I know you all groaned inwardly when I told you I took over 1500 pictures while I was in the Holy Land. I promised not to make you look at all of them, but to my surprise, you willingly looked at a great many. When I showed some of the pictures in the evening service that first time, I honestly thought you would quickly get bored with them. I remember my grandparents coming home from vacation and showing us an interminable number of slides from 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 you weren’t bored. The Holy Land is different, isn’t it?
For my part, I’m glad I took all those pictures. 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. I sat and talked with my son Josh the other day, and he reminded me of some things I’d forgotten about our trip. At least, I forgot them until he spoke of them. So I went back through my pictures (and even through some of the 2000 pictures Josh took), and it helped to refresh my memory.
There’s a picture that Josh took of a sunset over the Sea of Galilee that is really quite spectacular. 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 you own eyes. I love the picture so much, I made it the desktop background on my laptop computer screen. Every time I open the computer up, I am once again confronted with a reminder of that moment.
One recent 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 away 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 had left the projector on. And when I turned around, there, on the screen, was my computer desktop, with 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, wordlessly 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. I can’t even write those words without crying.
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 seemingly always on the verge of erupting into conflict…after all that, toward the end of the trip, I kept saying to myself, “I’m glad I came, but I’m never coming back!”
But I keep going back there, in my mind. Especially to Galilee. It was the places where Jesus had been that moved me the most: the slopes of the Mount of Olives, Nazareth, Capernaum, Simon Peter’s house, the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Just knowing that Jesus had been there made it incredibly moving.
And as the weeks 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’d visited Israel, I’d choke up and think, “I want to go there!” Now, I remember the things I saw and did there, and I begin to cry, and think to myself: “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. But I confess that the longing is 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.
Let me compare this now to another desire. 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 to which God had led him, 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 ESV) In other words: Abraham was longing for Heaven. (The City he was longing for is described in Revelation 21 and 22.)
As incredible as it is to actually stand in the Holy Land, when you’re there you have the distinct feeling that it’s not like it’s supposed to be. Someday, it’s all going to be different; someday, it’s all going to be better. Someday, all God’s promises to Abraham are going to be fulfilled. Wait ‘til you see the Holy Land then!
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. 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, Home at last, with Jesus, Home 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. And just knowing that Jesus is there makes it all incredibly moving.
This Longing will make you happy. This Longing will give you joy! And this Longing will be fulfilled. Jesus said so: “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2 ESV)
May God bless you with such a Longing!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David