Line upon Line

Israel, as a visual aid for probing and feeling the life of the Savior, has long been at our heart’s center and so it is no surprise that for nearly thirty years we have been leading tours to this land that Jesus knew. People have often asked us if we tire of returning to the same place, and we can heartily say, “No”, because we feel the discovery, the ah-ha’s and sheer spiritual joy of those in our group who are seeing it for the first time.

Each time we go to Israel, it’s new, because we are helping others to see what we see, lead them to places where the Spirit connects and teaches.

What’s particularly fun about taking Latter-day Saints, is that our groups, however much they appeared as strangers when we first meet, become like family to each other in short order. They are covenant Israel, blessed to know how to connect with and love each other quickly.

One of the high points of these trips is always our visit to the Jerusalem Center, where sacrament meeting is held in a room whose floor-to-ceiling windows behind the pulpit look out at Jerusalem, and when you take the sacrament you know that you are sitting on a hill that is an extension of the Mount of Olives, site of the Garden of Gethsemane.

The first time we attended church here decades ago, Truman Madsen was the director of the center, and as we sat down in the auditorium (the chapel) with its raised seats, he came, leaned down behind us, extended both of his arms in a double embrace around the back of our shoulders and with his deep, resonant voice said, “Welcome to heaven.” I can hear those words in his tone of voice still in my ears all these years later, and as we take the emblems of the Savior’s love, I feel the power of this place not far from where the Lord atoned.

Our daughter Michaela, had attended a semester abroad at the Jerusalem Center, and it was her dearest wish to take her husband, Greg, to see it. She yearned just to feel the power one more time that had attached her to Israel forever, walk the garden, touch the wood in the center and, see the bright windows framing a place of so much holiness in Jerusalem.

To that end, Michaela and Greg saved their pennies, the hard earnings of a young couple who are just starting in life. We worked to have everything arranged, scrutinized every detail. Yet, life in Israel was still settling down after all the delays, changed routes, and challenges of COVID. We usually take our tours to Jordan first to see Petra, Jerash and Mt. Nebo, to talk about all things Old Testament and Book of Mormon and wilderness journeys and then into Israel to focus on the Messiah.  Now, for this trip, the order was reversed. Planes were not flying into Amman, so we did Israel first and then crossed the Allenby Bridge at the border into Jordan.

We had it worked out. We could attend church on Shabbat at the Jerusalem Center, leave immediately at a rapid pace and head to the border before it closed. The border was only open for a very short time because of Shabbat.

Then, as precise plans so often do, ours became shaken and squeezed. Church at the Jerusalem Center started 30 minutes later than we had understood, and we learned that if we weren’t at the border crossing a full hour before the small window before it’s morning closure, the border guards for Israel and Jordan would not process the bus. (Where was this written down? Were we just supposed to know this? This was new even to our Israeli travel agents.)

Oh, no. We could not go to church on Shabbat at this place, our daughter’s eyes and every other passenger on our bus had been longing to see. We had called and talked to someone the night before at the Jerusalem Center who said, if we came early enough, they would let us come in to see it.

Yet, that was wrong too. On the door was the grimmest of signs. “Dear Visitors, Due to the current situation, the Jerusalem Center will be closed for tours, concerts, and all other events until further notice.” The only people admitted in were those going to church—and despite our best hopes and fondest yearnings, we weren’t going to church.

On behalf of our busload of people and our daughter, we begged, we cajoled, we debated, we used our best persuasive skills to at least come in and take a peek at the center. Could we at least walk in the garden for 10 minutes?

We explained that having to be at the border an hour earlier than we had been told had thrown all things akilter.

We personally knew the guard at the gate for 30 years, and he was still adamant. We couldn’t come in. They double-checked with the director of the center. We couldn’t come in. I am not sure if they were responding to a regulation imposed upon them or if they thought having said no visitors they needed to be consistent with all groups. Either way, it was quite an ouch.

Everyone stood outside of the Jerusalem Center trying to catch any glimpse, but that was all. Our daughter and son-in-law were good sports, but more than a little forlorn. So was everybody.

So, we said, OK, let’s walk you around the fence to the road in front of the center and see if we can catch a better look. Some stood outside craning their necks to see, but then everyone got caught up in something else.

Someone had dumped trash on this road in front of the Jerusalem Center, and it was wet and nasty and plentiful, food trash, as if a truck had overturned, or a large party had been thrown by the locals and left an awful mess behind the night before.

What did our busload of good-hearted but disappointed Latter-day Saints do? They spontaneously started to pick up trash, finding bags to put it in. Everybody got involved. They were cheerful, ready to serve, laughing as they cleaned up. They made the street by the Jerusalem Center as clean as if wet and messy trash had never been put there.

It was a dirty job, and nobody asked them to do it. They just did. How much easier it would have been to fume at not being able to see the Jerusalem Center or curse the border that demanded we be there well before their Shabbat closing? Instead, they simply did what they could. If they couldn’t worship in the center, or see the center, or feel the Spirit inside, they would follow the directions the Spirit had taught them through lifetimes of service and clean the road in front of the Jerusalem Center.

I could almost hear Truman Madsen’s resonant voice from long ago whispering in my ears, “Welcome to heaven.”