What happened here today in this church was one of the highlights of my trip.  This morning we walked to the Christ Church to check on a concert we learned about this afternoon at 2:0o.  The selections of Handel’s Messiah about Christ’s birth would be performed in Hebrew!

This church is unique in Jerusalem because it is a place for all denominations including Jews, who believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Here’s a link to the Christ Church website:  https://christchurchjerusalem.org/ 

I found this family tree in the hostel lobby in the church compound.

This morning we met an American-raised Israeli in the visitor’s center at the church who talked to us for about an hour about his theories of what happened where. Inside their visitor’s center is a model of Jerusalem as it was at the time of Christ, created in 1862 by a man named Johann Martin Tenz, a German Jew. The model was really interesting and shed some light on things. The guide knew a lot and knew the history.  He is a Jew who believes Jesus is the Messiah and he feels is calling in life is to educate other Jews about the true nature of Christ.

We read online that this church is an evangelical Anglican church. The church building was the first Christian Church built in the Middle East, built in the mid 1800s. I wish there were a published copy of the model of Jerusalem. I tried to take some pics but it’s under glass and hard to photograph. He made it for the World’s Fair.

There are many “traditional” sites and routes here for just about anything that happened long ago.

After visiting the church this morning, we took our 2nd Ramparts walk, then returned at 2:00 for the concert.  The church probably held about 100 people. They had 14 in the choir, a piano, cello and oboe. The singers came from Tel Aviv, Nazareth and Netanya and they were really good. This was their 2nd of 3 performances.

First they did Vivaldi’s Gloria, then they did the first part of Handel’s Messiah–all the music about Christ’s birth. The acoustics were wonderful. It was thrilling to hear it sung in Hebrew by Christian Israelis. We really enjoyed being there.  There was something about hearing Jesus glorified that thrilled me. We’ve been surrounded by Arabs and Jews who don’t really celebrate Christmas or Christ, so this was a treat. I was moved.

Here’s a short clip of what this music was like.  Honestly, it thrilled me from head to toe.  The performers were exuberant and sang with such joy.  I’ve never heard The Messiah performed like this.  I will never forget it.