President Obama on Friday at a White House Easter prayer breakfast reflected on his recent visit to the Holy Land during his Middle East trip, saying, “there are few experiences more powerful or more humbling than visiting that sacred earth.”
“This year I had, I think it was a particularly special for me, because right before Easter, I had a chance to feel that spirit during my trip to the Holy Land,” Obama said. “And I think so many of you here know, there are few experiences more powerful or more humbling than visiting that sacred earth. It brings scripture to life. It brings us closer to Christ. It reminds us that our savior, who suffered and died, was resurrected. Both fully God and also a man, a human being who lived and walked and felt joy and sorrow, just like us. And so for Christians to walk where he walked and see what he saw are blessed moments. And while I had been to Jerusalem before, where Jesus healed the sick and cured the blind and embraced the (inaudible), I also had a chance to go to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. And those of you who’ve been there know that entering the church is a remarkable experience. Although it is a useful instruction to see how managing different sections of the church and different clergy, it feels familiar. Let’s just put it that way. And, you know, as I approached the altar of the nativity, as I neared the 14-pointed silver star that marks the spot where Christ was born, the patriarch of Jerusalem welcomed me to, in his words, ‘the place where heaven and Earth met.'”
