What I found was a big city, a fairly busy city,
with lots of traffic in the streets.
It was also a somewhat poor looking place.
It was quite a contrast to the parts of Jerusalem
that we had come through on our way to Bethlehem.
The impression of Bethlehem that stays in my mind the most
is the wall.
You see, Bethlehem is in the West Bank, that portion of Israel
that had been a part of the country of Jordan from 1948 to 1967.
The population of the West Bank is mostly Palestinian
and the Israeli government
has approved the construction of a barrier.
The name of the barrier depends on who you're asking.
The Israeli government calls it a "security fence"
and Palestinians call it an "apartheid wall."
To avoid either of these political connotations the BBC, for one,
uses the terms "barrier," "separation barrier,"
or "West Bank barrier" as generic descriptions.
The total length when finished will be about 700 kilometres,
90% of which will be a network of fences and trenches
and 10 % of which will be 8 metre high concrete walls.
I'm not going to get into the pros and cons and the politics of the barrier.
The reason I'm making mention of it
is that I was rather disturbed by it when I was there.
To get into Bethlehem from Jerusalem,
our tour bus had to pass through a check-point on the way in
and again on the way out,
and the barrier in this place is the concrete wall,
a huge imposing wall, 8 metres high (that's 26 feet).
Just on the outskirts of Bethlehem we looked down into a quiet valley
that could have been the kind of place
where the shepherds might have watched their flocks
on the night of Jesus' birth,
and we were told that the barrier wall
will go down the centre of that valley.

It was disturbing to me because it's so unfamiliar to me.
We live in a relatively peaceful part of the world.
We don't see soldiers standing on every street corner.
My travels didn't take me anywhere near any current conflict
but the evidence was there.
The wall, the check-points,
the metal detectors on the way into every hotel and mall.
As we drove up in the Golan Heights we passed fields that were fenced
and signs on the fences that warned of landmines in those fields.
We saw soldiers all over the place.
Military service is required there and I saw young women,
to me they were still girls,
in uniform with rifles slung over their shoulders.
Some tourist areas and hotels had soldiers stationed out front.
It was disturbing and it was sad
that there isn't peace in the birthplace of the Prince of Peace.
But then I had to think that it's nothing new.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem
the land was under occupation by Rome.
Beginning during the reign of Augustus Caesar
there was a relative peace in the Roman Empire
but it was a peace enforced by the military,
a peace filled with tension and resentment.
Israel was a place where uprisings
had to frequently be put down by force.
It would be easy to understand how someone might express
the sentiment described in the hymn I sang.
The hills are bare at Bethlehem,
No future for the world they show;
But into that place and time of unrest and seeming hopelessness
a couple of poor travelers make a journey
from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
And they know something the rest of the world hasn't yet heard.
Yet here new life begins to grow,
From earth's old dust a greenwood stem.
Mary had received the promise.
"Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.
And now, you will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne
of his ancestor David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Joseph also received the promise.
"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins."

In the Egyptian portion of our Bible Lands Tour we visited Mount Sinai,
the place where tradition says Moses brought the liberated Israelites
and received the Ten Commandments.
We were given the opportunity to climb the mountain.
We started out at 12:30 in the middle of the night
so that we would be at the top to watch the sunrise.
As we headed toward our climb
we could pick out the small fires of Bedouin guides in the cold night.
Some of them would be our guides as we climbed.
As I saw the men huddled around their fires
with their camels lying nearby
I could imagine the shepherds
on the hillsides around Bethlehem
trying to find some warmth
as they kept watch over their sheep.
The hills are cold at Bethlehem,
No warmth for those beneath the sky;
But out in those fields on the sides of those hills
they would hear God's words of promise as well.
They would hear a choir concert like no one had ever heard
or has heard since.
Those shepherds on the hills outside of Bethlehem
weren't in any position to afford expensive concert tickets.
They were the working poor.
But then an angel appeared.
"Do not be afraid;
for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:
to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be a sign for you:
you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth
and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,
praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!"
Yet here the radiant angels fly,
And joy burns new, a fiery gem.
The shepherds went to see for themselves what the angel had told them
and returned, glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Who was that good news for?
We hear the readings for this night,
especially the Gospel reading, the familiar story of Jesus' birth.
"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus ..."
and right away our minds go into history mode.
Emperor Augustus ... the first registration ...
while Quirinius was governor of Syria ...."
We think of quaint pastoral scenes,
the way I might have been imagining Bethlehem
before I actually went there.
But the promises that Mary, Joseph, and the Shepherds heard
were not only given to them,
and they were not only given for that time and that place.
This night when we gather here
and sing some favourite carols and hear some familiar stories
is not only about those days.
The promises are for us and for our time and place
just as much as they were for those people way back when.
And this night isn't only about those days
but for these days as well.
The heart is tired at Bethlehem,
No human dream unbroken stands;
We need to hear the words of the angels
as much as Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds,
or anyone else who heard them
and witnessed the miracles of that night did.
The promises come for a tired heart
that is disturbed by the violence, the tension, the un-peace.
The promises come for the broken human dreams
that leave us without hope.
Yet here God comes to mortal hands,
And hope renewed cries out: "Amen!"
More than taking us to Bethlehem,
the Word of this night comes to where we are.
Without these angelic words of promise
we'd be better off somewhere else doing something else tonight.
But I believe we are better off here, doing this, worshiping God
and hearing these words that are meant for us.

God came to Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds so long ago and so far away.
But God comes to us tonight, right here.
In a few moments we will hear the words
"given for you ... shed for you."
Christ was born all those years ago and the promises came true
that Mary, Joseph, and the Shepherds heard.
Christ comes again to us tonight,
not in some historic words about something that happened long ago,
but in a real way in this holy moment.
"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined."
"The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it."
May the light of Christ shine in your heart this night and always,
and may we bear that divine light to all the world.
Yet here God comes to mortal hands,
And hope renewed cries out: "Amen!

What a Concert

This past Saturday was the premiere performance by the Chorus Niagara Children's Choir. I was there because one of my daughters is one of the members of this new choir. Chorus Niagara is a premiere choir in these parts, maybe even in all of Ontario. They established a children's choir under their umbrella this year. There are almost 50 voices in this children's choir and they sound terrific.

Saturday night was a concert of both the adult chorus and the children's choir with some pieces being sung together and others separately. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as they sang. It was just beautiful. The concert was held in the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Alexandria in St. Catharines, Ontario.

My favourite piece that the children sang was a Hebrew language song called "Al Shlosha D'varim." The words go like this:
Al shlosha d'varim haolam kayam,
al haemet v'al hadin v'al hashalom.

Translated it means:
The world is sustained by three things,
by truth, by justice, and by peace.

I can't wait to hear them again. I was so proud.

Here's a review in the paper.

Advent Already -- Christmas Soon

This is my article for the current church newsletter coming out this Sunday.


Boy, Advent has snuck up on me. I’m sitting down to write this on November 26. In a month Christmas will be over. Well actually it won’t be over, it will only have just started, but it will feel like it’s over. We have such a build up through the month of December leading up to Christmas and then when the day is past, when all the bits of wrapping paper have been picked up, when the dishes have been washed and the leftovers are in various plastic containers in the back of the fridge, then it feels like Christmas is over.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. As I write this Christmas is just a month away and I feel totally unprepared. I haven’t bought any presents yet (although my wife does most of the Christmas shopping and she’s got most of it done and wrapped already). Many of you know that I returned recently (on November 15) from an 19 day tour of the Holy Land, through parts of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. Now I’m barely back to work and Advent and the busy month of December and the Christmas season are here.

Some radio stations are playing 24 hours of Christmas songs and carols. The stores are decorated. Our homes are being decorated. We’re making our lists and checking them twice, just like Santa Claus. The sounds of Christmas are rising in a crescendo that I feel somewhat ambivalent about. I love Christmas music, in fact I’m bending and breaking my household rule about playing Christmas music. It’s starting earlier every year. I’ve got my radio in the house and in the car tuned to the all Christmas music station. I like seeing the decorations out. I’m hoping for a somewhat warm day without rain so that I can get the lights and decorations put up outside the house.

But, on the other hand, I have this feeling that we’re rushing toward Christmas. We’re going to get there too soon. I want to hold off just a little longer. For that side of me I’m glad we have the season of Advent. Advent is a time of waiting. And Advent is a time of silence amid much noise. Advent is a time to think about another way, a different way.

During Advent we hear two words. On the Sundays in Advent we will hear readings from Isaiah where weapons of death are transformed into tools for cultivation (Isa 2:4). The ravenous wolf will no longer be a predator and the lamb will sleep soundly and securely through the night (Isa 11:6). The earth itself will no longer be barren or spoiled (Isa 35:1). The weak will be made strong (Isa 35:3). This is the word of comfort for the afflicted.

That’s not the only image we see nor the only news we hear during Advent. There is a sound of alarm and warnings to be ready. Wake up! (Rom 13:11) Stay awake! (Mt 24:42) Repent! (Mt 3:2) A thief is coming! (Mt 24:42-43) The judge is standing at the doors! (Jas 5:9). This is the word of affliction for the comfortable. Advent, if we really take the time and pay attention to what God is saying to us through the Word, asks us to step back and think differently about things. Advent asks us to consider what we do and why we do it and to give God a place in all that we do.

When we finally get to Christmas, the silence of Advent will have prepared us for joyful celebration. There are two words at Christmas as well as in Advent. There is the word of the gift of a baby born in a stable in Bethlehem, the word of hope that is born in each of our hearts as we hear the message of peace that the angels sing. It’s the image of a "baby-Jesus-for-me." But Christmas also brings another word presenting a "Jesus-who-is-for-us" and a "Jesus-who-frees-people." On the same night that we hear of the birth of the babe in Bethlehem, we also hear the words of the adult Christ who is broken and poured out in bread and wine. When we see the wooden manger we can’t forget the wooden cross.

Our hymns don’t let us forget these two words of Christmas. We sing "Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child." But another favourite is "What Child Is This" where the second verse says "Nails, spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you; hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary!"

I’m not a party-pooper. I will soon get caught up in the festivities of the season. But I’ll try to keep some silence during Advent to think about what we’re really waiting for and preparing for. And between the opening of gifts, the visiting of friends and family, and the feasting that will inevitably be a joyful part of Christmas I’ll try to set aside some time to ponder the sacrifice God made by coming down to be one of us. Maybe you can too.

Merry Christmas,
Pastor Tom

Days 15 and 16

Tuesday, November 13
Today we started by going to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is almost all downhill. Jerusalem is above sea level and Jericho is down below sea level just north of the Dead Sea. This is the road where Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan takes place. The area on the way down is like desert wilderness. Nomadic Bedouins in very poor shacks and tents live in the valleys and on the hillsides off to the side of the highway where their flocks of goats and sheep live off of what appears to be very little grass growing here or there.

Jericho is like a ghost town. It’s part of the Palestinian territory of the West Bank and very poor. There are nice looking farms around but Samir says they can’t sell their produce outside of town and definitely not in Israeli territory. In town we saw an old sycamore tree like the one Zacchaeus climbed to get a better view of Jesus as he was walking through town. We also went to the Mount of Temptation where Jesus might have spent his 40 days after his baptism. There is a monastery built into the cliff walls where pilgrims come to spend their 40 days of Lent. We stopped in town at a store that sells glassware, china/stone ware, and Dead Sea cosmetic products.

From Jericho we went to the district along the Dead Sea, first to Qumran to see some ruins of the Essene village and the cave where the first Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Samir was telling us some cock-a-mamie stories about the Essenes following Jesus around recording stories of his life and ministry, another story about some Jews in Ethiopia preserving some identical scrolls to the ones found at Qumran. I’m finding him harder and harder to believe and to understand just what he’s trying to get at sometimes.

From Qumran we drove to Masada. I slept all the way and missed most of Samir’s theories that the whole Masada story as related by Josephus is a lie, sham, hoax, cover-up, etc. He doesn’t believe one bit of the story about the Zealots’ suicides after the lengthy siege by the Romans. His stories are just loonie if you ask me.

From Masada we drove up to Ein Gedi on the shore of the Dead Sea. It’s a spa with a beach. I went first down to the beach. The water level has gone down so much that you have to take a tram about a kilometre or more to get to the sea. It’s not a sand beach but salt, and sharp prickly salt on your bare feet. But floating in the Sea is the most amazing and weird sensation. You just can’t sink! There is no way. You can sit and just float, lie and just float. The water was nice and warm but when you rubbed your skin it felt kind of oily. After taking the tram back up to the spa some of us put mud on ourselves. I don’t know where the mud comes from or what it’s supposed to do but I smeared it on and then showered it off. After changing we drove back to the hotel. Tonight I did some re-packing in preparation for tomorrow night when we won’t sleep much before we head home. I can’t wait. Tomorrow we see Old Jerusalem, our last day of touring. I want to see that but I’m all toured out.

Wednesday, November 14
Last day. Today we did Jerusalem. We started at the western wall, the wailing wall, the wall is not part of the temple but part of the retaining wall that held up the whole temple complex at the time of Jesus. We had to go through metal detectors, then the men had a section separate from the women, and we could go up to the wall. I had my picture taken in front of it and touched it. There were hundreds and thousands of slips of paper with prayers on them tucked into the cracks between the stones.

After that we went to the temple mount itself after passing through another security check-point. The temple hasn’t stood there since 70 AD. Now a couple of mosques stand there as it is also a holy place for Muslims. The big golden dome is over a large slab of rock where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael, it depends on whose story you hear).

From there we walked down to the Old City, saw the Bethesda pools where Jesus healed a paralytic and right next to them is the place Mary might have been born(?). From there we started on the Via Dolorosa seeing the stations of the cross. This is so totally hokey. This is probably not the route Jesus took to Golgotha. We don’t really know exactly where Golgotha is. Apparently the route has changed over the centuries. But along the way are these arbitrary stations with a chapel here,a sign or a sculpture there, and some people (our guide included) seem to take this all as fact.

At the end we came to the church of the Holy Sepulchre which is worse than a circus. There are crowds, noisy crowds, and line-ups of people to see the rock that was part of the hill where Jesus was crucified, the slab of stone where he was taken down from the cross and wrapped, and then a marble slab under which is the stone where his body was laid. Absolutely ridiculous.

Next came one of the better parts of the day when I shared a bagel with Doug. This was some bagel, oval shaped and over a foot long, and really yummy. Some of the others who bought bagels couldn’t finish theirs and gave me their leftovers.

After this bite to eat we went to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer which is very close to the Sepulchre. The church seems to have services in German and Arabic. We didn’t climb the steeple but you can see it from all around. It must have a great view.

Next we went to see the (an) upper room. It’s so ridiculous to believe they ate the last supper there. Downstairs in the same building we went into King David’s tomb. Silly. Next to that building is the Church of Mary’s Dormition where she is supposed to have lived after Jesus’ Ascension and from where she was taken up into heaven without dying.

From there we drove to the Garden Tomb which is on the other side of the Old City from the Sepulchre. It’s a garden owned by some British that contains a tomb and has a skull shaped cliff where they think it might be just as likely, if not more likely, that Jesus was crucified and buried. It’s a much prettier place than the Sepulchre and they provide the opportunity for groups to have a communion service, which we did, which people liked, and which was the end of our tour itinerary.

For dinner the local tour company took us for a special dinner at a restaurant in Bethlehem. We almost didn’t get into Bethlehem because they didn’t want to let our tour guide through. We finally did get through with him and had a dinner of stuffed lamb (lamb stuffed with rice). It was delicious.

We came back to the hotel and I tried to take a nap before our 12:30 a.m. wake-up call. Then we’ll drive to the airport in Tel Aviv and head home. Yay!!!

Days 13 and 14

Sunday, November 11
Today was a very strange day for me. It started out pretty much like a lot of our days with packing up, having breakfast, and heading out on the bus.

Our first stop was Megiddo which is also known as Armageddon. It's a city at an important crossroads through the area. There were anywhere from 20 to 25 different cities and fortifications built on this site through history. Solomon and Ahab built fortress cities there. A really interesting feature is a shaft and tunnel leading to a spring outside the city. We walked down through and out the other end where the bus picked us up.

From there we drove to Caesarea by the sea. There was a large theatre, a harbour, a hippodrome, and an aqueduct built by Herod the Great. It was impressive. The Mediterranean was very choppy from a lot of wind. Some of us walked on the beach. A few were surprised by some waves and got wet shoes.

From there we drove through Tel Aviv, through Jerusalem, and into Bethlehem. We were just going for lunch and to a store. I was quite disturbed seeing "the wall." I'd seen some pictures and heard reports in the news but didn't know if we'd see it. Bethlehem is in the Palestinian Authority's area of the West Bank and a concrete wall about 30 feet high separates the Palestinian and Israeli areas to keep them each on their respective sides. Within the city of Bethlehem is "Rachel's Tomb," a special site for Israelis, so a wall surrounds it as well. We passed through an Israeli checkpoint first, and then a Palestinian checkpoint, and then went for lunch. It was such a strange juxtaposition. After lunch we went to a souvenir shop right across the street from the wall surrounding Rachel's Tomb. Our guide had been talking about this shop since we met him 3 days ago. Only thing was this was no mere souvenir shop. Here they were selling antiquities, jewelry, and olive wood carvings that were very pricey. I couldn't get in the mindset of spending one or two hundred dollars on pretty things with that wall across the street still on my mind so I wandered around with my hands in my pockets.

I'm getting tired. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the "supposed" sites where things happened in the life of Jesus but I'm tired of riding the bus, tired of living out of my suitcase, tired of being herded from one place to the next, especially tired of being away from my family, tired of eating hotel food. I can't wait to go home.


Monday, November 12
Today we did some touring in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It's so hard not to be cynical about a lot of this. We started from a hill that overlooks the old city of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, then we drove around to the Mount of Olives. This is an important place in Jesus' life. He would always come from the Mount of Olives when he came to Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane is at or near its base, and his Ascension happened there.

We started at the church of the Ascension, actually a Mosque, where, believe it or not, his footprint can be seen. I took a picture but there were a whole bunch of women down on their knees kissing the rock. From there we headed down a road that may have been part of the procession of palms or the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Along the way we stopped at the church of the "Pater Noster." Now Matthew says Jesus taught the Lord's Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount in Galilee but in Luke it comes after a visit to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany which is just over the Mount of Olives. So the story is that Jesus would come to a cave within the property of this church to pray and once the disciples asked him to teach them to pray. This church has panels with the Lord's Prayer in dozens, maybe over 100, different languages on various walls inside and outside the church and in the courtyard. I took numerous pictures but didn't get inside the cave. It was too crowded.

From there we continued down the Mount to the "Dominus Flevit" (The Lord Wept) Chapel. Supposedly here Jesus wept over the fate of Jerusalem. We walked further down to the Church of All Nations also known as the Church of the Agony because in front of the altar is the exposed rock on which Jesus prayed on the night of his arrest. Outside is a remnant of the Garden of Gethsemane with some really old olive trees, centuries old. Samir claimed that at least one was there when Jesus was. I have my doubts.

Next we did something completely different. We went to "Yad Vashem," named after a Hebrew phrase from Isaiah 56:5 that means "a name and a place" or "a monument and a name." It is a Holocaust memorial and museum. It's a huge complex, a modern complex, and it is beautifully and well done. You could spend a whole day there. I took my time going through and didn't have time to see everything in the main section and there were other areas I didn't even see. It was very sad but also ironic. There were descriptions of the Jewish ghettoes where they were walled in and denied their freedom to move from place to place or make a living. Now Israel is doing something similar to Palestine. Certainly not along the lines of a Holocaust or genocide but I saw some parallels.

From Yad Vashem we went to Bethlehem. I was really looking forward to visiting the "Christmas town," but someone said I'll be disappointed and I was. It's certainly not "O Little Town of Bethlehem." It's a crowded and busy city. A lot of the churches we've visited so far have been quite beautiful. The church over the supposed birthplace of the Saviour of the world is a dingy kind of decrepit looking place. It's very old, very empty, not particularly beautiful. We climbed down some steps to a little room under the main chancel where, under an altar, is a silver star set in a marble slab with a hole in the middle that reveals the rock where Jesus was born. We saw more caves/grottoes and heard some preposterous stories from Samir about what they were supposed to be that I don't even want to mention anything about it. Oh, and up in the Church of the Nativity, to add to the ugliness and cheesiness, there were tacky Christmas balls hanging from all of the lights and chandeliers.

From there we went to the "Shepherds' Field." We saw some caves where the shepherds were apparently watching their sheep when the angels appeared. One couple who toured the Holy Land 10 years ago said they're different fields and caves then they saw back then.

People always want to shop and so we went to another store just like the one yesterday. I was hoping to get a little something more but this place didn't have anything I wanted.

Tonight some people went to a music and dancing show of local Israeli and Palestinian folk music and dancing. I stayed behind in the hotel room and watched TV.

Days 11 and 12

Friday, November 9
Today was a busy day with a number of sights to see. We started by going to Hazor where an excavation has revealed the remains of a fortress built by Solomon and enlarged by Ahab to help secure the northern frontier of Israel. From there we drove to Banias, also known as Caesarea Philippi, where a lot of pagan worship took place and where Jesus asked the disciples "Who do people say that I am?" and "Who do you say that I am?" There Peter made his famous confession: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Banias is "a" or "the" main source of the Jordan River. There was also a ruin of a temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus who was consider a son of the gods. In a place where people worship Caesar, a son of the gods, Peter confessed the Jesus was the Son of the living God. Driving up to Banias we passed by wire fences along the roadside with small yellow signs all along warning to stay out because of landmines. This is in the Golan Heights, a part of Israel that was taken from Syria.

From there we headed back down to the Sea of Galilee and were taken to a restaurant that served "St. Peter's fish" (Tilapia) that came with head and tail and fins all intact. The people who had it liked it but many were unimpressed with the high price and the poor (rude at times) service and the limited selection of food there.

After lunch we made a brief stop (I felt like our tour guide was rushing us) on a kibbutz where they found, have preserved, and are displaying, a boat that was found in the mud near the shore of the Sea of Galilee during a time of drought in 1986. It's likely a fishing boat dated to the first century BC or first century AD. The type of boat Jesus and the disciples might have sailed in on that very lake.

From there we went to the site (?) of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. There are churches built over all of these places and this one has a rock under the altar where Jesus supposedly sat when he blessed and distributed the bread and fish to the multitude.

From there we rode the bus what seemed like a few hundred metres to the Church of the Primacy of Peter where, again supposedly, Jesus cooked breakfast on the shore for the disciples who were fishing. This was after the resurrection when Jesus asked Peter 3 times "do you love me" and told him to feed and tend his sheep. In this church there's a huge are of an outcropping of rock where, I guess, Jesus sat and cooked breakfast.

From there we went to Capernaum which really only exists in the excavated ruins. There is what is believed may be Peter's house over which a number of churches have been built. They were all octagonal shaped and a new modern church, also octagonally shaped, has been built over the site, but suspended on 8 columns around the outside with a window in the centre of the floor looking down on the ruins. There are also the remains of a residential area and the partial reconstruction of a 4th century AD synagogue.

From Capernaum we rode a boat across the lake back to our hotel in Tiberias. And wouldn't you know, the sky got cloudy and the wind picked up. People were asking if Doug and I had any prayers for calming the sea.

The lake is what strikes me most about this place. A lot of the traditions about these sites are so bogus but this is the lake where the disciples fished, where Jesus went out in the boat and preached, where he walked on the water and calmed the storm. We had morning devotions, before we set out today, overlooking the lake. Samir made a good point about the lake. All the water it receives it gives away at the other end and it is a living and life-giving lake. The Dead Sea, that receives water from the Jordan but has no outlet, is just that, dead.

On the boat ride they were playing some Christian music which included: "Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water. Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea.

After supper Doug and I walked through the town of Tiberias. You could have fired a cannon through there and not hit anyone. The Sabbath began at sundown so everything was closed except for a few corner cafes that hardly had anyone in them. We saw maybe a few more than a dozen people on our walk, probably all tourists.

Tomorrow we end up in Nazareth.


Saturday, November 10
Today we left Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee. Some of the places we visited around there weren't exactly stirring to me but the lake made an impression on me.

We drove up through the town of Tiberias and went to Sepphoris, a short distance from Nazareth, to see some ruins of the former city there. Sepphoris, or Tsipori, is the supposed birthplace of Mary. There are some truly amazing mosiacs that were uncovered there. We climbed to the top of a Crusader citadel and could see Nazareth, Cana, and the Mediterranean Sea. This is also the place where the Mishnah (the first written record of the Oral teachings of the Jewish people) was written down c. 200 AD.

From there we drove to Akko. My guidebook to Jerusalem and the Holy Land describes it as "the most complete and charming old town in all of the Holy Land ... outside of Jerusalem." Our Rostad tour booklet said we'd get to walk through the town but we drove all the way there and walked up some stairs to the top of the old wall overlooking the Mediterranean, then got back on the bus and drove to Nazareth. Going to Akko turned out to be a complete waste of time. We ended up at our hotel, finished with our day, at 3 p.m. We could have easily spent an hour or more there. But before we ended up in our hotel we toured Nazareth.

Nazareth had no charm or historic atmosphere as far as I'm concerned. It's just a big city. First we stopped for a bite of lunch for those who wanted some. He took us to a falafel and shawerma place. That's Middle Eastern fast food. A few had some. A bunch of us went to a little variety store a few doors down. I bought a Coke and a can of Pringles.

After eating we went to the Basilica of the Annunciation. It's a neat place. On the main level are the remains of the original Byzantine church and the later Crusader church as well as the cave where the angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to Mary. Up above is the new/current church and all around the walls are huge artistic representations of Mary donated from different countries. It's a pretty new church (1969) but in my view very beautiful.

We exited a side door and walked through a courtyard. In this courtyard is a really neat baptistry that says "Germania" so I'm guessing it was given by Germany. Through the courtyard is the small St. Joseph's church (1914) built over the site of Joseph's home and carpentry shop. From there we walked through the "souk" a narrow winding marketplace to a church built on the site of what may have been the synagogue in Jesus' time.

We walked back through the souk to our bus and I thought we were going to our hotel but we made another stop at an Orthodox church that contained a running spring where the owners of this church suppose the Annunciation took place. From there we drove to our hotel.

The traffic in Nazareth is horrendous. There are all these huge tourist buses squeezing through fairly small streets with all kinds of private cares trying to get through as well.

I'm really getting sick of Samir's commentary. He's talking as if these things happened in these exact sites, no question about it. I was getting hints of some anti-Judaism coming through his "sermons" and today I was hearing more. He's spoiling some things for me. Doug, Joanne, and I are going to sit with him before supper to clarify our schedule for the rest of the tour because he keeps switching things around on us.

I found it interesting that at supper they wouldn't serve coffee. The reason, I think, is that people might put milk or cream in their coffee. The dining room is kosher and there was meat being served at dinner which can't be mixed or combined with any dairy according to kosher rules. At breakfast there was no meat so they could serve coffee and other dairy products. I also noticed that one of the elevators was a "Sabbath Elevator." I asked about it and found out that on the Sabbath it goes up and down, stopping at every floor, so that you don't have to press the buttons. Building is forbidden on the Sabbath and by pressing an elevator button you are completing a circuit which is building something.

Days 9 and 10

Wednesday, November 7
Today was a long day of driving and sight seeing fro Petra to Amman in Jordan. After leaving Petra the itinerary said we were supposed to go to Kerak to a crusader castle there. Our guide took us, instead, to another crusader castle called Shobak, or Shawback. He said Kerak would be overrun with tourists, plus it’s situated in the middle of a town, whereas Shobak is perched atop a hill called Montréal (yes that’s right) sort of in the middle of nowhere. Much of this castle is in ruin but is being restored by archaeologists. A good bit was still standing. These castles were a line of castles built by the crusaders in the 1100s to guard the road from Egypt to Damascus. There are Arabic inscriptions on some of the stones dating to the 14th century restoration by the Mamelukes but when the Turks rebuilt it later they got the stones rearranged in the wrong order so it doesn’t really say anything now. It was quite impressive and the view all around was incredible.

From there we headed north to Madaba. On the way we had to cross Wadi al-Mujib which was called Arnon in the Old Testament. It is a huge and deep valley where we had to drive back and forth on switch back, hairpin turns down and back up the other side. At the bottom is a dam creating a lake for irrigation and for water supply to Amman.

At Madaba there are the remains of a huge mosaic map on the floor of a church depicting the Holy Land from Lebanon to Egypt dating back to the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565 AD).

From there we went to Mount Nebo where Moses is said to have looked over the promised land but could not enter it. The view wasn’t too good because it was very cloudy and misty. You could see the Dead Sea 1,000m below. There’s a church up there with some ruins, a monument erected for a visit by Pope John Paul II.

On the way back from Mount Nebo as we headed to Amman we stopped at a studio and store where handicapped/disabled/differently-abled people make mosaics. They are really beautiful and I would have loved to buy one but they were too expensive for me.

We got to Amman just around dusk. It’s a city of 2 million. Our hotel is, again, gorgeous, maybe the fanciest we’ve been in. As in Aqaba we had to have our carrying luggage x-rayed and as at every hotel we had to walk through a metal detector. I don’t know what it is about me but I’m the only one who had to open my backpack at the Israeli border on Sunday and the only one they had to check with a wand after walking through the metal detector even though everyone made it beep. Maybe it’s my beard.

Tomorrow Israel.


Thursday, November 8
This morning we drove from Amman to Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan where tradition says John the Baptist baptized and where Jesus was baptized. It was neat to be there. It’s not a huge river, more like a large creek. We got to put our hands in the water and we had a Re-Affirmation of Baptism service. While we were walking down and putting our hands in the river a soldier with a rifle over his shoulder was keeping an eye on us.

While we were having our service just up the bank from the river, a mother and her daughter went down to the (muddy) water to be baptized by their pastor. Later when we were driving in Israel where the Jordan River comes out of the Sea of Galilee we saw hundreds of people lined up going down to the river, all dressed in white robes, to be baptized. (Later we saw that Benny Hinn Ministries had a huge tour in the Holy Land with lots of buses and after I came home I was flipping channels and saw Benny and a crowd of people at the Jordan River so we just might have seen him baptizing all those people).

On our way from Amman down to the Jordan I realized I had left the tube with the papyrus I bought back at our hotel. I went and told Mohammed, our guide, and he called the hotel and arranged for someone to drive it down to us so when we left the river and headed north to the border crossing we picked it up along the way.

When we came through Israeli customs I was the only one in the group to have my bags x-rayed and opened and searched. The rest of our tour were waiting for me and laughing at me. When one of the inspectors saw my Keffiyeh in my suitcase he asked where I got it, why, for who, and how much I paid. When I told him at Petra, as a souvenir, for myself, and $20 he nearly laughed. The people from our tour who heard started to laugh and he said "they should laugh."

Finally we were on our way. We’re on a smaller bus. It doesn’t have as many empty seats for us to spread out in back. We drove to Bet-Shean, one of the cities of the Decapolis at the time of Jesus. It also figures in the story of King Saul and Jonathan and their deaths in battle.

We were a little early actually so we got something in that was scheduled for another day. We went to the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus may have given the Sermon on the Mount. There is a pretty nice church up there financed by Mussolini. There are windows, stained glass windows, with each of the Beatitudes written in Latin around the top of the church just below the dome. You can look down on the Sea of Galilee from there as well.

We came to our hotel which is quite a step down from the places we’ve been staying so far. Supper was disappointing. I did a bit of laundry again sine we’re here two nights. Our guide is a Palestinian Christian and gives us mini-sermons wherever we stop. It could get tiresome if he’s too over-the-top for our entire tour of Israel. We were spoiled by our first guide in Egypt, Reham, who was great. In Jordan, Mohammed really knew his stuff and was a good guy but didn’t have the personality of Reham. Time will tell how I like Samir for our tour of Israel.

Days 7 and 8

Monday, November 5
We had a relaxing morning and left Aqaba after 11 a.m. We drove about an hour to Wadi Rum. T.E. Lawrence and his Arab allies had their home base there. It seems a harsh place. We arrived at a camp from where we loaded into Land Cruiser trucks. Most sat on benches on the backs of the pick-ups. The one I rode in had a back seat so I rode inside. We drove through the desert. It was a breathtaking landscape with flat stretches of where sometimes we were driving on soft sand and other times on hard rock-like surface. And then here and there, all over the place, sheer rocky mountains would rise from the desert floor.

From there we drove about 2 hours to Petra. Not the ancient city of Petra but to a hotel in the newer town of Petra. Along the way we periodically saw Bedouin tents. It’s almost hard to believe that people are still living in tents, still living a nomadic lifestyle. I don’t know why but I automatically assumed that people in the modern world would be settled down somewhere in a permanent home.

We’re spending two nights at this hotel so it gave me a chance to do some hand-washing and let it hang to be dry before we move on. The pool at this hotel isn’t heated so I didn’t go swimming today.


Tuesday, November 6
Today we went to Petra. That’s an incredible place. It’s hidden in a canyon and valley. It was the capital of the Nabbatean people who were there from the 3rd century BC to 106 AD when the Romans took over. To get there you have to walk down through a deep canyon called a "Siq" which opens at the end to a building carved into the rock called the "Treasury." This is the place you see in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he goes inside to get the Holy Grail ("This is the cup of a carpenter"). It’s called the Treasury but it was really a temple and tomb. The whole canyon as you continue past the treasury has numerous tombs carved into the rock walls. There’s also a huge Roman theatre carved into the canyon wall. It’s really beautiful. It’s mostly reddish-pinkish coloured sandstone. There is so much to see there and too much to describe and the pictures I took don’t do it justice.

Apparently Bedouins used to live in the caves and former tombs of Petra until 1980 when the government forcibly removed them to a modern village just outside the valley. They still come every day to set up their stalls and coffee shops and sell all kinds of things. They also lead people in and out of the canyon on horses, donkeys, camels, and horse drawn buggies.

It was quite hot (30 or 31 deg. C) today but I used sunscreen and wore my hat, but we had to do a lot of walking and the heat, which isn’t a humid heat, still really tires you out. Coming out of the "Siq" you can take a horse for the last 900m to the bus parking area. I rode the horse because it was all uphill and I was beat.

Back at the hotel some of us met on the terrace to watch the sunset behind the mountains. It was very nice but once the sun was gone it became quite cool. After sitting outside in shorts and a t-shirt and freezing I put on jeans and a sweatshirt before going down for supper.

Doug led evening prayer in the hotel theatre for us after which they were showing the Indiana Jones movie. Something I forgot to mention, on a nearby mountaintop that we passed on the way down to Petra there is a shrine commemorating where Aaron, the brother of Moses, is said to have been buried. Our guide Mohammed said it’s called Mount Hor but my guide book says Jabel Haroun.

Who'd have thunk?

I'm a proud Canadian but I don't hide my German roots. I'm not much of a drinker either. These quizzes are crap sometimes. I do like to watch Ballykissangel though.

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous!You drink everyone under the table.

Who's" Your Inner European?

Days 5 and 6

Saturday, November 3
Talk about a looooonnnng day. Last night we turned the lights out at 9:45 and someone was coming to wake me at midnight to start climbing Mount Sinai. Well I couldn’t sleep. Partly because of excitement about what we were about to do, partly from cats fighting outside our room, and a whole lot because of all the mosquitoes. I think I might have slept from 10:45 to 11:15. After the knock on the door at 12:00 I brushed my teeth and got dressed. I dressed as warmly as I could: jeans, t-shirt, sweat-shirt, golf jacket. But I had my doubts about how cold it would be. We met in the courtyard of the monastery guest house and it wasn’t really that cold.

Around 12:30 we started walking. Just a little ways outside the monastery the Bedouins were waiting with their camels. 10 from our group were going up on camels and 3 of us, the three youngest, were walking all the way. I figured "Moses did it, so will I." If I ever get there again I’m taking a camel.

We had a Bedouin guide lead us. I could never remember his name and had to keep asking what it was. He and Ahmed, one of our tour guides, said we should just call him Suleiman (Arabic for Solomon). He led us up the mountain. It took us about 2 hours to walk up to the base of the 750 rugged stone steps. The ones on camels did it in about 1½ hours. My thighs were already sore from climbing inside the great pyramid two days earlier. They were burning and aching by the time we reached the rest of the group. Along the way up the mountain path you periodically come across some crude shacks built of stone where Bedouins sell coffee, tea, pop, water, chocolate bars, flash lights etc. There was also a Bedouin following us for a long while with his camel trying to get one of us to ride up. All along the way, up and down the mountain, there were Bedouins with their camels offering rides. "Camel? Camel? Camel good!"

It was a long hard climb. It wasn’t as steep as it could be. It zigged and zagged with lots of switch backs. It was totally dark. When we started out the moon hadn’t risen yet and there were a zillion stars out. Then we saw the moon. It was neat because, where at home a crescent moon is like a C or a backward C, here near the equator it was like a U. I also realized that when we see mosques at home the crescent moon on top of the minaret is like a C but in Egypt they all had the crescent lying down like a U.

Anyway, we climbed in the dark by the light of our flashlights. At one of the tea huts I had a Snickers bar and a Coke. We made lots of rest stops and finally joined the rest of the group. It was still pretty early so we rested at the tea hut at the base of the stairs. Then we set out to climb the 750 steps to the top of the mountain. Those are really rough steps and hard to climb. One couple who rode the camels didn’t even attempt climbing the stairs. A short while later an older fellow from our tour (68 years old) was really struggling and panting as we climbed the steps. I said, "You’re making me a little nervous and soon I’ll be a lot nervous. Are you sure you should be climbing these steps?" He decided he better go back down so Suleiman took him back to the tea hut with the others who stayed behind. Later I found out that this guy has had bypass surgery and has a heart murmur. I don’t know why he tried the climb in the first place. Soon after that another couple was having trouble and Ahmed had to take them back. We waited for him and then continued up the steps taking numerous rests (every 50 steps or so). We reached the summit at 4:30 or so while it was still very dark.

I read Exodus 19 and 20 to our group, and whoever else up there was listening in. I said a few words about the grace of God in the delivering of the slaves and choosing to be their God, and choosing them to be his people, then I read some prayers. Before I finished praying a Muslim on the mountain with us started chanting the call to prayers. There is a Greek Orthodox chapel and a Muslim Mosque at the summit of the mountain.

I said I was skeptical about the cold. It was freezing! We had sweated from our climb so we were chilled even more. There were Bedouins walking around up there renting out blankets for $2 or $4 depending on the size. Some of the women in our group got some. One of our guys did too and after a while he saw me shivering and gave his blanket to me.

We waited for the sunrise, and waited, and waited. The sky was getting brighter and you could start to see the mountains all around us. It was absolutely, stunningly, beautiful. My pictures won’t do the views justice. God was saying good morning in the eastern sky. There was some cloud and/or haze in that direction but finally the sun broke through.

Then it was time to go back down. By the way, there were hundreds of people up there and after the sunrise we all started back down. Down certainly wasn’t as tiring as up but it still hurt, and it seemed to take a really long time. On the way down we could see the mountains that were all around us but that we couldn’t see on our way up.

We eventually got back to St. Catherine, I had a shower, packed up, and went for breakfast. Then we had a short tour inside the monastery where apparently Jethro’s well where Moses met his wife, and the burning bush, a tree from a stalk of the original bush, are. Oh yeah. Then we left St. Catherine, continued east through the Sinai desert to the east coast and the up to Taba. I fell asleep on the drive.

We stayed at a gorgeous, posh resort on the Gulf of Aqaba, the Intercontinental Taba Resort. I swam in the Gulf (an arm of the Red Sea), and in the two swimming pools. We all had dinner together and had to say goodbye to Reham. She was a fabulous guide. She was intelligent, informative, had a good sense of humour, and was pretty easy on the eyes. She says she’s a descendant of the ancient Egyptians. It’s a shame we couldn’t have her for the entire trip but her expertise is Egyptology. She has a passion and love for her country and its history and culture and she was a big part of what made our trip, our tour of Egypt, so awesome.

I phoned home from Taba. It was good to hear my wife’s voice. I wish that she (they, the kids would like this too) could be here to experience all this with me.


Sunday, November 4
So, today was a day of border crossings. We left the beautiful resort in Taba, our last stop in Egypt. Ahmed took us as far as he could go. We were taken to the border by Ibrahim, our bus driver for our whole time in Egypt. We left that bus that we had been traveling in for 6 days and had to drag all our belongings through Egyptian customs and security, then about 200m down the road was Israeli customs and security. I was coming up the rear and when my backpack went through the x-ray machine they looked and looked, finally they put it through and asked me to open it. They took everything out and put it all back in again. I don’t know what in it looked suspicious.

When we were finally in Israel our bus wasn’t there to meet us. Apparently we were early. So we waited. One man in our group sat on a bench and wrote in his journal. A soldier saw him and came over and wanted to see what he was writing. I guess journaling at the Israeli border crossing is a no-no.

When our bus finally came we were driven through Eilat, Israel’s only Red Sea port and resort town. It only took about 15 minutes to get to the Jordanian border. There we got off the Israeli bus and again dragged our belongings through customs and then a much longer walk to Jordan’s customs and security. There Doug had a bit of trouble because they wanted to know the name of our tour company in Jordan. We only had the name of a company in Jerusalem that was arranging the Jordanian and Israeli parts of our tour. They finally called the company in Jerusalem who put him in touch with the guy whose name we have, who was with another tour group up in Amman. Just about then our guide, Mohammed, showed up and cleared things up.

We were brought to the Moevenpick hotel in Aqaba and most of us got 2 bedroom apartments to stay in. I didn’t go into the sea to swim today, just the pool and hot tub. We had a lovely supper under the stars on a warm but comfortable (not humid) night. During supper a man from our group became quite unwell, was taken back to his room in a wheelchair, and a doctor came to see him. We don’t know exactly what’s wrong with him but have a few suspicions. We’re hoping he can continue on the tour.

After supper 7 of us walked through downtown Aqaba. It’s neat to see a city with such a different culture from what we’re used to in Canada. When we got back Doug and I went to one of the hotel’s cafes on the rooftop in the open air and had Moevenpick ice cream sundaes overlooking the city lights on a beautiful warm night. Doug’s a great guy and a good friend but it would have been way better with my wife there.

I forgot to say that before we left Taba we gathered together in an empty section of the hotel bar and had a Sunday worship service using the Morning Prayer service and singing a couple of hymns. It was lovely and a lot of people really appreciated it. I led the liturgy and Doug read the story of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away by Abraham and Sarah and talked about the roots of the Jewish and Arab people and how God has cared for all of them.

While we were swimming in Aqaba we heard the call to prayer coming from the numerous mosques around the city. I though we could learn something about devotion and prayer from them. Even Christians in a Muslim land could use those 5 daily reminders to pray themselves.

Days 3 and 4

Thursday, November 1
What a cool day! Not the temperature, the stuff we did. First thing was the pyramids. These enormous things that you learn about in Social Studies in grade school? We were there! I climbed inside the great pyramid, on of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It’s not for the claustrophobic or if you have a bad back. Part of the way up you have to walk bent over and you come down the same way. It’s very narrow in parts as well and there’s only one way in and one way out so people are passing each other bent over. It was really hot and stuffy inside there too.
Four of us took a camel ride as well. Joanne rode on "Charlie," Anne Marie was on "Moses," Clarence rode "Mickey," and I was on "Columbus." I had to do both of those things just for the experience. Now I can say "I was at the Pyramids, I climbed up to Cheops’ burial chamber, and I rode in the desert on a camel.

After that we drove down to the Sphinx to take some pictures. Then we went back to the fast food place where we were yesterday for lunch. I didn’t have any this time. It didn’t make me sick yesterday (although one or two of our people weren’t well after eating there yesterday) but I didn’t enjoy it enough to want another one. From there our guide took us to a store that sells cotton and linen products (it’s called Funky Bros.) and from there we headed to Sakkara.

At Sakkara there is the very first pyramid tomb known as the "step pyramid." Rather than the conventional rectangular shaped tomb, the Pharaoh Djoser decided his tomb would have them stacked up on top of each other. His actual burial chamber was dug into the bedrock underneath the pyramid. We also went into the Mastaba, the rectangular tomb, of Mereruka who was Djoser’s Minister of Finance and his son-in-law. I was amazed that we could actually walk into that tomb and touch, actually see and feel, the carvings on the wall that still have some paint on them after over 4000 years.

After returning to Giza we stopped at a place called "Relax Perfume Center" where they manufacture and sell "Essential Oils," the oils they extract from various flowers. This is done a lot in Egypt and much is exported for making perfumes but the oils are more concentrated then perfumes and colognes. We got back to the hotel in mid afternoon and were able to relax a bit before supper.

This touring can get tiring and I’m only 41. I can’t imagine how some of the septuagenarian are handling it.


Friday, November 2
We left Cairo today, had our last view of the pyramids as we drove away, crossed the Nile for the last time, and went downtown to the citadel. It was built by crusaders and captured by Saladin. Within the citadel is the Mosque of Mohammed Ali (not the boxer). Ali was an Albanian who became the first king of Egypt after claiming independence from Ottoman rule.

After that we headed east out of Cairo toward Sinai. You don’t have to go far from the Nile until you’re in total desert. There is some development in desert areas, probably confined to areas near the highways. We came to the Suez Canal and passed under a tunnel at the south end of the canal. Once on the other side of the canal we were in Sinai.

Shortly after turning south along the Gulf of Suez we stopped at Ain Musa, the Spring of Moses. I’ve heard conflicting reports about what this is supposed to be. What I read, and what would make the most sense to me according to its location, is that this was Marra where the Hebrews found bitter water. God told Moses to throw a branch from a certain tree into the water and it would become sweet. We saw a dirty well with some garbage in it. And, as everywhere we’be been, people tried to sell us cheap trinkets and junk. And little kids were all around us begging. They were really adorable but you’d go broke helping all the poor and adorable people here. They have no social assistance here so people do what they can. All around the pyramids, the Citadel/Mosque, any tourist area, they’re trying to sell you postcards, pens, cheap necklaces, fake papyrus pictures, bookmarks, books. It’s the same stuff everywhere. Some are very persistent, more often with women and older people. I just say "no, no" and they usually leave me alone. Maybe I’m big and scary.

After Ain Musa we traveled a little further south and came to Banana Beach, a restor that seems, for the most part, to be abandoned. It seems very broken down. You can tell that it was, and could be, gorgeous but maybe they overestimated how many people might come there and then went bust. The tour guide claims that most are condos owned by people from Cairo who really only come in summer. I don’t know about that. It looked pretty rundown to think anyone used it and there were more resorts like it up and down the shore. The one thing that was open and looked pretty good was the restaurant where we had lunch. Not terrible.

From there we headed the rest of the way to St. Catherine, the town and monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. We arrived in the dark, had supper, and I wrote this in my journal just before going to bed at 9:37 p.m. They’ll be getting those of us who are climbing the mountain up at midnight so I won’t sleep much. Maybe not at all since we have a few mosquitoes in the room.

Days 1 and 2

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Arrived in Milan at 6:45 a.m. after flying 6617 km from Toronto. I don't fly much so being on a plane is always an exciting adventure. They showed 2 movies on the way over, "The Waitress" and "Shrek the 3rd." I slept through the Shrek movie. We got supper and breakfast on the plane. It was not great. Not even very good. It didn't seem like they cleaned the plane when it was turned around in Toronto. The washroom was dirty and there was garbage in the pocket in front of the seat. After a stopover in Milan we're flying on to Cairo.

It's so awesome to be in Egypt. Our guide tells us the population of the country is 70 million. The population of Cairo is 18 million, swelling to 20 million each day with commuters coming into the city to work. Almost everything is brown. I've never been to a desert before. Cairo is huge and boy is it different. Traffic is crazy and you have to drive with one hand on the horn. People totally ignore lane markers. There was a pick-up truck driving with 15 to 20 guys STANDING in the back. Another truck was piled high with bags of I-don't-know-what, as high as the bus, and two guys were lying on top of the bags. There were flocks of sheep in the middle of the city, a few goats on someone's roof, and a LOT of really poor housing. One place called the "City of the Dead" is blocks and blocks of cemeteries in and around buildings and the poor have made their homes among them, some with satellite dishes.

Then through the fog (or smog) you see the outline, the forms, of the pyramids. It's just amazing. Awesome!

We're in a pretty nice hotel (with a metal detector on the way in). Our guide suggested a change to our itinerary. We were going to see the pyramids on Wednesday and the Egyptian Museum on Thursday but she thinks that seeing the museum first will give us a better grounding about what we'll see at the pyramids. It's been a long couple of days of travel, leaving Toronto on Monday evening and ending up in Cairo on Tuesday afternoon/evening. After supper we gathered with our guide who gave us a run-down of our next few days and then we headed to our rooms at about 9 p.m. and I thought, "the kids won't even be out of school for another half hour, and I'm so beat. I slept on both flights so I'm not as tired as I could be.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Our tour guide, Reham, is an Egyptologist with a Master's degree, working on her PhD so we're getting a lot of good information as she guides us through Cairo. We cross the Nile as we drive into and out of downtown. This river is the only source of water for this country and the only source of irrigation so every possible bit of land is farmed.

Our first stop on this day is the Egyptian Museum. That was wicked! We saw the treasures of King Tut, the mask, the coffins, many of the artifacts that were found in his tomb. It's the stuff you always see in books and magazines but we got to see it up close and in person. We saw lots of mummies, even Ramses II who tradition says may have been the pharaoh at the time of Moses. Reham is an excellent guide who really knows her stuff. Someone who had been to the museum before said she's way better than her previous guide.

Next we headed to Old Cairo. We saw what they call the "hanging church" because it's suspended over some old Roman towers from an old Roman fortress. We also saw the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus built over a cave where tradition says the Holy Family lived while in exile in Egypt.

For lunch we stopped at a typical Egyptian fast food place where they served felafels and shawermas. For the shawermas you had the choice of chicken of "meat." I'm guessing the "meat" was lamb or goat but they didn't say. I had a "meat" shawerma and a Coke.

Next we went to a Papyrus institute and gift shop. I saw a number of these places around. The salesmen are good talkers. I wanted to buy a certain papyrus with a picture on it from the back of one of King Tut's thrones. I had the one I wanted picked out (although the salesman was trying to talk me into 3) and then he took me over to see the same one only in a bigger size. I ended up buying it for my wife.

It's just so freaky driving around this part of the city and seeing these huge pyramids looming above everything. We had a short (1 ½ hour) break at the hotel and then went to the Sound & Light show at the pyramids. They tell some of the story of Egypt's history and of the pharaoh's who built the pyramids along with music and lights and lasers. On the way in there was a group of musicians dressed as pharaoh's playing drums and, of all things, bagpipes. On the way out they were playing again and actually played "Amazing Grace." We got back to our hotel, had supper, and went to our rooms and to bed since we were to have an early start the next morning.

Holy Communion

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Luther You are Martin Luther. You'll stick with the words of Scripture, and defend this with earthy expressions. You believe this is a necessary consequence of an orthodox Christology. You believe that the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, but aren't too sure about where he goes after the meal, and so you don't accept reservation of the Blessed Sacrament or Eucharistic devotions. Luther 75% Orthodox 69% Calvin 56% Catholic 38% Zwingli 19% Unitarian 0%

... about family

I realized I didn't share the last column I wrote for the paper. It appeared a couple of weeks after our Canadian Thanksgiving. I guess it's still timely since tomorrow is Thanksgiving for any American readers. Here it is.


A couple of weeks ago was Thanksgiving. It's not uncommon at Thanksgiving dinner to go around the table and have each person tell about something they're thankful for.

We did something like that in church on the day before Thanksgiving. We set up a thanksgiving tree. It was a cross made of a couple of rough two-by-fours set into a Christmas tree stand with some dry, bare branches tied to it. We distributed coloured paper leaves with a string attached to every person in church that day and they were asked to write something they were thankful for on the leaf.

When the people came forward for Holy Communion, our church family meal, they were asked to hang their thanksgiving leaf on the tree and by the end of the worship service we had a colourful thanksgiving tree decorated with the things we're thankful for.

It was interesting to read, after worship, what some of the people had written on their leaves. Along with things like "turkey" and "cheese" (there were a few kids in church that day) there were leaves that gave thanks for health, friends, a happy marriage, God's abundant love and gifts, and a whole lot of people gave thanks for family.

I know just what they're talking about. I'm a happily married father of four children, two daughters aged 14 and 12, and two sons aged 9 and 5. I am so thankful for my family. They are a gift from God, a great blessing. The wisdom of the Hebrew scriptures mentions the blessing of the family. "Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of children is their parents" (Proverbs 17:6).

Giving thanks for my family makes me think of all the other unnecessary concerns I have in my life. Of course we all want to be able to provide for our families so we might sometimes be worried about the security of our jobs or how much we earn. That's an important part of any life.

But there are so many other things that occupy our thoughts, like what kind of house you live in, what kind of car you drive or how old it is, how big and new your TV is. I read a statistic that said the average cost of a luxury kitchen remodel costs $10,000 more than it costs to build a typical Habitat for Humanity home. Since 1950 the average new house has increased by 1,247 square feet while the size of the average family has shrunk by one person.

Unfortunately many of our concerns and worries are caused by greed. But when it comes right down to it, the things we're most thankful for can't be bought with any amount of money. "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15).

Think about what you're most thankful for. Is it a car, a TV, a big expensive house? Or are you thankful for your health, a sufficient roof over your head, and the blessing of a happy marriage and family? Thanksgiving is over but giving thanks for all the good things God has given to us doesn't have to be confined to the second Monday of October. "O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 106:1).

I'm Back

Hello readers.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I was away for a while on a tour of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel from October 29 to November 15. In the coming days or weeks I'll transcribe some of the notes I took and journaling I did while on the tour. It was an amazing experience, one I'll never forget. There were some eye opening things I saw and did while there.

It's good to be back home though. I missed my family. 18 days away was the longest I've been away from them ever. By the end of the tour I was missing them terribly plus I was getting really tired of living out of a suitcase, eating nothing but hotel food, riding on a bus day after day, and I'd had enough of ruins and churches. The itinerary was really full so there wasn't much down time.

We had a good group for the tour though, no real trouble makers, nobody I couldn't get along with. I was the youngest in the group. The average age of the people on the tour was 64, ranging from me at 41 to a lady who was 79. I'm not in the greatest shape but I was pretty beat by the end of things. I don't know how those folks, an average of 23 years older than me, could do it all.

Anyway, I hope you look forward to reading about my trip. If you don't then I guess you'll just have to ignore my blog. It's easy to do since I so rarely blog anyway.

Shalom

Danket dem Herrn!

There’s a German song that my family would sometimes sing as a table grace when I was growing up.

Danket dem Herrn!
Wir danken dem Herrn,
denn er ist freundlich
und seine Güte währet ewiglich.

I know that doesn’t mean much to many of you readers. It comes from a number of places in the Old Testament. You can find it at Psalm 106:1; 107:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1; 1 Chronicles 16:34; 2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3; 20:21; Ezra 3:11; Jeremiah 33:11. What it says is:

O give thanks to the LORD,
for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.

We are coming again to Thanksgiving Day. Various days of thanksgiving have been observed in Canada since the explorer Martin Frobisher and his party held a ceremony to give thanks for surviving a long journey of exploration in 1578. Over time different days of thanksgiving were observed at different times. Starting in 1879 Thanksgiving Day was observed every year but the date or time of year could change from year to year. Finally in 1957 the Canadian Parliament proclaimed: "A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed ... to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."

But giving thanks is not confined to one day nor is it a recent phenomenon. The table grace above is a few thousand years old and appears in a number of places in the Bible. The Jews observed, and many still observe, the Festival of Succoth which is a seven day harvest festival that falls roughly during our month of October.

Beyond specific festivals of thanksgiving we can give thanks to God every day of our lives. The berakah is the simplest and among the oldest of prayers: "Blessed are you, O Lord our God, maker of all things, for you..." It is essentially a single sentence of praise and thanks to God, and adult Jews are enjoined to pray a prescribed number of berakoth every day. An ancient berakah is the model for Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper, and indeed the model of our Great Prayer of Thanksgiving over bread and cup. In the berakah, prayer simultaneously becomes proclamation, since God’s mercies are recounted while others listen in. And that is the pattern as well for our discipleship, is it not? Christians live their lives in the hope and expectation that others are listening in!

As we live our lives with an attitude of thanksgiving for all that God has done for us and given to us others listen in. They hear our thankful words or notice our thankful attitude and they might recognize our faith in God. O give thanks to the LORD. Our prayers, which are often filled with asking for things from God, out to be filled with at least as much, if not more, thanksgiving. What exactly are we thankful for? Well, each of us can only speak for ourselves, but we can thank God for forgiving the sins that we confess. Some people actually list things for which they are thankful and use that list in prayer. Mark Allan Powell writes: "You might list big-ticket items that we tend to take for granted (that I am alive, that I am healthy, that I live in a country where I am allowed to be free, that I have a job, that I have a house to live in, that I have a bed to sleep in at night), or smaller matters that we simply tend to overlook (that song on the radio, the taste of red wine, the feeling of my toes digging in wet sand, the sound of my cat’s purr, the pleasure of a good night’s sleep, the smell of burning wood)."

All good gifts around us are sent from heav’n above.
We thank you, Lord, we thank you, Lord, for all your love.

Pentecost 15

Okay, I don’t think I’ve ever had the kind of response to a sermon that I had yesterday. I got some ideas from a sermon by Samuel Zumwalt, some from Sundays & Seasons, some from Kelly Fryer, and some might have come from other sources. Here’s the sermon.

15th Sunday after Pentecost
September 9, 2007
Luke 14.25-33
Thomas Arth

Welcome home. For the second year in a row
we’re calling this Sunday after Labour Day, Homecoming Sunday.
Our intention is to welcome people home.
Sunday School has been on a break since the end of May
and now the kids are back.
Some people have been on summer vacations and holidays
and now they’re back.
The calendars on our walls say that the new year starts on January 1.
The church marks time a little differently,
saying a new year begins on the First Sunday of Advent.
But for a whole lot of us we make a fresh start, we start a new year,
in September when all the kids and the teachers go back to school.
It’s a lot like that in church too.
The choir started practicing again this week after the summer off.
Church council met again this week
after not meeting in July or August.
We get back to some kind of routine.
We come back home.

Our hope for Homecoming Sunday is also
that some people who were away from the church
for a short while or a long while for any number of reasons,
might find their way back home again.
Our hope is also that people who don’t have a church home
might possibly find a home here with us.
So, with those intentions about Homecoming Sunday,
when I came around to reading the gospel lesson for today
I thought, “Oh swell!”
“You can’t be my disciple
unless you love me more than you love your family
or even your own life.
You can’t be my disciple
unless you give away everything you own.”
Not exactly the best way to market the church, is it?
There was a church in Welland a couple of years ago
that gave away Blue Jays baseball tickets
to the first hundred people through the door
on a certain Sunday.
Come to church and get free baseball tickets
or come to church and hear Jesus tell you
to give away everything you own.
Swell.

The thing is, here in this church
we’re not about marketing strategies and giveaways
to convince, entice or bribe people
to come through those doors and maybe even stay.
Here in this church we’re about worshiping, following, changing.
We’re here to worship God
because we believe in a God who deserves to be worshiped.
And we’re here to support and encourage one another,
to hear God’s word, to learn how to follow Jesus.
And we’re here to be changed.
Yes, believe it or not, we’re here to be changed.
It’s not about hearing “I’m okay. You’re okay.”
I’m not. Neither are you.
God wants more from me and God wants more from you.
We want to see more people in church.
We want to be spreading the good news
about God’s love for the world
and what he has done for us through Jesus Christ.
That’s what Jesus calls us to do in the great commission.
“Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples.
Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, and teach them
to do everything I have told you.”
We have a message of love to share
and it’s a message that changes people.
When you’ve heard and experienced the love of God
you won’t be the same.
When the Holy Spirit touches you and works within you
things are going to change.
Some churches go about this in a different way,
and I think it’s a wrong headed way.
Jack Handey wrote a comedy book of Deep Thoughts
that included this:
“If a kid asks where rain comes from,
I think a cute thing to tell him is ‘God is crying.’
And if he asks why God is crying,
another cute thing to tell him is
‘Probably because of something you did.’”
A gigantic billboard had a picture of flames shooting up from the bottom
and a message that simply said NO GOD = NO FUTURE.
Both of those examples take the approach that you change people
by just scaring the heck out of them.
I think they mean well but they don’t get the point
that it’s God’s love that makes a difference for people.
It’s God’s love that changes people.

We Lutherans like to think we’ve got it all figure out right.
Who knows, maybe we do,
but we don’t do a very good job of showing it and telling it.
We talk about grace, the free gift of grace.
Pastor Samuel Zumwalt says
we can quote Martin Luther’s Small Catechism
saying that the Holy Spirit does what we cannot naturally do.
Working in the church we say the Holy Spirit creates faith in us
through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We say the Holy Spirit teaches us through the Gospel
to trust that we are made right with God
through no effort or merit of our own.
We say that as God baptizes us
into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
we are claimed by grace
as God’s beloved daughters and sons.
We say that we are reborn again and again
as we return to our baptism, confess our brokenness,
and approach God’s throne of grace with empty hands.
We say that we are responding to God’s goodness and mercy
by offering up our lives as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
Pressed for an answer many Lutheran Christians
can give a fairly simple answer to the question,
“What is the Good News of Jesus Christ?”
“Why grace is a free gift!”
We can say what the good news is
but we don’t seem to know about what the Gospel does.
We don’t get that Jesus is trying to do something with us
here and now.

In today’s gospel reading Jesus is telling us that following him,
being his disciple,
is going to change us.
It’s going to cost us something.
The German pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book
that attacked a lazy Christian attitude.
Writing in his book The Cost of Discipleship
he took aim at Lutheran Christians
who lived a caricature of the Christian life.
He was attacking a crossless Christianity.
He was attacking us for singing “Take My Life and Let Me Be.”
He was attacking the old sinner in each of us
that wants to stay old—
that old unredeemed part of each of us
that wants to stay unredeemed, unclaimed, and unwashed.
Bonhoeffer was sending us back to Jesus,
to what he says in the gospels.
Jesus makes clear that God’s love changes us.
The old sinner in us cannot remain.
I can’t be God’s dear possession
when most of me is still hanging on to my possessions for dear life.
I can’t love the Lord with all my heart
if most of my heart is engaged
in making my child a better soccer player.
I can’t love the Lord with all my heart
if most of my heart is occupied
with how to make somebody love me like I want to be loved.
I can’t love the Lord with all my heart
if most of my heart and most of my wallet is tied up
with whatever it is in this world that delights me.
I can’t love the Lord with my all if most of my heart, soul, and mind
is consumed by ambition or control or the arts
or fundraising or church-building or politics
or whatever it is to which my heart is clinging.

Preachers listen to Jesus selectively.
We read or hear a gospel lesson and think
“that’s a good text for a stewardship sermon
or an evangelism sermon.
That’s a good text to grow the church.”
Too many of us preachers fail to see or believe
that the Gospel actually transforms lives.
But lay people listen to Jesus selectively too.
Maybe you read or hear today’s gospel lesson and think
“Jesus doesn’t want me to hate my family.
He just wants me to put God first.
He just wants me to be a little nicer
and a little more forgiving
and a little more active in my congregation
and a little more generous.”
None or us, preachers or lay people,
want to admit that following Jesus means changing our lives.

I came across this joke.
How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Twelve. One to change it, and the other eleven
to say how much they liked the old lightbulb better.
But that’s assuming you find one who is willing
to climb the ladder and change the bulb.
I’ve heard the joke told a little differently.
How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?
Change?!?
We can laugh at ourselves.
We can laugh about change.
But will we actually change?

Jesus tells us, in today’s gospel reading, to carry a cross.
“You cannot be my disciple
unless you carry your own cross and come with me.”
That’s serious stuff.
A convicted criminal sentenced to crucifixion
was required to carry the crossbar of his cross
to the place of execution.
When Jesus tells us to carry a cross he’s asking us to die.
That’s the gospel to which we say “Praise to you, O Christ.”
But wait a minute.
Are we ready to die?
Are we willing to set aside what we want
and do what God wants?

God’s Son Jesus had to die for us,
because we didn’t want to die to ourselves.
And we still don’t want to die to ourselves.
It cost God everything to save us from ourselves.
It cost God everything to free us
from the power of sin, death, and evil.
God so loved us that he did for us what we can’t do for ourselves.
It’s not that God somehow changed his mind about sin.
Rather God didn’t give us what we deserve.
In Jesus Christ, God gave us what we didn’t deserve.
Mercy. Forgiveness. Love. Himself.
There’s a story about a mother who once approached Napoleon
seeking a pardon for her son.
The emperor replied that the young man
had committed a certain offense twice
and justice demanded death.
“But I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained.
“I plead for mercy.”
“But your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied.
“Sir,” the woman cried,
“it would not be mercy if he deserved it,
and mercy is all I ask for.”
“Well, then,” the emperor said,
“I will have mercy.”
And he spared the woman’s son.
That’s what God did for us when we deserved punishment for our sin.
God showed us mercy.
God gave us what we didn’t deserve.

That giving, that mercy, that forgiveness starts at our baptism
when we die to our old sinful self
and rise again to Jesus’ righteousness.
It’s the beginning of a pattern that isn’t complete
until our body finally dies
and we live with God forever.
Until then, in the meantime,
in the time between our first washing
and the day we breathe our last,
we die and rise.
Die and rise. Die and rise. Die and rise. Die and rise.
Disciples of Jesus do die and rise.
We follow the Master, at times as well as we can,
at other times not well at all.
But as we follow we die and rise, we change.
“You cannot be my disciple unless you love me
more than you love your father and mother,
your wife and children, and your brothers and sisters.
You cannot come with me unless you love me
more than you love your own life.
You cannot be my disciple
unless you carry your own cross and come with me.
You cannot be my disciple
unless you give away everything you own.”
Jesus is talking about not being satisfied
with our brokenness and sinfulness.
He’s talking about loving God and following Jesus
with all that we are.
He’s talking about putting the old sinner to death,
letting go of our possessions,
setting our hearts and wallets free
from any other delight, ambition, or control.
We can’t do it alone.
We come here for the support of a community of others
who are also being changed.
We can’t do it alone.
The Holy Spirit molds us to be what God wants
rather than what we might intend.
We can’t do it alone.
We do it with Jesus by our side
as we die to ourselves
and rise to become more of what God intends for us.

The Christian life is not just talking and singing about Jesus.
It’s not dabbling in God while we cling to the things of this world.
The cost of discipleship is the death of Jesus.
Those of us who follow him will die too.
And when we die in Christ God gives us new life,
life as we could never imagine it.
Amen