'Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever'
It's one of my favorite quotes from scripture … from Hebrews 13:8.
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever."
I was thinking a lot about it the last few days as news from Israel was filled once again by Jesus.
It was an excavation project in Jerusalem that unearthed steps unseen in more than 2,000 years at a place where the New Testament records Jesus as having healed a blind man.
It was an astonishing find. The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation announced that the Pool of Siloam, a biblical site cherished by Christians and Jews, will be open to the public for the first time in 2,000 years in the near future.
"The ongoing excavations within the City of David – the historic site of Biblical Jerusalem – particularly of the Pool of Siloam and the Pilgrimage Road, serve as one of the greatest affirmations of that heritage and the millennia-old bond Jews and Christians have with Jerusalem," said Ze'ev Orenstein, director of International Affairs, City of David Foundation. "Not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact."
For those of you who have not had the experience to see with your own eyes what has been discovered in Israel since it was unified with Jerusalem, this maybe the pinnacle. It's hard to say because there are so many highlights. While there are many parts of the world worth seeing, I have chosen to see Israel, this historic, archaeological wonder, more than 20 times – I have lost count by my reckoning. I can't wait to see it again.
"The half-mile running through the City of David, from the Pool of Siloam in the south, continuing along the Pilgrimage Road, up to the footsteps of the Western Wall, Southern Steps and Temple Mount, represents the most significant half-mile on the planet," Orenstein said. "There is no half-mile anywhere on Earth which means more to more people – not to millions, but to billions – than the half-mile that is the City of David."
The pool was first built roughly 2,700 years ago as part of Jerusalem's water system in the eighth century B.C. The construction unfolded during the reign of King Hezekiah as cited in the Bible in the book of 2 Kings, according to the two Israeli agencies and the City of David Foundation.
According to estimates, the Pool of Siloam passed through many stages of construction and reached the size of 1.25 acres. According to a passage in the Gospel of John, it was there where Jesus restored the sight of a man born blind.
A "stroke of luck" revealed the pool in 2004, when infrastructure work carried out by the Hagihon water company uncovered some of the pool's steps. The Israel Antiquities Authority, under supervision of professors Roni Reich and Eli Shukron, launched a survey. As a result, the northern perimeter, as well as a small section of the eastern perimeter of the Pool of Siloam, were uncovered.
Sure – a "stroke of luck." It's always a stroke of luck. Could Jesus have any role in it?
Just remember what the writer of the book of Hebrews said. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever."
And: "Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body."
Isn't that what the blind man in the Pool of Siloam found?
"The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament" by Joseph Farah is available in both hardcover and e-book versions.
ALSO: Get Joseph Farah's book "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians, and the End of the Age," and learn about the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith and your future in God's Kingdom. Also available as an e-book.
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