This is where Christ healed the crippled man who stayed by the pool waiting for the chance to go in and be healed, but someone else always beat him to it, because nobody was there to take him into the water. Christ found him and healed him completely. On the Sabbath. Today was our Sabbath.
I assumed there was only one pool of Bethesda. But there were several.
One of these smaller ones is believed to be the one where it happened.
A lovely garden with many herbs and flowers. The gardener was sitting nearby enjoying my enjoyment of the smells, and walked over to chat with me. Lovely man.
"A bug! A bug!" We found a caterpillar, which was a little tender mercy, after a little 2-year-old was tired and fussy from no nap, and "a bug!" cheered him right up.
The church on the premises is believed to be the birthplace of Mary, mother of Jesus.
Mary holding child Jesus at her side. She was an amazing woman. I am excited to meet her someday. Or perhaps we are already friends from the pre-earth life, and we will have a warm reunion. I KNOW I will really like her.
This church has the ABSOLUTE BEST acoustics of anything I have ever heard. Ever. Malia your Madrigals group would have been in tears. Groups or individuals spontaneously stood in various parts of the church and sang praises to Jesus, and it was absolutely amazing.
This German tour group sang song after song. I recognized a few of them from the tunes in our hymn book. I wished they were in English and I would have been thrilled to join in. I love that no matter what language they sang, when people sing songs praising God we can all feel the Spirit. Loved it.
One of the most beautiful works of art I've seen here. Look closely and you can the three most important events in Christ's life.
Thanks for the photo of that carving of Christ's life!
ReplyDelete