{"id":780,"date":"2005-09-06T23:45:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-06T23:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html"},"modified":"2005-09-06T23:45:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-06T23:45:00","slug":"cracks-in-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html","title":{"rendered":"Cracks in the Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CRACKS IN THE WALL<\/p>\n<p> Cracks in the wall,<br \/>There by design,<br \/> Prayers on plain paper<br \/>One of them mine<br \/> Rabbis are chanting,<br \/>Torah held high, <br \/> Sunlight is fading,<br \/>In the blue sky. <br \/> Guards are watching,<br \/>Passing the time, <br \/> Nodding acquaintance<br \/>With the sublime.<\/p>\n<p> Herod\u2019s temple,<br \/>All that remains<br \/> Limestone platform,<br \/>Withstands the strain,<br \/> Mosque\u2019s gold dome<br \/>Shines in the light,<br \/> Whose God is honored<br \/>By what\u2019s in sight?<br \/> Prayers of the righteous<br \/>Meant to be heard, <br \/> But the papers are silent,<br \/>Don\u2019t speak a word. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe want messiah\u201d<br \/>Yeshiva boy cries,<br \/> The irony is thick,<br \/>And darkens the skies<br \/> Christians with kepas<br \/>Stand by the shrine,<br \/> Praying to Jesus,<br \/>As someone divine. <br \/> The wailing wall,<br \/>Heard Jesus\u2019 lament<br \/> That he would have gathered,<br \/>If  Zion would repent.<\/p>\n<p>Cracks in the wall,<br \/>Filled up with our prayers,<br \/> Perhaps it is this,<br \/>Which keeps God right there<br \/> Perhaps when Messiah<br \/>Comes (once again),<br \/> Perhaps then the Spirit<br \/>Will descend through the air,<br \/> Perhaps then true monotheists<br \/>Will kneel at God\u2019s feet,<br \/> Be filled with his Spirit,<br \/>The Father\u2019s Son greet.<\/p>\n<p> True children of Abram<br \/>Meet at the wall<br \/> And confess Trinity,<br \/>The One for us all. <br \/> Is this a dream&#8211; we three could be one?<br \/>Just as God is,<br \/> Whose plan is not done.<br \/>\u201cSomething there is<br \/>That doesn\u2019t like a wall\u201d<br \/> But this one unites<br \/>The One with us all.<\/p>\n<p>9\/11\/05<br \/>BW3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CRACKS IN THE WALL Cracks in the wall,There by design, Prayers on plain paperOne of them mine Rabbis are chanting,Torah held high, Sunlight is fading,In the blue sky. Guards are watching,Passing the time, Nodding acquaintanceWith the sublime. Herod\u2019s temple,All that remains Limestone platform,Withstands the strain, Mosque\u2019s gold domeShines in the light, Whose God is honoredBy&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cracks in the Wall - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cracks in the Wall - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CRACKS IN THE WALL Cracks in the wall,There by design, Prayers on plain paperOne of them mine Rabbis are chanting,Torah held high, Sunlight is fading,In the blue sky. Guards are watching,Passing the time, Nodding acquaintanceWith the sublime. Herod\u2019s temple,All that remains Limestone platform,Withstands the strain, Mosque\u2019s gold domeShines in the light, Whose God is honoredBy&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-09-06T23:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben Witherington\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cracks in the Wall - The Bible and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cracks in the Wall - The Bible and Culture","og_description":"CRACKS IN THE WALL Cracks in the wall,There by design, Prayers on plain paperOne of them mine Rabbis are chanting,Torah held high, Sunlight is fading,In the blue sky. Guards are watching,Passing the time, Nodding acquaintanceWith the sublime. Herod\u2019s temple,All that remains Limestone platform,Withstands the strain, Mosque\u2019s gold domeShines in the light, Whose God is honoredBy&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html","og_site_name":"The Bible and Culture","article_published_time":"2005-09-06T23:45:00+00:00","author":"Ben Witherington","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html","name":"Cracks in the Wall - The Bible and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-09-06T23:45:00+00:00","dateModified":"2005-09-06T23:45:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2005\/09\/cracks-in-the-wall.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cracks in the Wall"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/","name":"The Bible and Culture","description":"All Things Biblical and Christian","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/d1fd6c7893819eabc624db38ecfd8426","name":"Ben Witherington","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/75e\/75ec11e1916a2008bc4cc638a0a0de2fx96.jpg","caption":"Ben Witherington"},"description":"Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&amp;E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}