Wow! And I thought yesterday was hard to describe. Today's experiences still seem like a dream as we immersed ourselves in the city of Jerusalem. We were grateful once again to have our tour guide, Meir More, who knew exactly how to make the best use of each minute of the day. We left the hotel at 8:30 and returned at 6:30, walking almost non-stop.
We began just outside the Jaffa Gate. There are several gates that lead into Jerusalem, named after the city that gate faces. As we stood outside we read Psalm 122, one of the psalms of ascent. Pilgrims who would come to Jerusalem would sing songs on their way and this one in particular was sung just outside one of the gates. While we didn't sing we did read it and follow the tradition of entering the gate on our right foot, literally.
Our next experience was at the Western Wailing Wall. The wall above ground is 57 meters long and split into a men's and women's section. We offered our prayers written on a small piece of paper with names of family, friends, church members, and both churches I have served. But even more fascinating are the tunnels underneath. You see the current ground level is not the ground level of Jesus' day. As different empires conquered Jerusalem, they just built on the layer before. The original length of the western wall is 488 meters, much of it visible underground. Through careful excavation, you can now go underneath and see the 7 layers of different civilizations who have built on top of each other. One of the boulders that made up the wall weighed almost 600 tons! We saw and touched part of the wall that existed in Jesus' day. We walked on some of the original stones that Jesus could have walked on. To go underground and see the different layers of the wall representing the turbulent history of that piece of land was simply amazing.
Another piece of history we saw was a 2700 year old wall from King Hezekiah's reign found in 2 Kings 18:13-27 and 2 Kings 19:32-37. The wall was 7 meters wide and originally extremely tall. The King of Assyria was coming to conquer Jerusalem while Hezekiah was king. He assured the people that God would protect them even though they were no match for the Assyrians. Well the Assyrians caught a very strange disease one night and in the morning 185,000 had died. The rest abandoned the attack on the city and Jerusalem was saved. God had intervened and the part of the wall is still standing. Hard to grasp it has stood for that long.
But the highlight of the day was walking the Via Dolorosa, the 14 stations of the cross. While the stations do not have the same significance to Protestants as they do for Catholics, it was a very spiritual experience nonetheless. We began where Jesus was put on trial by Pontius Pilate. Then we moved to the church commemorating the beating Jesus received and the cross that was put on him. Then we went station by station down the alleyways and narrow roads that make up the Via Dolorosa. While some stations are in the Bible, like Jesus speaking to the daughter of Jerusalem in Luke 23:28-31 and Simon the Cyrene taking the cross in Luke 23:26, other stations are not biblical but have been passed down from oral tradition, like Veronica wiping Jesus' face with a cloth. The road leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Church itself has 7 different Christian groups that "own" or claim a certain part of the church. No, Presbyterians aren't one of them. Stations 10-14 are in the church itself, including where Jesus was stripped of his garments, where they nailed him to the cross, where he was crucified, where they took him down and laid his body in a cloth, and where they laid him in the tomb. You could actually touch the rock called Golgotha where he was crucified. You could rub the stone where it is said his dead body lay as they wrapped it in linens. And you could go into a cave like structure in the church where it is said Jesus' tomb was. The tomb was the holy moment for me. As Rose and I entered this small cave with a stone slab, we knelt down, held hands, and bowed our heads in silence, tears streaming down our faces. There were no words, not at that moment nor now. The emotions were overwhelming: grief and gratitude co-mingled in an unexpected way.
Jerusalem is an incredible place. A place of history. A place where Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians all live closely together sometimes peacefully and sometimes in conflict. A place of destruction and building. A holy place for so many reasons to so many people. A place of pain and death. A place of new growth. Jerusalem, much like Jesus' life, is full of sorrow and yet after destruction there is always resurrection. After so much turbulence throughout thousands of years, it still stands strong, ready to bless all those pilgrims who with a song of praise on their lips dare to enter her gates on the right foot. May God grant us an open spirit, a listening ear, and a willing heart.
