THURSDAY

NOVEMBER 21

THE WAY OF THE CROSS

Let tourists snap selfies. Be a pilgrim and meditate on the way of the cross. An open Bible at a holy site comes alive!

  • Today we will check out of the Lady Stern Hotel. Tonight we will check into Hotel Yehuda near the Jerusalem Zoo. So have your bag packed, ready to go in the morning to load onto the bus.

  • Visit the Garden Tomb and its realistic depiction of a first-century grave and experience communion as never before.

  • Begin with a panoramic view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives at Seven Arches.

  • Walk the Palm Sunday route down to the Garden of Gethsemane, among ancient olive trees (Matthew 26:36-56).

  • Meditate in a private garden next to the Garden of Gethsemane site.

  • Enter Jerusalem through the Lion's Gate.

  • Walk sections of the Via Dolorosa through the Old City.

  • See where Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

  • Visit Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center and experience the engaging Shroud of Turin exhibit.

  • Take a rooftop tour with one of the best outlooks of Jerusalem at Notre Dame.

  • 4:30pm a sunset dinner at the Notre Dame Rooftop Restaurant. (This meal is an extra cost of about $30-50. Explore the menu here.)

  • For dinner tonight, our special guest Samuel Smadja, the founder and President of Sat-El Tours, Conferences and Holdings. Here’s a video of his testimony.

  • Tonight we return to a new hotel Hotel Yehuda. It’s a special place of gardens in Jerusalem, plus it is owned by believers. Your bag will be waiting for you in your room.

Meditate Scriptures

  • 1 Who has believed our message
        and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
    He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
        and like a root out of dry ground.
    He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
        nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
    He was despised and rejected by mankind,
        a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
    Like one from whom people hide their faces
        he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

    Surely he took up our pain
        and bore our suffering,
    yet we considered him punished by God,
        stricken by him, and afflicted.
    But he was pierced for our transgressions,
        he was crushed for our iniquities;
    the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
        and by his wounds we are healed.
    We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
        each of us has turned to our own way;
    and the Lord has laid on him
        the iniquity of us all.

    He was oppressed and afflicted,
        yet he did not open his mouth;
    he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
        and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
        so he did not open his mouth.
    By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
        Yet who of his generation protested?
    For he was cut off from the land of the living;
        for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
    He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
        and with the rich in his death,
    though he had done no violence,
        nor was any deceit in his mouth.

    10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
        and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
    he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
        and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
    11 After he has suffered,
        he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied[e];
    by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
        and he will bear their iniquities.
    12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
        and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
    because he poured out his life unto death,
        and was numbered with the transgressors.
    For he bore the sin of many,
        and made intercession for the transgressors.

  • Luke 22

    Jesus Prays on the Mount of Olives

    39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.[c]

    45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”

    Jesus Arrested

    47 While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48 but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

    49 When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

    51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

    52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”

    Luke 23

    The Crucifixion of Jesus

    26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then

    “‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”

    and to the hills, “Cover us!”’[b]

    31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

    32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[c] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

    35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

    36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

    38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

    39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

    40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

    42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[d]”

    43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

    The Death of Jesus

    44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”[e] When he had said this, he breathed his last.

    47 The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” 48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

    The Burial of Jesus

    50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. 53 Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54 It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

    55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

TODAY’S VIDEOS