More times than I can count, I have walked, taken a cab or a bus to the summit of the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem.     Don’t let the word “Mount” fool you; it’s a north-to-south ridge.     But the view from the top, looking west, across the famed Kidron Valley to the Eastern Wall of Jerusalem is never-to-be-forgotten.     Tourists disembarking from their busses almost immediately see my old Palestian friend Ali and Kojak – his camel.     Ali and I have been friends for decades and I always encourage my tour groups to ride Kojak.    Riding him is absolutely free.   Getting off?    Two bucks.    And you’re glad to pay it.    But…this blog is not about Ali or the camel.     

A hundred yards or so to the north, you encounter the entrance to the “Triumphant Entry” road, believed taken by Jesus on more than one occasion.     John, who was there, remembered:   “….a huge crowd that had arrived for the Feast (Passover) heard that Jesus was entering Jerusalem.   They broke off palm branches and went out to meet him.   And they cheered, ‘Hosanna!   Blessed is he who comes in God’s name!   Yes, the King of Israel!’    Jesus got a young donkey and rode it, just as the Scripture has it:   ‘No fear, Daughter Zion: See how your king comes, riding a donkey’s colt.’    The disciples didn’t notice the fulfillment of many Scriptures at the time, but after Jesus was glorified, they remembered that what was written about him matched what was done to him.     The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, was there giving eyewitness accounts.   It was because they had spread the word of this latest God-sign that the crowd swelled to a welcoming parade.”    (John 12:12-18 – The Message)    

The walk down the curving road is very steep.    The Kidron Valley is impressive now.   But even as we walk we remember that it’s only about half as deep as it once was.    Forty years or so after Jesus ascended, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and much of the debris of the city was pushed into the Kidron Valley.    How incredibly impressive it must have been in Jesus’ day!     Half way down our slightly-precipitous walk, on our right, we pass a beautiful chapel that commemorates the site of our Lord’s weeping over the city.    The chapel is constructed to resemble a tear.     Down, down we go, passing gorgeous bougainvilleas, to the base of the Mount where we enter the Garden of Gethsemane.     The Garden is filled with olive trees, some of them very old, like hundreds of years old.    It was under the “parents” of these self-perpetuating trees that Jesus agonized over the cup.     All four of the New Testament Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John gave the account.     My wonderful mentor, the late Evangelist Jack Shuler, wrote:   “That God should be found in an earthly garden is wonder enough; that He should be discovered in the throes of conflict over a cup is unfathomable!    He whose hands once formed the stars and fashioned the pattern of the nebulae now holds a cup.    He whose mind, in the dim recesses of eternity, conceived a universe and calculated a plan for the ages now shrinks from a cup.    He who existed before Abraham and at whose feet someday every knee shall bow treads the winepress alone and groans from the depths of bitterest woe, ‘Father, if it be possible, take this cup away!’”     Why did our Lord Jesus blanch at the cup?   Because He was the perfect Lamb of God in Whom was found no sin, no fault, no guile.   But in that cup was every deed of nameless wrong hatched in the black haunts of hell, every smear of debauchery and stain of iniquity, settled like thick, black dregs to the bottom of the cup.    Jesus drew back.   His flawless character was repulsed by the very sight of it.   But with trembling fingers, Jesus raised the cup.    His garments were now drench in the blood-sweat of the agony of His soul.    But wonder of it all, Jesus pressed the cup to his lips and drank the bitter contents.    My sin, friend!   And your’s!     He who knew no sin has become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Everytime I stand in that Garden I look to the west, across the Valley, to the summit of the eastern walls.     In Jesus’ day, the towering great Temple would have been clearly evident above the walls.   Now a gate opens, and what looks like a fiery serpent slithers out and down the sides of the valley.   It is the Temple guard, led by Judas Iscariot, holding aloft their torches.     They slip across the Valley and arrive at the entrance to the Garden.    Judas betrays his Lord with a kiss and Jesus is arrested and bundled south, along the Valley, almost to the Pool of Siloam where He is bustled up the stone steps, which are still there, to Caiaphas’ house.    

It was probably around midnight when Jesus was arrested.    But the Sanhedrin would not meet in emergency session until six in the morning.   What to do with Jesus during the crucial night hours?   How to hide Him away from His adoring multitudes?     We believe that Jesus was lowered into the cold and clammy dungeon beneath Caiaphas’ house, a dungeon that is still there.    The suffering of Jesus in that awful pit was prophesied in the 22nd Psalm.     Each time I’m in that dungeon, I read that chapter in full to those there with me.     

As the sun rose that fateful day of His crucifixion, Jesus was raised by ropes from the pit and taken upstairs to the unlawful assembly of the Sanhedrin.     There false witnesses lied about Him and He was condemned to death.     But such a sentence had to be sanctioned by Rome.   So once again Jesus was trundled back down those stone steps to the Valley and taken north turning left at the Tyropean Valley (the Valley of the Cheesemakers) and taken to a massive structure just north of the Temple, the Fortess Antonia.     There Jesus would stand trial before Pontius Pilate.   Then a hearing before the insane King Herod Antipas (who was convinced in his diseased mind that Jesus was the incarnation of John the Baptist whom he had beheaded in his palace at Machaereus.    Then back to Pilate and the inhuman scourging, properly called “the near-death.”      Then to Calvary.

But as my good friend Tony Campolo often says, “Ah, but that was Friday.    Sunday was coming!”   “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magadene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.    Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter  and to the disciple Jesus loved and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.”    Jesus had risen from the grave!     The Greek Physician Luke records in Acts 1 that Jesus was seen by so many post-resurrection, including 500 in one place.

So we celebrate this Easter season with renewed joy and fervor.     Because Jesus lives, we live, now and for all eternity.   Happy Easter, good friend.

The year was 1954.   I was a senior in high school.    I happened to be in Davenport, Iowa, where I was to sing and speak that weekend in a local church.    It was a Friday afternoon and I was just walking along a downtown street when I happened to look in the window of a novelty store.   There, sitting on a shelf, was a ventrioloquist’s dummy.     I had never seen one before – remember that television was just starting up.   I had heard Charlie McCarthy on radio, but to actually see a “dummy”?   Nope, never had.      I went inside and asked the clerk to please let me see the little fellow.   In a minute or so, I was holding this puppet, this dummy.    I asked the price – $15 dollars!!    Can you believe that?    I slipped my hands inside the dummy’s back and found the controls and the little guy came alive in my hands.    On the spot I named him Louie and purchased him.      I took him back to my room and began “talking” to him.     I used Louie in a public presentation the next Sunday morning, fewer than 48 hours after obtaining him.

Some years passed by and I approached an old college buddy of mine, Don Baldwin, then owner of Hymntone Record Company.   He has since gone on to be with the Lord.   I said, “Don, I have this little dummy – Louie.   We tell Bible stories to children.    I’d like to record them and make them available.    I want to record them with original music and incredible sound effects.”

You know, I grew up in radio days.    I listened to the Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Suspense, Escape, Jack Benny, etc., etc.     Radio fired up your imagination.   You actually saw on the screen of your mind all the action, much more effectively, may I say, than movies or television.     I wanted to record Bible stories with Louie on audio that would cause kids to see the events on their very fertile young minds.

I said, “Don….here’s the premise:   at the beginning of each story, Louie has a question or he’s in trouble or has a problem.   To find the answer to his problem, we go to the fantastic, incredible Bible Storybook Castle.   It has 66 rooms in it.   39 of them are old (The Old Testament) and 27 of them are new (The New Testament).      There is the story of a guy there, Louie, whose name is Samson.   To find him we have to go into the Bible Storybook Castle and go to the old section, to a huge room called ‘Judges.’     That’s where we’ll find your answer.”    So right away kids begin learning the Old and New Testaments, which books are where, and whose stories are in each ‘room.’”    Don thought for a long time and said, “I’ll get back to you.”    Out of Don’s imaginative brain came the whole concept of the recordings – over 100 Bible stories told (then) on audio cassettes.     Since then the stories have been remastered and released on CDs.

We now believe that over a million children have heard the Dan ‘N Louie Bible stories around the world.     In fact, there is a Dan ‘N Louie radio show in Thailand, translated into their language, heard five days a week.     In places in America, Dan ‘N Louie are heard on radio stations in English.     I have received countless letters, e-mails, phone calls and personal communications from children or their parents (or their grandparents) telling me how these stories have impacted their children.    I have had communications from teachers and school principals, informing me of the positive influence these stories have had.     I honestly believe that the writing and performing these stories with Louie ( a manuscript of over 2,000 pages, by the way!) is the single most important thing God has ever permitted me to do in a half-century of ministry.

Recently, Jim Bakker has begun promoting these CD’s on his syndicated television show.     You can obtain them from him for $15 per CD or you can buy the entire 20 CD set (107 stories – 21 hours) for $200.    The money goes to his ministry to assist him in his Master’s Commission ministry.    Here’s the toll-free number to call:   1-888-988-1588.     

Every parent or grandparent ought to seriously and prayerfully consider this investment.    Your children will bless you for it.      In the meantime, Louie and I will just continue telling the stories from the fabulous, incredible Bible Storybook Castle!!

Oh, by the way:    Louie is 55 years old now – same dummy!    However, on two different occasions I have sent him back to the factory for what Louie calls “dummy-tucks.”     He looks great!   In fact, he told me to tell you, “Hello.”