When I went to the Holy Land I expected to find many churches and monuments celebrating significant events in Biblical history. However, I didn’t expect to find a church and other buildings celebrating temptation and failure.
We all have memorials to temptation and failure. Empty boxes of candy, fast food wrappers, and beer bottles bear witness to lost battles with temptation. Old stationary, e-mails, and bills represent the once-routine presence of jobs and relationships that later failed. Most of these memorials remain around due to lack of attention rather than to a desire to keep them, so it surprised me a great deal to find elaborate structures in Israel built to memorialize temptation and failure.
Mount of Temptation Restaurant (and gift shop)
Outside of Jericho we found the “Temptation Restaurant” (and connected gift shop). At the time I thought the name was surprisingly honest; however, I later noticed that it was the “Mt. of Temptation Restaurant” (and gift shop). The Mount of Temptation lies a short distance away and contains ruins of a Crusader-era memorial to the temptation of Jesus.
Crusader memorial to the temptation of Jesus
The Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu sits in Jerusalem. Gallicantu means “cock crow” in Latin, and the church memorializes the place where Jesus’ disciple, Peter, denied knowing Jesus as a cock crowed in the background. Under the church lies a bare-rock holding cell where Jesus likely spent the pre-dawn hours alone, his disciples having abandoned him.
The Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu
I left those structures with two ideas for how grand (and simple) memorials to temptation and failure might strengthen my faith. First, I can use them to remind me of my need for God and God’s forgiveness. Second, I can use them to remind me of God’s faithfulness in the face of my failures. Just as Jesus offered forgiveness to Peter, he offers it to you and me.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16
Join me Sunday at Access for the final worship service in our Focus series. We’ll learn and practice a 4-part model for prayer that helps us find words to speak to God, and we’ll even make reverent use of M&Ms