Dale Omori/RNS
In this file photo, a rabbi blesses a young boy before prayer at the Western Wall, where worship is for all ages. Ashley Evans, whose father, Tom, is a member of First Baptist Ellijay, recently visited the Wall and talked about her experience there as a blind person.
Last summer Michael Williams, vice president for operations for the Georgia Baptist Convention, and I hosted 46 individuals on a trip to Israel. Among those traveling with us was Ashley Evans of Florida, who was accompanied by her father, Tom, a member of First Baptist Church of Ellijay.
Six years ago Ashley lost her vision in a brush with death in a tragic automobile accident. Many of us wondered if she would be able to derive anything of significance from the trip. Perhaps no one profited from the experience more than Ashley. Here is her account of that pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
My trip of a lifetime began as the airplane touched down in Tel Aviv on Aug. 27. We visited many places of great religious and historical significance. In the midst of the oldest part of the city of Jerusalem is the Western Wall. Also known as the Wailing Wall, it is a part of the supporting wall of the Temple Mount that has remained since the destruction of the second temple.
The Temple Mount where the wall is located has been in the possession of Muslims since the end of the 12th century, but Jews still congregate at the closest place to their old temple where they can pray, largely undisturbed. A mosque now stands on that site.
We approached the wall with an awed feeling, where I was told that the wall is 18 meters high. I cautiously reached out a hand to touch it, and felt some of the pieces of paper on which prayers had been written and slipped between its stones.
I felt how smooth the stones had become from people’s hands. The wall had been rubbed smooth from where people kneeling had touched it up to about the height where people standing had reached out. In contrast to those smooth, worn places, the stones were rough lower and higher than they were between them, as I discovered by reaching up as high as I could and by kneeling down, myself.
We next went to the Temple Mount Institute, where scholars have spent years studying the way the two Jewish temples of the past were constructed in preparation for its eventual rebuilding. The speaker talked about the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in a room on the western side of the temple.
Marilyn Drake/First Baptist Ellijay
Ashley Evans, left, recently partook of a trip to Israel, where sites she visited included the Western Wall and Empty Tomb. Evan’s father, Tom, is a member of First Baptist Church in Ellijay.
The sun was one of the most common symbols of the day. The placement of the Holy of Holies, on the western side where the sun sets, is an example of one of the many ways God shows us the truth of His supremacy over all.
It should go without saying that our visit to Calvary and the empty tomb was the most powerful part of the trip. In my youth, at the church where I accepted Christ, I can vaguely remember having seen a photograph of the site taken by my pastor. My father also remembered the picture and said he thought the site in front of us still looked familiar, even so many years later.
We were allowed to go into the cave-like tomb. I knelt down outside of the tomb, thinking of Mary Magdalene kneeling down and looking in.
My father placed my hand on the trough where the stone had been, so I could feel that it is at least several inches deep and rather wide, but so wonderfully and amazingly empty. We walked into the tomb and to a place where Christ’s body could have been laid, and I put my hand on the spot.
I was immediately hit with awe at His majesty and His humility and love for us, for which He suffered and died. I have never felt smaller in my entire life, but I was also overcome with a feeling of the complete freedom that His death and resurrection give me.
I cannot find words that would even begin to describe it. I suddenly understood how we could spend an eternity doing nothing but praising Him for all that He is.
Forever changed
I had never experienced such a powerful Lord’s Supper as we observed at the site. It crossed my mind after we finished singing some hymns that no other communion meal would begin to compare with this one. To my immense joy, I was proven wrong during the first communion that was held in my home church after the trip. The Lord’s Supper will always have a new and deeper meaning for me now.
I have found that my trip to the Holy Land, especially to the Empty Tomb, has forever changed my faith in ways words can only begin to describe.
Despite the fact that I have been totally blind for 6 years now, God has allowed me to see Him in new and amazing ways since that trip. Not only did I visit many of the places where my Lord Jesus had been as a man on earth, but I also experienced first-hand how God can, and does, communicate with each of His children.
Our God is not held back by our differences, physical or otherwise. If our hearts are open, He will allow us to see Him.