Blessed are the peacemakers

I have taken up photography as a hobby and as with all of my interests, I had to go whole hog and get the finest camera and lenses known to man. The camera equipment is far better than I am as a photographer at the moment, but nonetheless I have been taking some excellent photographs compared with prior efforts with my point and shoot cameras. On my recent trip to Israel I took close to two thousand photographs, (3.3 Gigabytes). Most are amateurish and I will be deleting the majority, but many are good and a few are really choice.

I took one of which I am really proud. I was standing in line waiting to get into the Temple Mount. This is one of the holiest sites to three religions, the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions. It is the very place that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Later King Solomon built the first Temple to the Lord in this exact same location. The Babylonians later took control and completely destroyed it. The Jews regained power and subsequently King Herod rebuilt an even larger temple in the exact same location. (This is the Temple in which Jesus taught.) After Jesus was crucified the temple was again destroyed and not one stone was left standing atop the other, (as Jesus had prophesied). This time it was the Romans that destroyed the temple in 70 AD and they also exiled the Jews from the Holy Land and scattered them throughout the world. Today the Muslims third most holy site, the Dome of the Rock, sits in this exact location where temple was and the Ark of the Covenant containing the original Ten Commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai used to reside.

The Bible tells us that the Temple will yet again be rebuilt by the Jews on this very same site and the antichrist will sit on a throne within it and rule the world during the great tribulation until Jesus returns to defeat him and then Jesus Himself will sit on a throne on this very site and rule for one thousand years of beautiful peace from this very location.

Even though the Dome of the Rock is currently sitting atop this site, many Jews are already preparing to rebuild the Temple. In fact we went to a museum where they are feverishly working on all of the tools, clothing for the priests, musical instruments, and so forth that will be used in the Temple. They are being built to the exact original specifications as detailed in the original Scriptures and we saw much of it on display during our tour. They want to have everything ready in order that, when the Temple is rebuilt, that it can immediately begin to be utilized.

So anyway, here I am standing in line waiting to get into this very special holy place when I happen to notice a mourning dove sitting above me on a wire. I pointed my camera with its huge telephoto lens towards the dove and when I focused I immediately noticed that the dove had an olive branch in its beak. “How poignant”, I thought. The Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians all lay claim to this holy place and consider it to be the center of the world. Much blood has been shed here since civilization was initially spawned as various groups fought for control of this tiny stretch of land that God designated the “Promised Land”. A beautiful little mourning dove with an olive branch in its beak symbolizing peace and innocence seemed entirely out of place to me.

It is important to note that on this day, Israel was preparing to celebrate its Memorial Day and the next day, its Independence Day. In preparation for these events there was significant military activity abounding in the area, including unusual amounts of armed soldiers patrolling, and Israeli warplanes flying in formation across the cloudless blue sky similar to the Blue Angels in the United States. They were flying low and fast and doing aerial acrobatics and emitting white smoke trails to mark their flight; it was fascinating to hear their engines roaring and watch them streaking across the sky and quite spectacular to mark them on this beautiful, crisp, cloudless day against the deep blue sky.

I focused my lens on the dove and squeezed off a photo. Just then I heard the Israeli warplanes coming and almost immediately I saw them out of the corner of my eye. I squeezed off another photo and lo and behold I got a perfectly focused photo of the mourning dove complete with an olive branch in its beak and four Israeli warplanes with white smoke emitting from their exhaust streaking through the blue sky in the background. War and peace – A photo of a life time was captured.

Now the question is what do I do with it? I want to put a caption with it and perhaps see if someone would be interested in publishing it. Hmmm What caption would be appropriate? Another location that we visited on our trip was the Mount of Beatitudes where it is believed that Jesus gave the Beatitudes. Two verses from that sermon seemed appropriate to me and I listed them below; however the Jews might be more inclined to want to use the photo with the caption: “Walk softly but carry a big stick!” If you have any suggestions, please feel free to offer them up. I feel that God gave me this opportunity for a special purpose and I would like to make the most of it

Matt. 5:5,9
Blessed are the meek
For they shall inherit the earth

Blessed are the peacemakers
For they shall be called sons of God.