[Judy Yates]

Yesterday in the old city of Jerusalem I sat on the steps of the Temple Mount leading up to where the Jewish temple had been and where the “Holiest of Holies” had resided.

These are the same steps that Mary and Joseph climbed up when they took their 40-day-old son, Jesus, to be dedicated in the temple. The same steps that they walked on when they took him as a 12-year-old boy to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. The place where they lost him, then found him talking to the priests and Pharisees, going about “his father’s business.” The same steps that Jesus ascended upon when he made his last visit to the Holy City before he was crucified. He taught his disciples on those steps and spoke gently to the citizens of Jerusalem.

I realized as I sat there just how truly human and how truly divine he was. He lead a fairly normal life as child, helping his father in his carpenter shop, learning the things that young Jewish boys needed to know, following Jewish traditions. Then in his early thirties, his divine nature began to be revealed and it would eventually lead him back to these steps and to his death on the cross. Here I was sitting in a place where so much had happened that would change the lives of people for many generations. People like me. My Lord and savior had walked on these very steps where I now was walking. He is still waking up these steps with me. I am truly walking in his footsteps and he is guiding me. Thanks be to God!