Why does my heart yearn to visit the Land of the Book? Woody and I just experienced our 11th eleventh pilgrimage to Israel, yet my heart longs to return. What is the drawing factor?

I well recall in February 1979 our first visit to Israel. I was one who was never really that interested in a trip to the Holy Land. However, I found myself, along with my husband and a group from our congregation, on our way. We had just completed our long flight across the Atlantic, flying over the Mediterranean Sea, and saw the warm sandy beaches of Tel Aviv. As we circled around for our landing, a strange warmth came over me, something I had never experienced before. Having flown on ELAL, we had already had the Israeli flavour, watching a number of Jews with their prayer shawls, some with their phylacteries and other religious dress, eating Hebrew food and listening to the Hebrew music on our headsets. I had a sense of belonging, a sense of oneness. The plane landed and as we walked down the ramp I watched many of the Jews kneel and kiss the soil. They had come home. This feeling began to overwhelm me as tears filled my eyes. I, too, had come home. What a surprise to me! It was my Father’s home, the home of his Son, given specially for me. What a wonderful sense of belonging!

That first visit I was mesmerized by all that I heard and saw. We had taken a number of our congregation from St John’s Citadel with us on the tour and we shared such incredible moments together. Four of us stood at the base of Gordon’s Calvary and sang, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Indeed, it did cause me to tremble! A guide at the Garden Tomb went on to say later that it really was too bad that at the base of such a sacred site an Arab bus terminal has been built that creates continuous noise and hubbub, making it almost impossible to have a time of quiet meditation and contemplation. My heart was asking, where else would Christ rather be? As he spoke, the words of General Albert Orsborn came to me:

Also in the garden at Gordon’s Calvary is a winepress - often overlooked by the tourists. In fact, I have yet to see anything of substance written about it, except to say that it was only excavated in 1924. It was thought to be about the largest in all of Israel and of pre-Christian origin.

A winepress is a trough dug into the ground and all surfaces are covered with stone. The base is slanted so that it leads down to a drain in the bottom at the lower end. The most succulent grapes were selected for winemaking, and brought to the winepress. The press would be heaped up with grapes and slaves would be brought in to stomp on them. After hours of stomping, the grapes are so mangled they are no longer whole, the skin is torn, the flesh is crushed. But under the base is a cavern with the most marvellous grape juice ever.

Each time I visit there, when I am standing there alone, I often ask the Lord what the next crushing will be for me, not an easy thing to ask. You see, in order to be like him, we need to go through the same suffering that he went through for us. It is with the purging, with the fire, with the crushing, that we come out as pure wine!

Another of General Albert Orsborn’s song comes to mind:

On that same visit, we had planned an enrolment of two senior soldiers on the beach of the Sea of Galilee. We used our “Hallelujah flag” from the International Congress in London, England, in 1978. General Clarence Wiseman, who co-hosted the tour with us, enrolled the two soldiers, and Woody and I shared a vocal duet, “By the Peaceful Shores of Galilee.” So appropriate with the Golan Heights in the background! It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. To the General’s memory, it was the only enrollment at that time he had heard of in the Holy Land.

So many moving experiences have happened in me.

In the years as we have visited, over and over again, there are some places I see that “tradition has it.” In other words, there is no authentic documentation of that exact location, but it is somewhere in that general area. We soon learned that the most important thing is that we acknowledge “the holy thing behind the holy place.” Many sacred sites, as you travel through Israel, have churches or cathedrals built over them that have become places of worship. As our long-time guide, Isaac Gronberg, so often has jokingly said, “If we didn’t cover them, tourists would have carried them all home by now!”

Prior to our visit to the Holy Land in October 2007, I had picked up a paperback novel entitled, Jesus, the Lord, Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. On the back of the book it read: “With the Holy Land in turmoil, seven-year-old Jesus and his family leave Egypt for the dangerous road home to Jerusalem. As they travel, the boy tries to unlock the secret of his birth and comprehend his terrifying power to work miracles. Anne Rice’s dazzling, kaleidoscopic novel, based on the Gospels and the most respected New Testament scholarship, summons up the voice, the presence, and the words of Jesus, allowing him to tell his own story as he struggles to grasp the holy purpose of his life.” It was exciting. I also read the novel Hadassah: One Night with the King by Tommy Tenney. What a marvellous book on the life of Queen Esther. I then was excited to see the movie One Night With the King, the true story of Queen Esther.

This, no doubt, flavoured my thinking upon once more arriving in my Father’s land on our recent visit.

I am particularly drawn to the authentic sites and places where Jesus walked. Woody and I love to stroll along the shores of Galilee. How moving it is to know that you are walking along the very shores that Jesus walked along so very long ago. The Mount of Beatitudes warms my heart as I sit on the knoll of the hill - that broad expanse - and visualize Jesus standing there preaching the greatest sermon ever preached about the blessed people, speaking with the thousands who sat right where I am sitting.

Standing at the base of the “hill” at Caesarea Philippi (Banias), I can see Jesus turning to his disciples after being with them and sharing his life with them, then saying, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter’s answer resounds in my ears. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” What made Peter so sure, more than the others?

Often in visiting the “traditional places” I don’t seem to have the same warmth toward them without a real challenge to myself to see the “holy thing behind the holy place.” Strange as it may seem, when I visit the Church of the Nativity is Bethlehem, it is such a place to me. I love the Shepherd’s Fields where no doubt the shepherds were actually watching their flocks by night, but to see Jesus being born in a manger that is covered in marble, with hanging lanterns and candles around it, does not create excitement in me. This last visit there, as I awaited my turn to enter the grotto at the place of the manger, I really was not anticipating anything too emotional (God forgive me). As I stood in front of the manger I saw the 14-point star representing the 14 tribes from David to Jesus and inscribed in Latin, “Here Jesus Christ was born to the Virgin Mary.” To encourage myself to take a moment of true worship I knelt at that place, and God through his Spirit came to me, surprisingly, in a very emotional way. I was overwhelmed as the words of the chorus came to me:

That was God’s special meeting place with me this time. What an amazing encounter! And not at a place I would have ever expected. I will always see the grotto differently from hereon. Isn’t he marvellous?

Every visit we have made to Israel has had something very special for me. At the end of our stay in Jerusalem, we always have a “farewell dinner program” where everyone has opportunity to share what has been special to them, or what their pilgrimage has come to mean. For each person it seems to be something totally different from the next one. Who can tell me as one person I am not special to God?

I’m also indebted to Salvation Army writers who have given us such deep, thought-provoking music, packed with doctrine, which continue to bless and inspire me daily in my walk with him. It’s interesting that all three special songs that have come to me in recent pilgrimages are from the pen of General Albert Osborn.

I am so grateful to God for the privilege he has given me (in fact, us) of walking where Jesus has walked. At a convention this past summer, we learned a chorus we used as our theme chorus this last visit:

I’ll never be the same again, I’ll never be the same again.
Since I walked where Jesus walked, I’ll never be the same again.

It became our theme song on our last pilgrimage. How simple yet so profound!

Now you know why I am forever longing to return!

Written by:

Major Sharon Hale - Retired Salvation Army officer living in Courtice, Ontario, Canada. Sharon is married to Major Woody Hale, and together they have conducted 11 pilgrimages to Israel and associated Biblical countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Greece, Island of Patmos, Kusadassi Turkey and Ephesus, along with Jordan.

Sharon can be contacted at wshale@sympatico.ca, www.creativeventures.ca, or 905-440-4378.