![]() ![]() Because of the Arab-Israeli conflict this city has been divided. And before you can enter one side of the city, it must be clear that you will not enter the other because one side is Jerusalem, Israel, the other side is Jerusalem, Jordan. That is because men have not solved their social problems, and we’re still banned because in their Jerusalem, that ancient holy city has been divided and split up and partitioned. Now, I must say that when you say “landing in Jerusalem” you must qualify what you are saying and tell what part of Jerusalem. You remember as he stood one day before King Agrippa, he said, “It was at noon day, oh King, that I saw a light, a light that outshines the radiance, the brilliance of the sun.” 1 And after seeing that light and gaining a new vision, he was transformed from Saul the persecutor to Paul the Christian and became one of the great Christian saints of all generations.Īfter about two hours in the air we were notified to fasten our seat belts-we were beginning to descend, the descent for the airport in Jerusalem. But you remember Damascus as an ancient city, for it was on the Damascus road that the Apostle Paul was converted. There again you remember Damascus, you remember it in modern days as the capital of the little country of Syria. Pretty soon we were in the air passing through places like Damascus. ![]() And Beirut is that beautiful city that sits elevated on a hill overlooking the mighty Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon is that beautiful country in the Middle East that we remember from biblical times, for occasionally we read about the cedars of Lebanon. It was on a beautiful afternoon a few weeks ago that we journeyed from our hotel in Beirut, Lebanon, to the airport to take a plane for Jerusalem. It reminds us that God has a light that can shine amid all of the darkness.” The following was transcribed from an audio recording. But I’m here to tell you this morning, Easter reminds us that it won’t be like that all the way. We’ve watched justice trampled over and truth crucified. He observes that Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross was “something that nobody could demand him to do,” making him “a man who had the amazing capacity to be obedient to unenforceable obligations.” King tells his congregation that the cross is ultimately a symbol of hope: “We’ve been buried in numerous graves-the grave of economic insecurity, the grave of exploitation, the grave of oppression. As King recounts his recent visit to the Middle East, he recalls falling to his knees and weeping during a visit to Calvary.
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