Good Friday: Remembering our walk through the streets of Jerusalem

In the summer of 2011, Lori and I went on pilgrimage with a group of friends to the Holy Land. On one of our last mornings, we awoke before dawn and walked the "Way of the Cross" through the streets of Jerusalem.

We retraced the steps Jesus might have taken to his death on that first Good Friday. Of course, the streets he walked are now under centuries of rubble. Nonetheless, it was not hard to imagine the loneliness of his walk.

Later that day, I wrote about our experience on this blog from Jerusalem. I am reposting what I wrote below for you on this Good Friday. 

Today at noon, we will gather once again at St. Paul's to stand vigil for three hours at the foot of the Cross. We will hear from seven people in our congregation who will offer reflections on what people might have seen and experienced on that first Good Friday. If you are in the vicinity, come for as much as you can.

May you have a blessed experience in this Great Three Days . . .

+ + +

Holy Land Journal: Walking the ancient Way of the Cross

Inside the dome of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

JERUSALEM – We awoke before dawn on Monday and assembled in the courtyard of St. George’s College.

In the early cool morning breeze, we began our Walk of the Way of the Cross, tracing the footsteps where countless pilgrims over countless centuries have trod to remember the agony and death of Jesus on the Cross.

We walked in silence to each stop on the way. We broke our silence at each stop with prayers, scripture readings and chanting of, “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One.”

We agree we would take no photographs until we were through.

For those uninitiated in the Way of the Cross, or “Stations of the Cross,” it is a traditional exercise of veneration at each of the 14 points where the tradition holds that Jesus stopped on his way to be crucified. Many churches worldwide offer this practice during Holy Week, using icons or artwork depicting each of the stops.

On Monday, we walked to the stations the Cross marked along the route on buildings were pilgrims, like ourselves, have paused for centuries of veneration.

Entering the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre after our
Walk on the Way of the Cross

To reach the Old City, we walked past the Israeli police station where we have spent so much of our time in the past week. A few police officers and heavily armed soldiers milled about in front next to their armored cars.

We walked through Herod’s Gate into the Muslim Quarter and found ourselves at the first station, the place where Pontius Pilate’s headquarters is said to have stood. We heard the story of Jesus being condemned to death by the Roman governor. We prayed, we chanted, we kept walking.

We were soon followed by another group of pilgrims, from Romania. Their chants, more melodic than ours, pleasantly filled our ears. As we would leave one station, the Romanians following at a respectful distance, would take our place.

The sun rose above the rooftops; we could soon feel the heat. As we walked through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, the Old City began to wake up. Tractors pulling carts of produce rumbled past, their noisy engines drowning our prayers and chants. We hugged the walls to avoid having our feet run over. People hustled past on their way to work, or to their own worship, and they kept on the opposite side of the street from us.

The ground was wet, hosed down in the early morning hours before our arrival. The smell of rotting garbage filled our nostrils. There were no sweet smells on the Way of the Cross.

At the third station, marked on a wall with “Jesus falls for the first time,” two Israeli soldiers, with automatic weapons, stood talking. They quietly moved away so we could stand there. A car honked at us to get out of the way so it could pass, the driver barking at us as he drove by.

We moved onto the next stations, trying to imagine Jesus on this walk, carrying the crosstree of the executioner’s tool up these narrow streets. Yet, we were very aware that these were not the steps Jesus walked – the streets where he walked are deep beneath the ground, deep beneath our feet, buried under centuries of rubble left by the multiple destructions of this tragic city over 2,000 years.

At the sixth station, “Veronica wipes the face of Jesus,” an elderly nun paused to touch the stone marking the station, then crossed herself before continuing on her way.

We walked uphill, up slippery stone steps, up past shopkeepers beginning to open for the day.

Our ears filled with many sounds, not just our prayers or the wonderful chants of the Romanians behind us. Everywhere, it seemed, we could hear cats crying. The clanking metal of shop door opening echoed through the allies. More tractors lumbered past.

Finally we reached the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built atop the stony hill where Jesus was crucified. This is one place where scholars generally agree we are in the right place: Golgotha, the “place of the Skull.”

The place of death.

In the time of Jesus, Golgotha was an abandoned rock quarry that stood just outside the city gates. It was a perfect location for the Romans to hang criminals for all to see – and be warned.

Looking down on the domes of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We
took this photo a few days ago
from the tower at the Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer

Now a huge basilica, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, covers the spot. The quarry is buried beneath centuries of Christian tradition and conflict. The basilica has been built and rebuilt many times since the 4th century. The Place of the Skull has not seen sunlight in 1,600 years.

We would go in, but not yet.

We finished our Stations of the Cross in a sunny courtyard, trading stations with the Romanians. An African Coptic monk, clad entirely in a black robe from the top of his head to his toes, swept the courtyard as we prayed and chanted.

Finally we heard the biblical passages of how Jesus breathed his last, and was lowered into his mother’s arms from the Cross. Some in our group wept.

But I looked up at the sun glistening on the church domes, and all I could think of was this:

“He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”

+ + +

When we finished the Way of the Cross, we walked a short distance to the Lutheran Hospice for breakfast. Our group remained quiet, everyone lost in their thoughts. Some ate then went to sit quietly and write in their journals.

Soon we went back outside to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a place I have heard and read about but never seen until today. It is built upon Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull,” or “Cavalry” as some call it. Within its walls is also the place thought to be the tomb where he was laid, and where the women came on the third morning to find that his body had disappeared.

It is certainly the most holy place in all of Christianity.

The traditional spot where it is said
that Jesus' body was anointed with oil.
A marble slab covered in oil
marks the place.

The spot remained largely as it was for three centuries. In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and commissioned a magnificent basilica on Golgotha. He commissioned his mother, Helena, to go find it. It was she who declared that this was the spot. Later evidence showed she likely got it right.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The church now standing is magnificent, but it smaller and less spectacular than the original in it glory.

In later centuries, the church was chopped up into sections for warring Greeks, Coptics and Armenians.

Walls divide each sect’s section from the other, and cut off full views of the magnificent domes and nave inside. The division and territoriality in the basilica is a perfect metaphor for the divisiveness in Christianity, and in all of humanity itself.

Huge Paschal candles guard the tome
of Jesus. Lightbulbs are atop
each candle.

Yet I still found the church oddly moving.

As we entered the basilica, we were confronted by a slab of marble representing where Jesus might have been anointed with oil after his death. Lamps hang above, and the slab is covered with olive oil. We took turns blessing each other with the oil.

Up a steep staircase is an ornate altar the stands at the highest point on the hill that is encased inside this church. It is thought that this is the spot where Jesus hung on the Cross. It is hard to imagine except for a series of gray rock outcroppings nearby, underneath glass cases.

The rock is the color of a skull.

We went back down another stone staircase to where Jesus’ tomb is said to be. At the time of Jesus, the tomb would have been one of many small caves carved in the hillside. In the 4th century, Constantine’s laborers carved the entire rock assemblage away from the hillside and then enclosed it in a shrine.

The spot is now inside a large boxy edifice, covered in lamps, icons and all manner of bric-a-brac. Huge Paschal candles with guard the entrance to the tomb. The candles have light bulbs on top, and some of the bulbs are the new energy saving twirly type.

With all of that adornment, I found it very hard to imagine this place as a Jewish tomb in a hillside.

Entrance to ancient crypt
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Our pilgrimage guide, Mark, wanted to show us something else. He led us through a small door, and down a passageway only a few feet away from the official tomb.

We entered a round room, carved into the hillside, lit with a single light bulb. On the ceiling we could see the dimmest outline of ancient Byzantine paintings, long faded. The walls were blackened with the soot of centuries of candles and oil lamps.

Off to one side was another small door, no more than four foot high. I climbed inside with a flash light, and I found two small crypts, carved into the hillside that is now under this massive church.

Two crypts deep inside the hillside
underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Each crypt could have held a single body.

In ancient Jewish practice, bodies would be encased in these tombs until the flesh decayed, then families would return in about a year to retrieve the bones and then keep them in an ossuary.

It was here, in a place like this, that I could imagine that Jesus might have been laid after his death, and where the women came the next day to look for his body.

And then I all I could think of was this: “He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”

He is not here! He is Risen!

Here is my Easter sermon from this morning. The reading that goes with it is John 20:1-18. You can also hear my sermon by clicking HERE.

May you have a joyous and wonderful Easter season!

+ + +

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!

“Mary!”

“Mary!”

This humble peasant woman from the town of Magdela hears her name, and just like that, she knows – she knows who is standing in front of her.

She had come here to the garden in the dark to anoint his body.

She had seen him killed by the Romans on a cross. Others fled, but not her, not Mary Magdalene.

In the darkest hour, Mary finds his tomb empty, and she runs to tell the others. John the Beloved disciple arrives ahead of the others, and declares that Jesus has risen from the dead just like the Scripture foretold.

But Mary isn’t buying it, not yet. All she can think of is that grave robbers have taken his body, and her grief is all the worse. She sees someone standing in front of her, and she thinks it the gardener.

Then he says her name.

“Mary.”

In this one instant, everything – everything – in Mary’s life snaps into focus.
Everything makes perfect sense because he knows her name.

Mary.

From that moment, the story of Jesus of Nazareth would continue, written on the heart of Mary Magdalene, and on the hearts of everyone else who would follow.

Mary and these first followers of Jesus, the Risen Christ, give us this precious gift of Easter so that we may believe that there is more to life than what we see here now, that the Christ who is risen is with us still.

Centuries follow. The Church tries to make sense of this story with complicated dogmas and doctrines, philosophy and theology.

But on this first Easter morning, there is no “begotten not made,” no creeds, no catechisms, no abstractions.

There are no candlesticks, no prayer books, no cathedrals, no bishops.

No, on this first Easter morning, there is a garden, and Mary who hears her name, and she knows in her deepest heart who is calling her – the One she calls Rabbi, the One who had died: that same Jesus of Nazareth who she has followed.

And Mary Magdalene’s life – and our life – is about to change in ways that neither she, nor we, can scarcely imagine.

+ + +

Last August, Lori and I traveled to Jerusalem with a group of 29 pilgrims from the United States, Canada and Australia. We became very close.

One morning before dawn, in the cool breezy darkness, we gathered at the place where Pontius Pilate’s palace once stood.

We walked through the narrow streets where tradition holds that Jesus walked on his way to the Cross.

We paused at those places that tradition claims that Jesus stopped, the places where it is said that Jesus stumbled, where Simeon of Cyrene picked up his cross, where women like Mary Magdalene watched and weeped.

The sun rose above the rooftops; we could soon feel the heat. The Old City of Jerusalem began to wake up. People hustled past us on their way to work, some pushing clattering carts stacked with vegetables to the street markets.

The ground was wet, hosed down in the early morning hours. The smell of rotting garbage filled our nostrils. There are no sweet smells on the Way of the Cross.

Finally we reached the stony hill where Jesus was crucified – Golgotha – the place of the Skull: The place of death.

In the time of Jesus, Golgotha was an abandoned rock quarry just outside the city gates. It was a perfect location for the Romans to hang criminals and rebels – and advertise their vicious power.

The Place of the Skull is now covered by a huge basilica, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The basilica has been built and rebuilt many times since the Fourth Century. The quarry is buried beneath centuries of Christian tradition and conflict, and the Place of the Skull has not seen daylight in 1,600 years.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
Jerusalem

We finished our Stations of the Cross in a sunny courtyard outside the basilica.

An African Coptic monk, clad entirely in a black robe from the top of his head to his toes, swept the courtyard as we quietly chanted a psalm.

It was here where Mary Magdalene came that first Easter morning before dawn to find the tomb empty; it was here where Peter and John came when they heard the news that his body was gone.
And it was here, in this place of suffering and pain, where Jesus called Mary by name:

“Mary” he said. Jesus knew here name, just as Jesus knows your name – every single one of us.
On this beautiful Easter morning you’ve been given the most precious gift you will ever receive:

 The promise of the Risen Christ, who knows your name, who promises to be with you no matter what, in your joys and sorrows, in your faith, and in your doubts.

This precious gift is yours, free of charge, and it is yours forever.

Take this gift, this story of Easter – it is your story. Hold it close. Live this precious story to the fullest every day of your life – this story of new life, of grace, of forgiveness, of healing.

Easter is yours forever, marked on your heart by the One who knows your name, the One who is with you on whatever path you walk, and to the end of time.

+ + +

As I stood in the courtyard of the great basilica of Jerusalem, the holiest shrine in all Christianity, I looked up at the sun glistening on the dome, the sun shining brightly on the faces of everyone standing near me, and all I could think of was this:

“He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”


Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! Alleluia!

+ + +

Icon of Mary Magdalene by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM
By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Come join us tonight for a presentation on our pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Tonight at 7 pm Lori and I will give a presentation at St. Paul's about our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We have photos to show you of the holiest of shrines and churches in all of Christianity, and more than that.

We will talk about and show you how people live now in this very troubled land. I plan to discuss not just the biblical shrines and churches, but also share the many perspectives we heard from Palestinians and Israelis.

The politics is complicated and, frankly, it is crucial that we as Americans get a firmer (and less naive) understanding. I hope you can join us tonight.

The story below came across last night about our bishop in Jerusalem, the Right Rev. Suheil Dawani, (pictured below) and the difficulties he's had with Israeli authorities renewing his residency permit to live in East Jerusalem. We spent an evening with Bishop Dwali, and I will tell you about some of what he told us and his witness for peace and justice against many odds. Please pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Please also keep the United Nations in your prayers this week as it considers resolutions by the Palestinians for statehood. I have a few things to say about that, and I will share them with you here soon. Here is the story from Episcopal News Service:

+ + +

Jerusalem bishop's residency permit reinstated after months of international diplomacy 

By ENS staff, September 27, 2011

[Episcopal News Service] The residency permits and visas that enable Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani and his family to reside legally in Jerusalem have been reinstated after 13 months of the documentation being denied by Israel's Ministry of Interior.

"I want to thank all of you, my friends and colleagues throughout the Anglican Episcopal Communion and the worldwide Christian community, for your continued support throughout this time," said Dawani, a Palestinian Christian, in a Sept. 27 letter sent to international partners. "It has been deeply appreciated and most encouraging knowing that we have been kept in your thoughts and prayers as we awaited this most heartening outcome."

Many international religious leaders -- Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican Communion primates, and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem -- had joined in the diplomatic efforts calling for the documentation to be reinstated.
The House of Bishops in March wrote to Israel's ambassadors serving in nations where the Episcopal Church has dioceses or a presence, calling for their help in resolving the matter as soon as possible.

"I have been overwhelmed by the support given to me," said Dawani in his letter. "Please know that in my heart I give you all great thanks..."

Israel's Ministry of the Interior denied the residency permit for Dawani, his wife and his youngest daughter on the grounds that the bishop had allegedly sold Israeli land illegally to Palestinians. Dawani also was accused of forging documents. Dawani has denied all allegations, none of which have been substantiated by any documentary evidence.

The bishop attempted to resolve the matter -- sending letters to the Ministry of the Interior and the nation's attorney general in which he asked to know the specific charges against him and requested reinstatement of the residency permit -- but much of his communication went unanswered.

Dawani's episcopal ministry requires him to travel throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which includes parishes and institutions in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territories. Dawani has held a residency permit for Jerusalem since 2007. Being without the permit since August 2010, Dawani has been unable to visit or minister to many of the Christian communities he leads throughout the Holy Land.

My homily today: A few reflections on our time in the Holy Land

At Mount Tabor, the mountaintop
of the Transfiguration

Today's lessons are Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 149, Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:15-20. Here is my sermon for today, marking my reentry at St. Paul's.

+ + +

Shalom, Salaam, Peace.

It is good to be back among you after many weeks away.

I bring you blessings and greetings this morning from the Right Rev. Suheil Dawni, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem.

Lori and I have completed a 22,000-mile journey to the Holy Land, taking a very circuitous route from here to San Francisco to meet our pilgrim group, then Toronto to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, back to San Francisco, Toronto, and here again. We arrived in Charlottesville at midnight last night.

I am so very grateful to be home again, and gathered among you after so many weeks away.

You were very close to our thoughts and prayers as we got snippets of news about the earthquake and hurricane here. Frankly, we felt safer in Israel.

Thank you for your prayers, your good wishes, your emails, and your good graces in allowing us to be away to take this extraordinary journey.

I am so very grateful for Ann, Nik and Heather, and all of our talented staff; and for Pam, our senior warden, and our Vestry, for shepherding this church in my absence.

I have rested well knowing you were in capable hands. Thank you.

Three weeks ago, we gathered with 27 other pilgrims from all over the world, including five from Virginia and eight from California. Others came from New York, Michigan, Australia and Canada. There were two priests, including me; a bishop from Australia and the Archbishop of Toronto.

We followed in the footsteps of two millennia of pilgrims, retracing the steps to the holiest places of Christendom. We truly became a band of brothers and sisters on the pilgrim path.

We lodged at St. George’s College, next door to St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem, our outpost in the Holy Land. Every sect – Jewish, Muslim and Christian – has an outpost in Jerusalem, and this was ours.

I have few preliminary reflections I want to share this morning about our pilgrimage.

Everyone we met – Jew, Muslim and Christian – was friendly and hospitable. Everyone went out of our way to help us; and everyone wanted to share their life with us because they wanted us – and you – to know how they live.

We were there when there was a terrorist attack on the Egyptian border. We discovered that everyone seems have learned how to live with the cycles of violence and conflict and still carry on with daily life.

Everywhere we went, everyone asked us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. At first I thought it was a line. Then I realized everyone we met absolutely meant it from the bottom of their heart.

They truly believe if there is peace in Jerusalem there will be peace in all the whole world. If there can be peace in Jerusalem, there can be peace everywhere.

And I began to believe they are right.

Yet there is so much hatred, so much animosity, so many grievances on all sides, so much distrust, that no one we met believes there will be peace in our lifetime.

Jerusalem is a divided, conflicted and tense city, and that has been so for more than 3,000 years.
Everyone claims Jerusalem and no one owns it.

Years ago, another pilgrim, Colin Thubron wrote of Jerusalem, “religion and politics forever touch hands.”

Religion and politics are inseparable in Jerusalem.

There are no agnostics in Jerusalem – it is the most intensely, overtly and stiflingly religious city I have ever visited. All of the contractions of the Holy Land are encapsulated in the biblical lessons today.

We saw massive churches built atop places where it said that Mary, pregnant with Jesus, met with Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.

We went to a hilltop where it is said the shepherds heard the angels proclaiming Jesus’ birth, and we saw the ruins of the Church of the Holy Spasm, where it is said Mary felt her first birth pangs.

We went to a place purported to be the Upper Room of the Last Supper. With centuries of building and rebuilding it is now deep underground. The formidable Russian nun who guards it directed us: “Upper room, down.”

We also visited a Palestinian refugee camp, courtesy of the United Nations. We passed through Israeli checkpoints and the massive wall dividing Jewish Jerusalem from Palestinian Bethlehem.

The biblical past and the conflicted present merged everywhere we went.

Near the end of our pilgrimage, we ventured inside dark, almost sinister Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built atop Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion, the holiest shrine in all of Christendom.

And all the while I wondered: How does anyone know these are the precise locations?

The answer always: Tradition.

If anything, I felt the thick smoky layers of church history and hierarchy – the creedal arguments, the schisms and crusades, and the legends built on top of legends in these places. The Holy sometimes seemed buried underground.

It was not until we left the intensity of Jerusalem that I began to feel why this was a “Holy Land.”

On our sixth day, we traveled north to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, to the place where Jesus spent most of his life.

The Sea of Galilee is a serene lake in the desert that felt to me far from the politics and conflicts of the world, and far from the chaos of Jerusalem.

On my first morning at the Sea of Galilee, I got up early and went alone to the shoreline to read Morning Prayer. The lake was green-gray, and the sky misty blue.

I sat on a pebbly beach, and the air was warm even before the sun rose burning red-orange. I could easily imagine Jesus sitting here in silence and prayer, teaching and healing, and working things out in solitude.

Soon the fish were jumping after insects, and my first reaction was wondering why good Saint Peter had such a hard time catching fish (all he needed was a fly rod).

I sat on a rock and read the psalms and biblical lessons for the day, but soon realized that the place where I sat was more powerful than any Scriptural passage.

I put down my Bible and just looked and listened.

I could almost hear Jesus sitting nearby, teaching his followers. The words on the biblical page seemed but a thin reflection of what that must have been like.

It was then that I realized something so obvious that I might have missed it – and this is the one thing I want to leave you with today:

The divine can be anywhere and everywhere. All we need do is notice; all we need do is open our eyes and ears to see and listen.

You don’t have to leave home to find the holy. You don’t have to go on a 22,000-mile pilgrimage.

You can find the holy in this church, or on the corner outside, or in the woods, or on a mountaintop, or in your backyard, or in the classroom.

You can especially meet the holy in the people you meet, the people you love, the people you work with, the people who you share your life with – and you can meet the holy with people who are complete strangers.

They might not even be Episcopalians.

The heart of this is to be heard in the gospel lesson today from Matthew:

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Today we are gathered in his name, as others have before us have done, and we will do something extraordinary that connects us with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and with every one of his followers ever after.

We will be baptizing a young child, Isabel Rose Lopez. We will stand with her and her family, and pledge to walk with her in her life of faith.

We will set forth on a pilgrimage with her.

We will promise to renew ourselves in the prayers and in the breaking of the bread, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to respect the dignity of every human being.

The holy will be among us because the holy is always with us. And you won’t have to look any farther than the person next to you to see the holy. Our life pilgrimage can begin anew today, now, here in this place, and the holy will be among us.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

And pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Shalom, Salaam, Peace. AMEN.

Back safely in the United States

Dear friends,

Just a quick post to let you know we are safely back in the United States after 17 hours of flying and six hours in airports. I am still amazed by air travel. Pilgrims of yore took months and years to reach Jerusalem and return home again. Our airplane flew non-stop halfway around the world from Tel Aviv to Toronto in 11 hours. We flew a northern route across Poland, Denmark and crossed the tip of Greenland before entering Canadian airspace. Our connection in Toronto was the most challenging part of the journey, and we made it into San Francisco later in the evening.

We are spending a few days relaxing, napping and unwinding with family and friends in the Bay Area and we will be back in Charlottesville this weekend.

Blessings to all,

Jim & Lori

Holy Land Journal: Pilgrims we depart

Crosses etched in the walls of
a church by pilgrims during
the Crusades.

JERUSALEM -- This is my lasting posting from the Holy Land. We depart today for the long journey homeward. At some point in the next few days I will offer a few words of reflection about our journey. My instincts tell me that it will take a lifetime to understand the full meaning, and that to begin to understand, I must have some distance from this place.

Please keep us and our fellow pilgrims in your prayers, and please pray for the peace of Jerusalem and all the world. Blessings to all.

-- Jim

Holy Land Journal: On an old crumbling Roman road

The old Roman road to the place Jews in
the time of Jesus called "Ammaous."

JERUSALEM – Our time in the Holy Land is drawing to a close, and we are beginning to feel the tug of the homeward journey ahead.

On Tuesday we completed our pilgrimage by taking a walk a few miles away in an Israeli suburb. We walked up a hill, past a few houses, and then left the pavement and disappeared for a time into a ravine.

We wended our way through thistle bushes and under low lying pine branches to reach a crumbled gray footpath that was once a Roman road. Then we walked as far as we could on the old Roman road.

We walked on the road to Emmaus.

You may recall the story in Luke 24:13-35: Two of Jesus’ followers – Cleopas and another disciple unnamed– flee from Jerusalem after the execution of Jesus. A stranger joins them on the road and asks them what they are talking about:

They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.”

As they walk along, the stranger explains the Scriptures to them; how the messiah would not be a mighty warrior but would be a servant who would be put to death. He explains the entire Bible to them as they walk. When they reach a town called “Emmaus,” the pair of disciples invite the stranger to join them for dinner.

As the Gospel of Luke continues:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

I adore this story. If I had only one story in the Bible I could keep, this would be it. Everything about the Gospel is here – surprise, divinity, servanthood, resurrection and a great meal. It is a tale of how all of us miss seeing the Holy – the Christ – in the people we meet because we are too busy to see what is right in front of us. It is a tale of how we especially miss seeing the Christ in strangers, in people who are different than us. It is a tale of opportunities still before us if we walk down the road and open our eyes to see.

Today we walked along this old Roman road, we walked to Emmaus. We walked the same path as Cleopas and his companion walked. We worked our way up the ravine until we could walk to further, and we paused to look.

The Arab town that had once been there was completely destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. All that remains is the Roman road and piles of trash along the way.

On a gravel footpath before
reaching the old Roman road.

There are no gift shops, no amenties, no signs marking the place. There is no huge basilica, no tour buses. No one hawking pottery. Yet, we knew we were in a very special place. A team of archaeologists were nearby excavating a few yards from our trail.

I had brought a small stone with me to leave in the Holy land: a piece of quartz from Shrine Mont, Virginia. I’ve been looking for just the right place to leave it. Here is where I left it, on the Road to Emmaus.

Was this the actual place of Emmaus? Scholars disagree, as they do on everything else in the Holy Land. There are at least four candidates for Emmaus.

The place we went was once known as “Colonia” by the Romans because it was a “colony” for aging veteran Roman soldiers. The Arabs later rendered “Colonia” into “Qualuyna.”

But in the time of Jesus, the local Jews called it “Ammaous.”

Emmaus? Perhaps so.

Australian Anglican Bishop Godfrey Fryar
celebrates our Holy Eucharist with Jerusalem's
skyline as our backdrop.

We walked back down the road, chatting quietly, and returned to our bus. We were taken a few miles away to the top of a hill, to a convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame, a French order. The convent marks where it is thought that King David kept the Ark of the Covenant for 20 years before bringing it to Jerusalem when the Temple was built. It is also another candidate for “Emmaus,” though it seems much to high up on a hill to be a place where anyone would lodge on their way to somewhere else.

Here we celebrated our Holy Eucharist one last time as fellow pilgrims, and we looked out from this hill and could see the entire skyline of Jerusalem, old and new.

As we prayed, sang, and shared in the bread and wine, we could hear gunshots below the hill – presumably someone was target practicing. At least that is what we all hoped.

As we finished, we were invited to pray for peace. We prayed earnestly for the peace of Jerusalem and for the peace of the whole world.

Amen.

Holy Land Journal: Walking the ancient Way of the Cross

Inside the dome of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre

JERUSALEM – We awoke before dawn on Monday and assembled in the courtyard of St. George’s College.

In the early cool morning breeze, we began our Walk of the Way of the Cross, tracing the footsteps where countless pilgrims over countless centuries have trod to remember the agony and death of Jesus on the Cross.

We walked in silence to each stop on the way. He broke our silence at each stop with prayers, scripture readings and chanting of, “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One.”

We agree we would take no photographs until we were through.

For those uninitiated in the Way of the Cross, or “Stations of the Cross,” it is a traditional exercise of veneration at each of the 14 points where the tradition holds that Jesus stopped on his way to be crucified. Many churches worldwide offer this practice during Holy Week, using icons or artwork depicting each of the stops.

On Monday, we walked to the stations the Cross marked along the route on buildings were pilgrims, like ourselves, have paused for centuries of veneration.

Entering the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre after our
Walk on the Way of the Cross

To reach the Old City, we walked past the Israeli police station where we have spent so much of our time in the past week. A few police officers and heavily armed soldiers milled about in front next to their armored cars.

We walked through Herod’s Gate into the Muslim Quarter and found ourselves at the first station, the place where Pontius Pilate’s headquarters is said to have stood. We heard the story of Jesus being condemned to death by the Roman governor. We prayed, we chanted, we kept walking.

We were soon followed by another group of pilgrims, from Romania. Their chants, more melodic than ours, pleasantly filled our ears. As we would leave one station, the Romanians would following at a respectful distance, would take our place.

The sun rose above the rooftops; we could soon feel the heat. As we walked through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, the Old City began to wake up. Tractors pulling carts of produce rumbled past, their noisy engines drowning our prayers and chants. We hugged the walls to avoid having our feet run over. People hustled past on their way to work, or to their own worship, kept on the opposite side of the street from us.

The ground was wet, hosed down in the early morning hours before our arrival. The smell of rotting garbage filled our nostrils. There was no sweet smells on the Way of the Cross.

At the third station, marked on a wall with “Jesus falls for the first time,” two Israeli soldiers stood talking. They quietly moved away so we could stand there. A car honked at us to get out of the way so it could pass, the driver barking at us as he drove by.

We moved onto the next stations, trying to imagine Jesus on this walk, carrying the crosstree of the executioner’s tool up these narrow streets. Yet, we were very aware that these were not the steps Jesus walked – the streets where he walked are deep beneath the ground, deep beneath our feet, buried under centuries of rubble left by the multiple destructions of this tragic city over 2,000 years.

At the sixth station, “Veronica wipes the face of Jesus,” an elderly nun paused to touch the stone marking the station, then crossed herself before continuing on her way.

We walked uphill, up slippery stone steps, up past shopkeepers beginning to open for the day.

Our ears filled with many sounds, not just our prayers or the wonderful chants of the Romanians behind us. Everywhere, it seemed, we could hear cats crying. The clanking metal of shop door opening echoed through the allies. More tractors lumbered past.

Finally we reached the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built atop the stony hill where Jesus was crucified. This is one place where scholars generally agree we are in the right place: Golgotha, the “place of the Skull.”

The place of death.

In the time of Jesus, Golgotha was an abandoned rock quarry that stood just outside the city gates. It was a perfect location for the Romans to hang criminals for all to see – and be warned.

Looking down on the domes of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We
took this photo a few days ago
from the tower at the Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer

Now a huge basilica, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, covers the spot. The quarry is buried beneath centuries of Christian tradition and conflict. The basilica has been built and rebuilt many times since the 4th century. The Place of the Skull has not seen sunlight in 1,600 years.

We would go in, but not yet.

We finished our Stations of the Cross in a sunny courtyard, trading stations with the Romanians. An African Coptic monk, clad entirely in a black robe from the top of his head to his toes, swept the courtyard as we prayed and chanted.

Finally we heard the biblical passages of how Jesus breathed his last, and was lowered into his mother’s arms from the Cross. Some in our group wept.

But I looked up at the sun glistening on the church domes, and all I could think of was this:

“He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”

+ + +

When we finished the Way of the Cross, we walked a short distance to the Lutheran Hospice for breakfast. Our group remained quiet, everyone lost in their thoughts. Some ate then went to sit quietly and write in their journals.

Soon we went back outside to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a place I have heard and read about but never seen until today. It is built upon Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull,” or “Cavalry” as some call it. Within its walls is also the place thought to be the tomb where he was laid, and where the women came on the third morning to find that his body had disappeared.

It is certainly the most holy place in all of Christianity.

The traditional spot where it is said
that Jesus' body was anointed with oil.
A marble slab covered in oil
marks the place.

The spot remained largely as it was for three centuries. In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and commissioned a magnificent basilica on Golgotha. He commissioned his mother, Helena, to go find it. It was she who declared that this was the spot. Later evidence showed she likely got it right.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. The church now standing is magnificent, but it smaller and less spectacular than the original in it glory.

In later centuries, the church was chopped up into sections for warring Greeks, Coptics and Armenians.

Walls divide each sect’s section from the other, and cut off full views of the magnificent domes and nave inside. The division and territoriality in the basilica is a perfect metaphor for the divisiveness in Christianity, and in all of humanity itself.

Huge Paschal candles guard the tome
of Jesus. Lightbulbs are atop
each candle.

Yet I still found the church oddly moving.

As we entered the basilica, we were confronted by a slab of marble representing where Jesus might have been anointed with oil after his death. Lamps hang above, and the slab is covered with olive oil. We took turns blessing each other with the oil.

Up a steep staircase is an ornate altar the stands at the highest point on the hill that is encased inside this church. It is thought that this is the spot where Jesus hung on the Cross. It is hard to imagine except for a series of gray rock outcroppings nearby, underneath glass cases.

The rock is the color of a skull.

We went back down another stone staircase to where Jesus’ tomb is said to be. At the time of Jesus, the tomb would have been one of many small caves carved in the hillside. In the 4th century, Constantine’s laborers carved the entire rock assemblage away from the hillside and then enclosed it in a shrine.

The spot is now inside a large boxy edifice, covered in lamps, icons and all manner of bric-a-brac. Huge Paschal candles with guard the entrance to the tomb. The candles have light bulbs on top, and some of the bulbs are the new energy saving twirly type.

With all of that adornment, I found it very hard to imagine this place as a Jewish tomb in a hillside.

Entrance to ancient crypt
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Our pilgrimage guide, Mark, wanted to show us something else. He led us through a small door, and down a passageway only a few feet away from the official tomb.

We entered a round room, carved into the hillside, lit with a single light bulb. On the ceiling we could see the dimmest outline of ancient Byzantine paintings, long faded. The walls were blackened with the soot of centuries of candles and oil lamps.

Off to one side was another small door, no more than four foot high. I climbed inside with a flash light, and I found two small crypts, carved into the hillside that is now under this massive church.

Two crypts deep inside the hillside
underneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Each crypt could have held a single body.

In ancient Jewish practice, bodies would be encased in these tombs until the flesh decayed, then families would return in about a year to retrieve the bones and then keep them in an ossuary.

It was here, in a place like this, that I could imagine that Jesus might have been laid after his death, and where the women came the next day to look for his body.

And then I all I could think of was this: “He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”

Holy Land Journal: Sunday in Jerusalem

Tour buses and tourists
mobbing the Church of All Nations

JERUSALEM – Today is Sunday in this holiest of cities, and like everything else here, it is a day of contradictions, contrasts and confusions.

Friday belongs to the Muslims, Saturday belongs to the Jews, and Sunday belongs to the Christians.

As someone told us the other day, "there are no agnostics in Jerusalem."

We began our day by taking a taxi to the top of the Mount of Olives, to the place that it is said Jesus began his final entry into Jerusalem on what is now remembered as “Palm Sunday.”

We saw no palm trees. The route is now lined by rundown Palestinian houses.

At the top of the mountain, there is a small church that marks the traditional spot of where Jesus found a colt to ride into the Holy City where he would be arrested an executed.

When we arrived, a Catholic mass was underway. We stood outside and could smell the incense.

House demolished by Israelis

Next to the church is a house that was owned by a Palestinian family. It was demolished because they did not ask permission of the Israeli government to add a second story for one of their sons.

We worked our way along the traditional route of Jesus’ path into Jerusalem. For two millennia, this path is packed every Palm Sunday with tens-of-thousands of the faithful. Today is taxis and small cars.

Next we entered the Church of the Flavitis, about halfway down the mountain. It is where tradition says Jesus paused and “wept for Jerusalem.” The church on the site is shaped like a teardrop.

It was then that things began to take on the flavor of a theme park. A man in Arab garb greeted us with a donkey. He kissed my hand three times and we paid him a few shekels.

Another Catholic mass was underway when we were arrived. We did not stay long, but paused for the view of the Temple Mount which was breathtaking.

Finally, we walked down a steep path to the bottom of the Valley of Kidron and the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed and arrested by Roman authorities.

A friendly greeting

When we arrived, a young man thrust olive branches into our hands and then asked us for five shekels. Another was hawking panoramic photos. Meanwhile, the tour buses began jamming onto the street in front, jostling for places to offload their passengers. An Israeli police car blasted it siren several times trying to push the buses along.

We pushed our way inside to the Basilica of the Agony, or “The Church of All Nations,” certainly one of the most beautiful churches we have seen. The church is kept dark, yet gold mosaic tiles glisten on the ceiling and inside the dome.

Another Catholic mass was underway, and we did not linger. We left as a huge throng of Greek pilgrims pushed their way into the Garden of Gethsemane. We pushed our way out.

We took a cab back to our St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, arriving just in time for an English-language Holy Eucharist. I felt I could breath again, thankful to be back with friends and the familiarity of our liturgy.

After lunch, we set off for the City of David, where the first small fortress of David was built before Jerusalem was established.

Lori walking down from the Mount of Olives

We walked through the Tunnel of Hezekiah, a deep underground tunnel built 2,000+ years ago that is only about three feet wide and five feet high. Water from a spring runs along its half-mile entire length, and we sloshed through the tunnel with Petzel lights on our foreheads.

I must admit, it was not my favorite thing to do. But we did it with friends and lived to tell the tale. We got a feel for a secret escape route out of the city in times of peril, and we marveled at an ancient engineering fete.

When we emerged, we took another tunnel – larger and dry – back to where we started.

When we came outside, a long line of Israeli soldiers – all of them very young, all of them with automatic rifles slung under their shoulders – were walking down to enter the City of David and take the same tour we had taken.

This is a city of many contrasts, contradictions, and confusions.

Holy Land Journal: Into the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp

DHEISHEH REFUGEE CAMP – The sense of injustice here is as strong today as it was 63 years ago.

No issue in this troubled land has been more intractable for a longer period than the refugee camps housing the Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war.

On Saturday we had an opportunity to visit the Dheisheh Refugee Camp about a 30-minute drive south from Jerusalem.

To get there, we passed through an Israeli military checkpoint and climbed up into the rugged hills to enter the camp where 13,000 people live crammed into an area than is about quarter-mile in each direction. There is one doctor for all of them.

At the United Nations headquarters in Dheisheh, a young man who was born in the camp met us. He offered to be our guide.

“I will tell you about the war you never hear about,” he told us. I will him “Abdul” – I have changed his name because he fears reprisals from the Israeli Army.

During the 1948 war, the indigenous Palestinian Arab population was caught in the crossfire between the Israelis who were fighting for their independence and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries.

One of the huts built in 1956 for the refugees;
it measures about 10 foot by 10 foot.

The local people fled their homes, or were chased out, never to return after the war.

“If you read the Israeli story they say they entered the homes and they were empty,” said Abdul. “If you read the Palestinian story, they killed a few people and everyone else fled because they were afraid.”

The United Nations put these refugees in camps. At first they lived in tents.

In 1956, the refugees were allowed to build one-room concrete huts.

“When they discovered they would stay longer, they started building more rooms,” our guide told us, showing us his grandparents’ first hut. “I was born here in this camp.”

To call it a “camp” is to understate how permanent it looks. With concrete houses built atop each other, with narrow alleys in between, the “camp” looks more like a Latin American slum.

Meanwhile, the area around Dheisheh has grown to the point where it is now part of a large urban sprawl including Bethlehem. All of these Palestinian cities are enclosed by a massive wall and extensive fence system that separates the Palestinians from the Israelis.

Although our guide has lived his entire life within 30 minutes of Jerusalem, he has never been allowed to go there.

Few people have jobs at Dheisheh – there is no economic foundation for the area. The populous is supported by the largesse of foreign governments and the United Nations, which distributes food every six months.

Our group brought clothing to the camp, donated from the suitcases of pilgrims like us who attend St. George’s Anglican College.

Dheisheh has no independent water supply, although it sits on a natural aquifer. The Israelis pump the water and then sell it back to Dheisheh once a month. Water tanks on the rooftops hold the precious water for each home.

Widely copied protest art; this version
is on the side of a house in Dheisheh

The Israeli Army patrols the camp twice a month, and spray-paints Hebrew markings on the houses to give themselves directions.

The Dheisheh refugees have responded with graffiti protest art, including a widely copied drawing of a small girl frisking an Israeli soldier. Portraits of young men who have been killed are stenciled on the walls of houses.

Our guide Abdul said there is some pressure for the Dheisheh refugees to blend into the larger Palestinian population around Bethlehem. He and his family could change their status and leave Dheisheh. But to do so would be to give up their cause of returning the homes they lost in 1948. Many families still hold deeds issued by Jordan for their land.

“We are still refugees,” he said. “We refuse to leave the camp because we have no place else to go. We want the name ‘refugee’ on our identity card until we get all of our rights.”

Will they ever return to their homes? The people of Dheisheh are at the mercy of foreign leaders and international politics far beyond their control. Yet those we met somehow maintain a glimmer of hope that they will. In the meantime, the United Nations presence is welcome primarily because it serves as an independent witness of life in the camp, and a reminder of how these people came to be living here.

Holy Land Journal: Images of Jerusalem

JERUSALEM – A few random images and impressions of this Holy City for you tonight …

+ + +

Where else but here would there be a shrine to a book?

Of course, not just any book, but some of the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures, or as Christians call it, the “Old Testament.”

On Friday we toured the Israel Museum and spent considerable time in The Shrine of the Book, which displays some of the Dead Sea scrolls, primarily a long parchment containing a segment of the Book of Isaiah.

The scrolls were found in the desert in the 1940s by itinerant Bedouin tribesman, and through a circuitous route, they eventually made their way to scholars at the Israel Museum. The scrolls are extraordinary.

At least as interesting to me were the manuscripts from the Essenes, an ascetic group that lived in the desert in the time of Jesus. The Essenes cut themselves off from the rest of the world to live as close to the strictures of Torah as they possibly. Before being slaughtered by the Romans, they hid the scrolls in jars, not to be found for 2,000 years.

+ + +

The Israel Museum is basically the Smithsonian Institution of Israel, only instead of telling 400 years of history, it tells 4,000+ years of history. The artifacts tell the story of the Jewish people settling this land, uniting into an empire, losing it and being exiled. The collections are extraordinary, but I must mention my disappointment that the stories (and artifacts) of other people who have inhabited this land are barely acknowledged. There is a fine collection of carved stone from a Crusader church (not exactly the finest moment for Christianity in the Middle East) but very little on Islam (I couldn’t find it but someone told me they did). We could find only one mention to Jesus, described as a “rebel Jew.”

This is a much richer and more complex country than the Israel Museum shows. The omissions matter because the stories of half the people who live here (Palestinian Arabs) are not told.

Perhaps understanding between the peoples of this troubled land might be enhanced just a notch if the other stories could be told more fully in this otherwise first-rate museum.

+ + +

Our friend, Stephen Carpenter,
dining in the Armenian Quarter

We’ve explored the Old City and the Christian, Jewish, Armenian and Muslim quarters, or neighborhoods. Each has its distinct flavor. The Muslim quarter is crowded, the shopkeepers are aggressive. Spices, textiles and all manner of goods are jammed in tight allies.

The Christian Quarter has its shopkeepers, and they sell icons, pottery and all kinds of devotional items. The Armenian Quarter I wrote about a couple of days ago. The streets on the periphery have a few shops, but the Armenian Quarter is otherwise inaccessible except to residents and invited guests. We were privileged to be invited inside the quarter by a wonderful Armenian family (see my post below).

The Jewish Quarter is modern, with wider streets. The reason is the Jewish Quarter was heavily shelled by Arab armies during the 1967 Six Day War. It has been rebuilt into a clean modern neighborhood with air-conditioned shops.

When entering the Jewish Quarter, the first sensation we had was the wonderful aroma of the pastry shops. Of course we sampled a few.

+ + +

Muslim Quarter in the Old City

The other day, four of us climbed to the top of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. It was a rigorous ascent up a narrow enclosed stone spiral staircase, and with no hand railings. At the top we could see the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and we could see many small domes punctuated by large church domes.

And we could see many pathways on the roofs connecting the buildings. But we agreed that the most dominant feature we could see is television satellite dishes.

+ + +

This was the last Friday of Ramadan, a month-long fast by Muslims who take no food or liquid during the day. Thousands of Muslims entered the Holy City this afternoon to pray at the Dome of the Rock this afternoon, so we stayed off the streets. Green shuttles took the devout to the Old City, and we could hear the “call to prayer” from loud speakers on the minarets in our neighborhood. Outside our compound, Israeli Police directed traffic with heavily armed soldiers nearby.

St. George's Anglican Cathedral
Jerusalem

+ + +

This evening I went to Evening Prayer in our Gothic-style St. George’s Anglican Cathedral. The Cathedral is a short walk from our rooms. I sat in a wooden quire stall and on a beautiful cushion hand-stitched with “Canterbury.” I felt right at home.

Our prayers tonight included this:

“That there may be peace to your Church and to the whole world,
We entreat you, O Lord.”