Jerusalem - Jerusalem Baptist Church, The Temple Institute

Our taxi driver picked us up Sunday morning, and as he navigated toward the downtown triangle, he remarked that in thirty years of driving a cab in Jerusalem, he never knew there was a church at the address I had given him.  “Well, you learn something new every day,” I replied with a smile, and after he thought about it for a few seconds, he smiled back.  “This is a very wise sentence you say,” he said while whipping around the curves on roads slippery from morning showers.  I was pleased with my new status as the sage of Jerusalem, and he proceeded to tell me about the behavior of his cats at home while the rest of my crew snickered in the back seat.  “In Jerusalem,” he said wistfully, “the human behavior is low to the cats.”  I remarked that it must be bad if the people act like cats, but he became animated and said, “No, No!  The humans is worse than the cats! My cats leave food for each other, the humans always fighting!”  I was about to reply that humans don’t scratch the furniture or fill up a litter box indoors, but I kept my mouth shut after thinking a moment about a few wretched moments in human history and let it go.  Our driver dropped us off at the Baptist House, home of the Jerusalem Baptist Church, and charged us the most reasonable taxi fare we’ve paid so far—score one for the humans.

We were greeted at the door by an elderly lady with a sweet smile and a distinct American accent.  “Oh, there’s still time left for Sunday school,” she said excitedly. “Let me go find him, he’ll be delighted that someone’s here!”  As our new friend went charging off down the hall, we inferred that Sunday School attendance must be fairly low at the Jerusalem Baptist Church.  Seconds later, a lean man about medium height greeted us enthusiastically and ushered us into a room lined with bookshelves full of Bibles and sofas with plump pillows. Our Sunday school teacher, Mike, works for the American Consulate through the auspices of the Air Force, and he’s volunteering at the church during his deployment in Jerusalem.  We were joined a few minutes later by a Canadian couple, and Mike was ecstatic about his class full of students seated on the sofas with Bibles at the ready, and for the next half hour, he completed the best breakdown of Matthew 6:25-34 I’ve ever heard.  Deena and I read this passage to the children on the Mount of Beatitudes, and I was so thankful they could hear it again and receive assurance from another source.  

After Sunday school, we joined the congregation in the sanctuary, which was a large room lined by long stained glass windows with a huge skylight in the middle of a vaulted, heavily textured ceiling.  There were rows of purple chairs fanning out from the podium, and we found some seats on the right side near the piano with the worship band nearby ready to play.  The service got underway, and we started by singing come Christmas carols, the first we’ve heard this season, followed by several praise songs ending with my all time favorite, Shout to the Lord.  There was a brief time of welcome, and we met the worship leader, Roger from Kentucky, and his wife, who played the piano, and members of the band including Caspars on guitar, Iver on clarinet, and David on trumpet.  The congregation was very friendly and welcomed us warmly, and we had an opportunity to greet many members of the diverse group.  The teaching pastor was a gentleman in his late seventies, and he preached a fascinating sermon on the beauty, mystery, and love surrounding the annunciation, and thoughts of renaissance paintings depicting the event came to mind while he spoke—I secretly hoped the same thing was happening with Joseph and Deveny.

After the service, we munched cookies and talked with many people and learned about the workings of Jerusalem Baptist.  The church is a plant of the Southern Baptist Convention as a part of the Baptist House which was established in 1925.  While many people who attend the services are traveling like us, a large part of the congregation is made up of retired Americans who have relocated to Israel to continue their service to the Lord—admirable we thought.  We stayed for a long time talking, and it was late afternoon by the time we got back to the apartment.  Joseph had decided that he was weary of long hair, so I took him down the street to the barbershop for a good shearing while the girls rested.  We enjoyed a quiet evening catching up with emails and studying a bit, and we found ourselves occasionally humming the carols still fresh on our minds from the morning spent fruitfully at Jerusalem Baptist Church.

The forecast for the next day was calling for rain in the late afternoon, so we got our act together late morning and began the trek to the Old City, which is becoming very familiar to us now.  Our destination was the Jewish Quarter near the Western Wall plaza, specifically the Temple Institute, an organization that exists to research and promote the building of the third temple in Jerusalem.  King David’s son, Solomon, built the first temple which housed the Ark of the Covenant and by most accounts stood for around four hundred years before the armies of Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed it in 587 BC.   In 19 BC, King Herod expanded the Temple Mount and began construction to renovate the temple completed by Zerubbabel, and it was mostly completed by the time of Herod’s death in 4 BC.  Still referred to as the second temple, this building would continue to be improved and renovated until completion just a few years before the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD.  

For several years, I’ve heard many people say that the Jews were preparing to build a third temple and that priestly garments were being made along with other important elements of worship so that sacrifices can resume once the temple is ready.  While I thought this was exciting news, nothing ever seemed to come of it, and I kept hearing the same stories over and over.  We marched boldly through the Jewish quarter, stopping briefly to watch a Bar Mitzvah celebration, before entering the Temple Institute ready to get some answers.   We soon found that our quest for answers required a somewhat steep admission fee, and while we waited for the next tour to begin, we checked out the t-shirts and plastic dreidels in the gift shop.  The Temple Institute is set up like a museum and our tour took us through three rooms which are designed to mimic the three major areas of the temple.  The narration was recorded by one of the rabbis associated with the project and played over speakers throughout the displays.  

The story of the temple was told through paintings and beautiful models of the buildings, and we saw displays of the musical instruments and garments for the priests that were fashioned according to scriptural mandates and ready for resumption of sacrifices.  The explanation of the elements and procedures involved in the sacrifices was impressive, and I thought it was interesting that Institute members have even discovered the snails used to derive the blue dyes from which the priests’ robes are colored.  At the end of the tour, we saw a brief film that showed architectural drawings and 3D models of the third temple design and included actors of all ages portraying the Jewish people being drawn together by the construction of the temple.  And that was it.  As excellent as the presentation was, we were no closer to getting the answers we were looking for,

The young lady minding the gift shop had no idea what was coming when we exited the display, and she asked, “So, do you have any questions?”  For the next fifteen minutes, we asked a litany of questions including:  Is your institute funded by the state?  Is there a timetable for construction?  Isn’t the Dome of the Rock on top of the Holy of Holies?  What’s the red heifer all about?  Is it true that priests are being trained for temple rituals?  There were many more, but those were the major ones, and to her credit, she handled all of our questions honestly and tactfully.  From her answers and our own subsequent research, it seems that the Temple Institute is not Jewish mainstream, and other than a few grants for school presentations, it receives no other support from the state of Israel.  The Dome of the Rock is on top of the Holy of Holies which is the spot where Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed, and the area is currently under Muslim control overseen by the King of Jordan, so there won’t be any temple groundbreaking ceremony anytime soon, but who knows?  Bible prophecy deals with a lot of this stuff, and I’m not getting into all that here, but I’m thankful we had the opportunity to visit the Temple Institute—it was informative and interesting on all levels for Deena and me and the kids as well.

Hands down the best t-shirt I've seen so far

Rain had started to fall by the time we left the Institute, and we had to seek shelter in a nearby hummus restaurant in order to satisfy our temple-sized appetites.  We dined on lamb and chicken kebabs, falafel, salads, olives, fresh pita bread, and generous bowls of hummus.  The meal cost more than we like to pay, but we justified the expense by taking the leftovers home for a full dinner meal.  We spent a long time at lunch talking about the things we learned at the Temple Institute, and the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to walk home.  The cultures, politics, and religions run deep in this place, and it’s fascinating to witness the delicate balance required to keep it all under control.  We have nine days left in Jerusalem, and while we’ll certainly uncover more interesting details about the history of the city, only God has all the answers we seek.

This is how they do lunch in the Old City