Discomforting the Comfortable

We packed up and said goodbye to Jerusalem. On the bus, as we departed, we had a time of devotions.

Pastor Aaron prayed:

We were almost to our first destination there in the Negev Desert. Natalie comes to the front of the bus and begins to pray for those carrying burdens. She was almost done with her prayer when the bus erupted with excitement at the sight of baby ibexes. Ibex look kind of like a cross between a goat and an antelope. They are common in this area. 

We get to En Gedi and proceed up the path. En Gedi is the place where David hid from Saul. Pastor Thomas shared:

David had to get out of dodge, but he wasn’t alone. He had 400 men with him. If he wanted to go to the desert. He needed to get to a water source. He ran because he held this truth to be self evident: Touch not God’s anointed.

The other day we took a wrong turn and ended up in a cistern. It was dripping with water, but it was broken. How do I know? If it were a working cistern it would be filled with water.

Not too far from here another king, another time. King Herod on Masada made a place for himself to run to if he were ever chased. He had storehouses of food and yes… cisterns. To collect water. To provide for himself and his men. King Herod hew out cisterns to save himself. They were man made and now they are broken they do not hold any water.

But here, David’s stream, it still flows. The living water is still here.

“For My people have committed two evils:

They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,

And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

I shared the other day that we have a fairy tale version of Christianity. Like Goldilocks, we have a need to be comfortable. (this porridge is too hot. This too cold. This bed is too hard. Etc.)

But God, He discomforts us. Strive to enter into rest

You won't accidentally trip into the kingdom. David wasn't looking to be attacked by a spear. He loved Saul. It caused David to come to dryness of flesh and soul. To come to the wilderness. But David stayed near the living water both physical and spiritual.

When you try to save yourself by building cisterns. You may be able to hold water and stay afloat for a little while. But it won’t last forever. Go to the fount of Living Water. You carve out cisterns where you don't need Him. It's the faithfulness of God that breaks your cistern so you need Him. God has a process in you life. Yearn for living water. Is what you are pursuing living water? He'll give us everything else.  Seek first the kingdom and all things will be added. When I am not trying to work it out myself.

We played in the lower waterfall. Natalie and Katie got soaked.

We got on top of Masada and Meir told us the story of what happened here.

Once upon a time there was a king named Herod. He was not a king by birth but by political appointment. He was the son of a rich family from Edom. His parents sent him to Rome like many wealthy parents in ancient Israel to study in the house of Augustus. Yep, that Augustus, who would be known to us all as Caesar Augustus. When Caesar began to look for someone to help manage his governmental interests in Israel. He chose the guy that had lived in his house who was from the same region. Edom was a neighbor to Israel. So Rome dubbed Herod King of the Jews, even though he was not Jewish and was not of the House of David, like all the kings were supposed to be. The Jewish people hated having him as their representative. Their ambassador. Their intercessor with Rome because he did not plead their cause. He sided with the Romans. Herod was paranoid. He thought everyone was out to get him. He began building fortresses all along a route that led back to Edom. Of course, there was Jerusalem. But then he had Herodian in Bethlehem. And the next stop on his place to flee was Masada. He had storehouses of food that could feed 1,000 people for 3 years. He had huge cisterns filled with enough water to sustain people in the desert and for him to take luxurious baths. To me one of the craziest things is that Herod never actually stayed here, nor did he ever climb the mountain. He stood at the bottom and observed the progress, but he never used it.

The real story of Masada begins when Rome is tired of dealing with the Jews as a people. They

believe the only way to manage the unmanageable people groups is to scattered them across the known world so they cannot form a revolution. Divide and Conquer. The Diaspora involved a process of sweeping through the country of Israel and gathering up all the Jews and shipping them off to various ports of call. Rome heard there was still a group of zealots that had taken over Herod’s palace at Masada that still needed dealt with.

Masada is a natural fortress. This mountain has no other connecting range. It is fairly easy to protect. Someone tries to climb up, you throw a rock and crush them. (Insert Meir’s Rolling Stone joke here). There are plenty of rocks atop so no shortage of ammunition. So how did Rome defeat them? They built a ramp up to the gate. Using Jewish slaves so that the zealots on top would not kill their brothers. It took one year for them to build the ramp up to the gate. They finally battered the gate and broke it open. Knowing that the Israelites had no where to go and they would conquer them in the morning. The Romans went back to their camp to rest for the night.

 

That night the camp gathered together. Their leader basically said Would you rather watch your wives assaulted and your children led off as slaves or die as free men in a free Israel? Each man killed his own wife and children. Ten men were chosen to kill the other men. Finally, lots were cast for the one man who would kill the others and then fall on his own sword. They found the pot shards with names inscribed on them.

When the Romans arrived in the morning, they found the bodies of the slain. To make their

point that they were not starving or defenseless. They had a pile of food and a pile of weapons showing they did not do this from despair but from choice. They have a record of what happened because a woman and her two children were found hiding in one of the cisterns.

Half of our group descended from the mountain. The rest of stayed on the mountain to tour more of the ruins. The church that was up here. The pigeon house also known as an ancient mailbox. The synagogue was beautiful. There is a new addition to the synagogue, the side room where they found the pieces of scroll including the chapter of Ezekiel has been turned into an

office for a scribes to hand copy the Torah. The scribes were in there working away. It is wild to me that this is their office. This place has a fresh occupation.

The craziest thing started to happen. On the mountain opposite of ours a dark cloud loomed. It kept getting closer and darker. And then the lightning started. We cut our tour a little short to avoid lines at the cable car. As we got off the cable car, it began to rain. Our driver Motti said he personally has only seen rain in the desert one other time. We are in an awesome time and place. And a fount of living water flowed from heaven!

We came off of the mountain and had lunch. I thought there might be an international incident with myself and the clerk running the snack bar. I went to pay with my shekels and he pointed down and gestured ‘is this yours?’ There was a $5 bill precariously draped in the candy display. I said ‘no.’ But he panicked and I thought I could see him thinking, “I don’t want to be responsible for this!” He wanted me to take it and I had the same, “I don’t want to be responsible for this” shaking of my head. He sighed, picked up the bill like it was diseased and dropped it on the shelf behind him. Praying and hoping someone would come and claim it or it may just stay there forever.

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We headed from Herod’s palace on Masada to Herod’s Dead Sea a spa and hotel at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Many of the pilgrims enjoyed the half day off to rest up either by napping,

floating in the Dead Sea or scoring a massage in the spa. The food was off the charts! The dessert table was full of artistry and finesse. We enjoyed it thoroughly.