This has been a long day, full of walking from the top of the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane, from the Dung Gate and Temple Mount through the Old City to Mount Zion. The sites seen along the way are almost overwhelming in their spiritual power, not to mention the way that they showcase the demonstration of Christians’ devotion to our Lord.
The day started in front the Seven Arches Hotel (where I stayed during my last trip in 1998) which sits on the top of the Mount of Olives. We took a group photo of the 28 people on our bus with the Old City spread out behind us. From there we walked the Palm Sunday road down the mountain, stopping to meditate in the largest Jewish cemetery in the world where over 65,000 Jews from across the centuries and around the world have been buried in the belief that when the Messiah comes and raises the dead, those on Olivet will be the first to rise. Continuing on down we stopped at the Dominus Flevit church, and then the rest of the way down to Gethsemane. As we walked, we could see the walls of the Old City, and the Golden Gate, walled up by Saladin in the belief that doing so would prevent Jesus’ second coming, which tradition says is supposed to involved entering Jerusalem through that gate. (There’s also a Muslim cemetery across the entire hill in front of the gate, beause the thinking is that Jesus would be prohibited from passing through a burial ground.)
Gethsemane, both because of the events that happened there and as one of the indisputably authentic sites of events in Jesus’ life, is an awe-inspiring place. The Romans destroyed much of the olive grove that made up the garden during the Jewish War of 67-70 AD, but left eight trees standing as a reminder of the havoc that they had wrecked and would wreck upon anyone who tried to stand against them. Those eight trees, now over 2200 years old, still live in Gethsemane, testimonies to the Man whose agonized prayer they witnessed so long ago. It is a peaceful place, and yet one whose tenor is conveyed by the Church of All Nations that stands next to it. Also called the Basilica of the Agony, it may be the finest piece of church architecture I’ve ever seen for evoking a particular mood. The stained glass is dark and foreboding, and the shadows and play of what light there is in the nave outside the altar area makes for a powerfully meditative place to contemplate the sins of ours that sent our Savior to the cross.
After Gethsemane we were taken by bus to the Dung Gate and the Davidson Center, which was built in 2002 as a museum of the remarkable excavations that have been done outside and around the Temple Mount. Among the things that have been uncovered are the “teaching steps” leading up into the Temple complex, which may well have been where Jesus was found by His parents at the age of 12; and the Second Temple level of masonry underneath the Al Aqsa mosque, which gives a graphic picture of how much has been built on top of the Temple destroyed by Titus in 70 AD. These excavations and others still on-going have been the subject of much conflict between Israelis and Muslims, who are convinced that the work is part of a plot to sabotage the Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques. I’ve long thought from afar that this was a paranoid fantasy, and nothing I saw today has changed my mind—quite the contrary, they simply reinforce my view that the real reason for Muslim opposition is that they fear anything that will undermine the ridiculous claims some trot out from time to time that Jews have no historic connection to Jerusalem or indeed to any of Israel.
After this it was but a short walk to the Western Wall. I suppose it goes without saying that this is an enormously meaningful place for me as it is for any Jew—it is, for us, at the very heart of our identity as a people. Even as a believer in Yeshua as Israel’s Messiah, the last remnant of our Temple holds a dear place in my heart, and this time it was even more special. Before leaving, I received prayer requests from members of The Cove, each of which I prayed over at the Wall. Then, in accordance with an old Jewish custom, I placed the pieces of paper on which these and my own prayers were written in a crevice in the Wall. The Jewish belief is that since the destruction of the Temple and the Holy of Holies, the Shekinah glory of the Lord that formerly dwelt there has now moved to the Wall, so that prayers offered at the Wall are brought before Him with great urgency. Whether one holds to this belief or not, the privilege that a Jew experiences by praying at the Wall are inexpressible.
There’s more to tell of this day, but it will have to wait a little more. More shortly.
Today was a miscellany—archeology at Beth She’an, Palestinian life in Jericho, and a mob at Bethlehem. I’ll start with the archeology.
Bet She’an is the largest site in the country, a Roman city in which up to 40,000 people lived, one that came to an abrupt end after a devastating earthquake in the early 8th century AD. Among the buildings that have been excavated are the hippodrome at which the Romans raced horses and chariots, the theater where the put on spectacles of various kinds and which is still used for concerts and plays in the summers, public baths, private homes, and a pedestrian mall where merchants hawked wears of all sorts. One of the most interesting things about this place is that a lot of the elements of fallen structures have been uncovered and left in the position they dropped to in the earthquake, so that, for instance, we saw columns that had split into several pieces resting on the ground and one another just as they would have been seen by any survivor immediately after the ground stopped shaking. The folks I’m traveling with absolutely loved wandering around this old city, and raved about the context that it provided them for the times, and pagan culture, that the early Christians were immersed in once the gospel moved out of its native Jewish soil into the Gentile world.
From there we traveled south down the King’s Highway route to Jericho. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly one moves from a green and productive countryside to one that is among the starkest and most…silent in the entire world. The Judean wilderness, in which Jericho is situated in the midst of an oasis near the Dead Sea, is brown and hilly, with vegetation only rarely seen. One has no problem at all seeing Jesus being tempted by the devil in this lonely place, where in His day it would have been rare to see another human being unless one stuck to the main road through the region.
Jericho was a disappointment, and the places different from my previous trips. We made three stops, the first at a 2000+ year-old sycamore tree associated with the encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus. This is one of those traditional sites that is also plausible, in that it meets at least some of the circumstances of a given event (in this case, the tree is certainly old enough to have been Zacchaeus’ perch, and it is in Jericho—beyond that, who knows?). This was our first encounter both with the “one American dollar” postcard and rosary salesmen and begging children. The latter, for reasons none of us can figure out, seem to make a beeline for me and then stick like glue despite my efforts to discourage them. It breaks my heart to do so—I’d like to take them all home with me and give them the kind of life they are unlikely to ever have in the Palestinian territories. But discourage them I must, because to give in to one’s instincts in this case could be positively dangerous, by encouraging more and more of them to surround not only me but my fellow travelers with kids whose dissatisfaction with the response can and has on occasion turned ugly toward past pilgrims. The second site was something referred to as “Elisha’s stream” that evidently is and has been for centuries a primary source of water for the area, but which really wasn’t interesting in any way that any of us could identify (the uninformative guide didn’t help—he temporarily replaced our Jewish Israeli guide outside of the town, which as Palestinian Authority territory is closed to Israeli Jews). Finally, we stopped at the largest pottery and glass outlet in the area, which features some of the most beautiful merchandise in the region.
Finally, from the 1100 feet below sea level of Jericho we made our way to Jerusalem, which is 3200 feet above sea level. We passed through the city, going past the Mount of Olives and the Old City, among other things, and headed on to Bethlehem. After lunch we went to the Church of the Nativity, traditional site of the birth of Jesus. Originally built at the instigation of Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, it has a fascinating and sometimes bizarre history, exemplified by the fact that the only door into or out of the main building is only four feet tall and three feet wide, a measure brought about by the walling up of the larger doors to prevent the stabling of horses and other animals in the church, something that had been done in a deliberate act of desecration by the army of the Muslim general Saladin after his triumph over the Crusaders.
We waited for what seemed forever to get down to the grotto (or cave) below the main sanctuary, a small area that has what is traditionally accounted as the manger in which Jesus was laid following His birth, which is marked by a gold star on the floor a few feet away from the manger. Regardless of whether one considers this site authentic (I’m doubtful, while one member of our group was quite certain that it is based on the spiritual feel of the place), it is a powerful reminder of the Incarnation. I especially found myself struck by one large icon on the wall near the entrance to the grotto, a Madonna and Child that was unusual in that Mary is smiling, a relatively rare occurrence in Orthodox iconography that seemed particularly appropriate for the occasion being commemorated.
