I know people groaned inwardly when I said I took over 1500 pictures while I was in the Holy Land in 2014. I promised not to make everyone look at all of them, but to my surprise, a lot of you willingly looked at a great many. When I showed some pictures in the evening service that first time, I honestly thought people would quickly get bored with them. I remember my grandparents coming home from vacation and showing us an interminable number of slides of their trip. It was all quite boring to me as a kid, and I had no desire to bore any of you in the same way.
But the Holy Land is different, isn’t it?
For my part, I’m glad I took all those pictures. And I knew this would happen, but I’m still not happy about it: we went so many places, and saw so many different things, some of the details have started to blend together in my mind. When I compare notes with my son Josh, he often reminds me of things I’d forgotten about the trip. At least, I’d forgotten them until he spoke of them. Sometimes I go back through my pictures, and even through some of the 2000 pictures Josh took, and it helps to refresh my memory.
There’s a picture I took of a sunset over the Sea of Galilee that is really quite spectacular. That it turned out so well is a blessing, considering that I know nothing of photography and was using an iPhone. As good as the photograph is, though, it of course doesn’t begin to compare to the unexpected beauty and peace of actually seeing it with your own eyes. I love the picture so much I made it the desktop background on my laptop computer screen for a while. Every time I opened up the computer, I was once again confronted with a reminder of that moment.
One Wednesday evening after our Bible Study and prayer time, everybody had left but me. I almost always wait to see if anyone wants to speak with me about anything at the close of the service. Then, after people leave, I gather up my Bible, notes and laptop, and put up the screen and projector ‘til next week. So after everybody else had gone home, I started to put everything up again, like always.
But this time, I’d left the projector on. And there, on the screen, was the almost life-sized image of that sunset and those waves rolling in, off the Sea of Galilee. The colors weren’t quite as vibrant, and you couldn’t feel the wind on your face or hear the waves wash up on the shore. But for a split second, it almost felt like I was there, standing on that shore, speechlessly watching the motion of the lake and the sun going down behind Mount Arbel. And in that moment, a longing sprang up within me that surprised me completely.
I want to see it again.
Honestly, I’m surprised at myself. After enduring 12-hour plane rides, the humiliating security checks at airports, the hassles of living out of a suitcase for 3 weeks, the inconvenience of trying to get your laundry done in a place that only takes shekels, and most of all, the ever-present concerns about safety in a land that is like lighting matches in the dark in a dynamite factory…after all that, toward the end of the trip, I kept saying to myself, “I’m glad I went, but I’m never going back again!” I especially think that when I see on the news all the horrific conflict going on over there.
But I do keep going back there, in my mind, especially to Galilee. And as the years have passed, that tiny little thought started to wriggle out from under the place where I’d tried to squelch it down. I’d been pretty successful at ignoring it or pretending it wasn’t there…until I turned around and saw that life-sized picture of the sunset over Galilee. And the thought came unbidden, full-blown into my mind: “I want to see it again!”
Used to be, when I’d hear someone say they had visited Israel, I’d choke up and think, “I want to go there!” Now, I think about the things we saw and did there, and I begin to cry and think, “I want to go there again!” It may not happen. At any rate, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, for a variety of reasons…most of all, the ongoing threats and violence that is tearing that region apart. But I confess that the longing is still there. I thought seeing Israel with my own eyes would cure the desire, “get it out of my system”, so to speak. Instead, to my great surprise, I think it made the desire stronger.
It was the places where Jesus had been that moved me the most: the slopes of the Mount of Olives, the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, Capernaum, Simon Peter’s house. Just knowing that Jesus had been there made it very special.
Let me compare this now to another longing. Abraham went to the Holy Land, too, and he didn’t just visit there: he lived there. And even though it was the very place God had led him to, and the place where God had promised to bless him and his offspring, still Abraham wasn’t satisfied. The Bible says, “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of that same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:9,10) In other words: Abraham was longing for Heaven.
Child of God; believer in Jesus: where you stand today, in your life, you may have the distinct, and sometimes overwhelming feeling that it’s not like it’s supposed to be. Of course it’s not. Child, you’re not Home yet! But someday, it’s all going to be different; someday, it’s all going to be better. Someday, all of God’s promises to us through Jesus are going to be fulfilled. Just knowing that Jesus is there makes it all very special. And wait ‘til you see what He’s got prepared for us!
When I feel that surprising and unexpected longing to see the Holy Land again…quite honestly, it makes me happy. Even though I may be crying, I feel joy inside!
And when you experience the longing to be Home, at last, with Jesus, in a place you’ve never been before…even though you may be crying, you will experience joy. The joy of wanting to be where Jesus is.
May God bless you with that Longing.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David