Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 11

Thursday, May 11, 2023

After visiting three of the holiest sites on earth, I’m not sure the next day ever had much hope of meeting that high bar. In a sense, our visits today bore that out. And, in a sense, they didn’t. God was powerfully present today, too, just in different kinds of stones – “living stones” of the living church (1 Peter 2:5).

With our faith story paused yesterday at the crucifixion and resurrection, today we drove to a possible site of Biblical Emmaus to take up the story’s next chapter. In Luke’s Gospel, it was on the road to Emmaus that Jesus came walking alongside two of his followers on Easter Day, both of them caught in hopelessness and grief. As far as they knew, Good Friday was the end of the story, and that “reality” kept them from knowing who was walking beside them. As they talked, Jesus brought them hope again, explaining how suffering wasn’t a sign of failure but a sign of messiahship. At dinner that evening, Jesus took the bread on the table, and broke it, and gave it to his traveling companions. Suddenly they understood who’d been walking alongside them – and just as suddenly, he vanished. But he’d been there with them, so hope was alive.

Faces erased from the frescoes at Church of the Resurrection. 

We marked this story by visiting a church, of course – the Church of the Resurrection in Abu Ghosh, one of only three Crusader churches not badly damaged or destroyed when the Muslims reclaimed their land. This church is also noteworthy for its partial frescoes. They’re unfinished because the church was built just before the Crusaders’ defeat, and the Christians had to leave before the paint was dry (or at least before the works were complete). The Muslims turned it into a mosque and chose not to finish the paint job. In fact, they erased some of it – people’s faces, which Islam doesn’t allow to be represented in worship spaces.

Gathering for worship overlooking the hills where Emmaus
may have been.

We then visited the nearby Church of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, a name begging explanation. The church is near Kiriath Jearim, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept for 20 years before the Temple’s time. Our group lived our new covenant of eternal life not by visiting the church (which was closed for repairs) but by being church, sharing Eucharist on the grounds overlooking the hills where Emmaus may have been. We’ve seen so many churches, and that’s fine by me, as something of a church wonk. But our gathering as church there in the garden did what Jesus promised it would do: It brought him present among us and present as us. Yes, he’s really there in the bread and wine, and he’s just as present in the gathering of regular folks doing their best to follow him. Our pilgrim group has become “church” over these 10 days; and as the Body of Christ in this particular place and moment, Jesus was there among us.

Jaffa's big fish, looking very self-satisfied.

Then we drove to Jaffa, the ancient port city next to which Tel Aviv was built, to connect with more stories of resurrected life. It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed away trying to escape God's call, only to be thrown overboard, coughed up by a fish on the third day, and returned to prophetic duty. It was in Jaffa that Peter brought a woman named Tabitha back from death. And it was there, in the home of Simon the Tanner, where Peter received a vision that changed everything about who this new Jesus movement would be for. God told Peter not to observe the dietary restrictions he had known from birth as a faithful Jew – in fact, God said, Peter must not declare “unclean” what God had made to be clean. For Peter, it must have blown his mind, as if someone told us today that we should love people who hate us, and not retaliate when people hurt us, and give our property away (oh, wait…). Minds are still blown, 2,000 years later.

Today, Jaffa is a great spot for a seaside getaway. 

Today, Jaffa is a cool artists’ colony on the sea, and the visit wasn’t stunning from a typical pilgrimage perspective. But riding back to Jerusalem on the bus with these people from many different places who’ve truly grown to care for one another, I realized the second gift I’ve been receiving on this pilgrimage. Building on yesterday’s gift of “enough,” today I saw the gift of community.

I came here assuming that I’d be the odd man out, that everyone else in the group would share a common church and common history (which turned out not to be true at all). And I knew I had a different agenda anyway, not just wanting to meet God in the Holy Land but wanting to learn how to lead pilgrimages myself. So, as I said, I’d planned to stay a couple of extra days on my own to continue my experience and scout additional locations. But yesterday, I decided to go home early, with the rest of the group. Why? Well, a presenting situation was the heightened conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. I didn’t want to be stuck here on my own if rockets hit Ben Gurion airport. But I also knew I was ready to leave, that I’d received that gift of “enough” through what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown here.

The pilgrims.

But today, I saw, too, that I’m not sure I could have continued a pilgrimage after the rest of this group left. God’s Holy Land, geographically and spiritually, is meant to be shared; all three Abrahamic faiths teach us how badly we need one another. A Christian certainly can travel alone and learn about a wonderful place. But, just as you can’t be a Christian by yourself, I don’t think you can be a Christian pilgrim by yourself – or, at least, I don’t think I can be. So, I give thanks for my fellow pilgrims over these 11 days, especially our guide Ranya, our driver Nael, our musician Joey McGee, and our leaders Fr. Bill and Sandy Miller. Without this company of strangers now become friends, I would have missed what God had wanted me to see about my walk of faith all along.

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 10

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

I began this day by discerning something I wouldn’t have expected on this pilgrimage: I’m going home earlier than I’d planned. The presenting circumstance was the Israeli attack on Islamic Jihad leaders (killing 10 women and children, apparently) in Gaza, which will bring retaliation on Israel. That got me wondering whether I want to hang around by myself a couple more days in which the situation could easily deteriorate. But that’s not really the reason I changed my ticket. Instead, I want to experience this pilgrimage as this pilgrimage, carrying that experience with me, rather than clouding it with whatever good or bad things might have happened in two days on my own. Plus, I miss Ann. It’s just time.

Our day began quite early, with breakfast at 6 a.m. and the bus departing at 6:45. There was a snafu with the hotel: Although the pilgrims knew we were dining at 6, the restaurant manager didn’t. Thankfully, he was able to open not too long after that, and we made it out on time.

Ritual washing station for those approaching
the Western Wall to pray.

Our destinations this morning were three of the holiest sites in the world. We began at the Western Wall, a portion of the retaining wall on the west side of Temple Mount. That side of the mount is thought to bear God’s holiness particularly, or at least evoke our participation in God’s holiness particularly, because the western end of the Temple was the site of the Holy of Holies, the part of the Temple housing the Ark of the Covenant and where God’s presence abided. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies and only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for the people’s sins. Now, worshipers are welcome to stand at the place nearest the presence of God any day, even Christian pilgrims from the U.S. like us. It was deeply humbling to approach those stones. You know, there are places that religious experts name as holy, and then there are the places sanctified by the prayers of the ages, with so many feet having trod the stones that they’re buffed to gleaming brilliance in the sun. Recognizing I was completely unworthy to do so, I prayed at the Western Wall, too. There were no seraphim (giant flying cobras) like Isaiah saw in his Temple vision. But approaching that wall, you do feel the presence of the Lord who is unutterably greater than we can name.

The faithful coming to the Wall for early-morning prayers. 

Rather than giant flying cobras, the air above the Western Wall was filled with birds, swooping into the corner where the wall meets the buildings abutting it and then banking out, over and over again. I don’t know why they do that. They weren't looking for a place to land. Instead, they seemed to be the Spirit of God moving over the faithful below, the Breath that spoke creation into being and sustains it still.

Ritual washing station outside the Dome of
the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.

That was the first of the morning’s holy places. From there we walked the short distance across a footbridge onto Temple Mount, to stand where the Temple once stood and where now the Muslims honor prophet Muhammad’s night journey from Mecca, riding a flying donkey to the farthest place of worship, identified in tradition as Jerusalem. From there he ascended into heaven to receive God’s instructions for daily prayerful practice before returning to the Temple Mount and flying back to Mecca before morning. The journey is marked by the Dome of the Rock, certainly the icon of Jerusalem today and probably since it was built in 692. The Dome marks the rock where Muslims believe God created Adam and where Abraham bound Isaac or Ishmael (depending on whether you’re Jewish or Muslim) for sacrifice. Also on Temple Mount is the al-Aqsa Mosque, the monumental worship space for pilgrims and the local faithful. The rules are different on Temple Mount than at the Western Wall. Non-Muslims may not pray there, nor may they enter the Dome or al-Aqsa. Religious officials are there to correct you if you seem to be praying, or if you show physical affection to another person. If those actions are offensive, I can’t begin to imagine how the followers of Islam feel when Israeli soldiers come on Temple Mount.

Pavement under the Church of Ecce Homo thought
 to have been taken from Pilate's headquarters.

From there, we walked to St. Anne’s Church, marking the traditional birthplace of the Virgin Mary, and the site of the Pool of Bethzatha or Bethesda, where Jesus healed the man paralyzed for 38 years. From there we walked to the Church of Ecce Homo (“Behold the Man”) marking Pilate interrogating Jesus and asking the crowds what to do with him. We celebrated Eucharist there, with Fr. Bill contrasting the imperial pretensions of the Emperor Hadrian, whose triumphal arches from the first century are part of the church wall, with the ultimate sovereignty of the one whom the Romans tried to erase from memory. Underneath the church is pavement of stone perhaps brought from the Antonia Fortress, where Pilate had his headquarters and where the interrogation took place. Within the echoing stone church, our “Were You There?” was just as powerful as the Africans’ “Hallelujah, What a Savior” yesterday.

The crush of humanity and the clash of cultures
in the Old City.

After Eucharist, we walked the stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa, taking the path tradition says Jesus walked to Calvary. At a few points, we were competing for space and audibility with other prayerful groups, which is the constant affliction of pilgrimage: You’re not the only ones who felt called to come. I wonder what it’s like for the residents of the Old City. The pilgrims are essential to the economy and provide all the customers for many of the shops; but if the crush of the faithful was annoying to us, imagine what it’s like trying to live there. Prayerfulness in walking the stations is something you have to practice intentionally as you dodge the motorcycles and golf carts, and as other pilgrims push past you.

Amid the crowd waiting to touch Calvary's stone. 

The challenging crowds along the Via Dolorosa become overwhelming at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the third deeply holy site we visited today. Six traditions of Christianity control it, and the history of that “relationship” is combative enough to demand a ridiculously specific truce agreement that stands from 1757. Entering through the famously contested side doors, where the movement of a centuries-old ladder is enough to restart a holy war, you see a mosaic that acts as a tourist map. To the right, it pictures Calvary, the place of crucifixion. In the middle is the stone of anointment, marking the preparation of Jesus’ body for burial. And to the left is the Edicule, the smaller building within the larger building that marks and encloses the tomb. After helpful comments from Ranya, our guide, we had an hour and a half to see the building. That was plenty of time … to stand in line to see one of the sites within the building. I chose the line leading to Calvary and the opportunity to put my hand on the stone into which the base of the cross was placed. It took an hour to get there, with pilgrims of all nations shoving to move an inch closer than the pilgrim nearby. Once again, I wondered what Jesus might be thinking. To my own children, I remember saying things like, “If you can’t get along, we’ll just leave and go home.” Thankfully, our Lord didn’t clear the building, but I did imagine him shaking his head. 

The prayers of the faithful.

Like a loving parent, he let us have the experience for which we came. It mattered to me to get down on my knees, and crawl under the shrine, and put my arm nine inches down the hole to feel the rock. The dirt and germs and God knows what else I pulled out on my fingertips were the holy matter of blessing from this day; and as if it were holy water, I crossed myself with it and went on my way.

The grumpy cleric posted at the back of the Edicule. 

With the 15 minutes I had left, I went to the Edicule – not to stand in the line but just to walk around it. Here, the holy fire springs forth each Easter Eve, as the light of Christ conquers the darkness of Good Friday. Around the entrance is a dizzying array of lamps and candles, and I got the photos I could get amid the crowd. I walked to the back, too, noticing the golden awning on the shine there. Most of the Edicule is administered by one denomination, but a different church has claim on the back of the tomb, where the head of Jesus would have rested. I took a photo of that side, too – but when I did, the cleric overseeing the back of the Edicule yelled at me, angry that I’d taken a photo. Now, every pilgrim in this building was taking pictures. But apparently, the rules call for no photography at the back of the Edicule. Who knew? Clearly, not me. I intended no disrespect, but I still felt badly for upsetting the keeper of the rules.

God's sunshine meets the incense of the ages. 

All these frustrations are predictable, experienced by 99 percent of the pilgrims who visit Holy Sepulcher. But even with the pushy crowds, and the grumpy cleric, and the incomprehensible geography of the church, I left with something good: the feeling that, after all, this is enough. Among the things I’ve set aside on this pilgrimage is the need to be provided with certificates of authenticity for the geographical icons of our faith. Personally, I didn’t find Holy Sepulcher very worshipful – in fact, our group’s own celebration of Eucharist brought God much closer. But the journeys, and the faith, and the prayers of literally countless pilgrims over the ages, including the hoards who joined us in descending on Holy Sepulcher today – all that is real, all by itself. My liturgics professor in seminary, Dr. William Seth Adams, liked to say that liturgical items (vestments, lecterns, patens, chalices, etc.) don’t need to be blessed before they’re used. Instead, they’re blessed by our use of them. Holy Sepulcher makes the same point writ large … and frustrating.

Back into the world after visiting Holy Sepulcher.

And so, just as our intentions to find blessing are enough, so I find that my time of blessing here is enough. I will very much enjoy coming back with other pilgrims, God willing. But for this pilgrimage, these 11 days will have done the Spirit’s work. From a worldly perspective, it seemed to make sense months ago to add value to this experience by tacking on a couple of days on my own. And from a worldly perspective, people watching the news over the past few days might conclude that it’s smart to get out while the getting is good. But the truth is that the reason I’m going home when the group’s pilgrimage concludes is because ... it's enough. Or, at least, it will be tomorrow.

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 9

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

We visited Jerusalem's Mount Zion today, seeing more sites related to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We began at the Hall of the Last Supper, also the site of “King David’s Tomb” (which doesn’t contain King David but has been a place for revering his memory and significance for millennia). There’s good reason to think the location for the Last Supper is accurate; it’s been honored at this site since the first pilgrims came. But this is a top contender in the category of attempting to honor a spiritual reality while actually undercutting its power. What remains there is a Crusader building that amazingly wasn’t destroyed when the Muslims kicked the knights back to Europe because the site was associated with King David, who is also revered in Islam. 

But the actual “upper room” where Jesus washed the feet of his friends and asked them to re-member him in bread and wine – that space would have been like the kataluma, or guest house, on the hill above the cave we saw in Bethlehem. I love the idea that Jesus was born in a place like that and chose to give himself away on Maundy Thursday in a place like that – and that the Church was born on Pentecost in this same upper room, according to tradition. It’s too bad we don’t usually bring that sense of intimacy to our abstract understandings of Incarnation, Eucharist, and Pentecost.

The interrogation room, where Jesus was strung up
and beaten.

Then we went to the nearby Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, which is certainly more than just another church. Here, the Holy Week action shifts to Thursday night into Friday morning. After Jesus was arrested at Gethsemane, the authorities took him first to the headquarters of Caiaphas, the high priest (located under the present church), where Jesus was interrogated and tortured. What remains of that moment is the torture room and an underground holding cell – a pit carved in the rock. The ropes laced into the stone makes it clear what happened in the torture room: The prisoner was strung up and beaten, then dumped into the pit of the holding cell. It was intensely real … as was the faith of the hundreds of pilgrims lined up to walk through those spaces and stand where their Lord had suffered. As we stood at the top of the stairs, waiting to enter the holding cell, the voices of the group just ahead of us rose up from the pit. They were from an African nation, though I didn’t learn where; and as they stood in this place where the battered Jesus sat bleeding in the darkness, they sang “Hallelujah, What a Savior!” Here’s the verse that sticks with me:

Jesus' holding cell (imagine it without the lights).

        Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
        in my place condemned he stood,
        sealed my pardon with his blood:
        Hallelujah, what a Savior!

But without the rich, slow, soulful harmony of those pilgrims, praising God in the pit of darkness, you’ll have to imagine their sound that made us weep.

The church is named for St. Peter “in Gallicantu” – St. Peter and the crowing rooster. Emerging from Jesus’ pit of darkness, you pass by this church that remembers Peter’s ultimate failure, and the failure of all of us – the times, large and small, when we succumb to the temptation to deny Who we know. The statue in the courtyard captures the moment, as the woman recognizes Peter’s Galilean accent and identifies him in front of the soldiers. Peter chooses not to join Jesus in the pit, so he denies him – but the cock’s crows remind Peter that Jesus had told him this would happen, even though he’d insisted that he’d never abandon his Lord. And so, Peter finds himself in a different pit, where some of the rest of us have been, too.

Temple Mount in the model of Jerusalem during Jesus' time.

Then we made a quick visit to the Israel Museum to see the display about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which was a bit disappointing in that what you see are reproductions. The scrolls come from the community of the Essenes, a quasi-monastic Jewish sect at the time of Jesus who isolated themselves in the desert, by the Dead Sea, seeking to live purely and piously enough to be worthy of the Messiah’s coming (and living as a protest movement against the corruption and worldliness they saw in the Pharisees and Sadducees in charge). At the museum, we also saw an outdoor model of Jerusalem in its Second-Temple glory – the Jerusalem Jesus would have seen – following Herod the Great’s building program and Temple improvements. It was a great way to get our bearings in a city that seems to specialize in having more than one name for everything, honoring the same thing at multiple locations, and remembering multiple people or events at a single site.

Ritual bath (mikvah) in the Essene community
at Qumran.

Having seen the display about the Dead Sea Scrolls, we then headed down to the Dead Sea and Qumran, where the scrolls were found. In about 45 minutes, we dropped 4,000 feet of elevation and rose 18 degrees in temperature. The scrolls were stored in jars in the caves that dot the cliffs of Qumran, and they sat there for 2,000 years, miraculously preserved by the climate. In 1947, a goat, especially skilled in scaling rock walls, made his way into a cave, and his Bedouin goatherd tossed in a rock to scare the goat out. Hearing something break, the Bedouin climbed in; and the rest literally is history. Over the next nine years, goatherds and scholars found more than 900 manuscripts (many fragmentary) of Biblical books, apocryphal works ultimately not included in the Bible, and documents outlining the Essenes’ rule of life. Looking up at that cave and standing in the midst of the Essenes’ ruined community – with its cisterns, ritual baths, dining hall, pottery kiln, and other markers of daily life – you’re struck by the haphazard nature of both tragedy and joy. The Essenes weren’t the cause of Rome’s war against the Jewish people from 66 to 70 CE, but they were its last casualties, dying by mass suicide in the fortress of Masada. By the same token, if it hadn’t been for a stray goat, their community’s scrolls might still be treasures in clay jars suspended in time.

The Dead Sea, 1,400 feet below sea level.

And then, since we were virtually across the road from the Dead Sea, we stopped there for lunch and a float. The exercise in super-buoyancy was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. You float on your back, and your feet just don’t sink. It’s even a little hard to make them go underwater enough to stand on your feet. It was cool … but, as more than one pilgrim said, getting back on the bus, “That’s something I don’t have to do again.”

The day ended back at the hotel with a presentation from two men who helped found the group The Parents Circle – Families Forum (take the time to visit). It’s a reconciliation movement of Israeli and Palestinian parents who’ve all lost children in the occupation and uprisings over the past decades. These men, one Israeli and one Palestinian, both lost young daughters to the violence but came to see their common humanity, grow in respect, and ultimately become like brothers. But this is not just a feel-good story. It’s a call to do whatever one can, wherever one is, to point out the absurdity of violence as a cure for violence and to question the underlying assumptions of policies we’ve been taught to support unquestioningly. For us pilgrims, on a day we began by standing in Jesus’ torture room and prison cell, it’s hard not to think about what he might have to say. The point isn’t which is the “right” political side to back – and as soon as we start thinking that way, we’ve bound ourselves to “the way it’s always been.” Instead, I think Jesus might just look at us intently, as he locked eyes with Peter once the cock crowed the second time, and say, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 8

Monday, May 8, 2023

We’re back a little earlier than usual from today’s journeys, so maybe I can get most of this written before dinner … and get to bed earlier than I have been. (I overslept more than an hour this morning, which should tell me something about needing rest. At least I made it to the bus on time.)

I think the word for today is “grace” – God’s love, freely given. It’s an idea we throw around a lot in an abstract sense. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” Paul wrote to the Ephesians (2:8). And since Luther’s time, Protestants have been claiming that statement as part of an argument against works-righteousness. So “grace” can become a dog-whistle in Catholic vs. Protestant polemic. But that’s abstract grace. The divine love freely given that we got to experience today had flesh and bones on it.

The Jerusalem Princess Basma Center 

Our first stop was the Princess Basma Center in Palestinian east Jerusalem, a ministry of the Anglican diocese. It’s part children’s rehabilitation hospital, part social-work agency, part community-health organization, and part school (kindergarten through 12^th grade). The hospital and clinics treat kids with all kinds of disabilities – congenital, neuromuscular, developmental. Just as American parents might expect from a children’s rehab hospital, Princess Basma offers physiotherapy, speech/language therapy, occupational therapy, sensory therapy, hydrotherapy, autism therapies, and psychosocial support. This facility would be a blessing to any number of American communities. To find it here is amazing. And to find it here specifically for underserved Palestinian families, not just in Jerusalem but in 16 communities in the occupied territories – it’s an inbreaking of the reign of God. The hospital and clinics serve about 2,300 kids annually, and the school has about 425 students. About a third of the students are there because they need special-education services; the rest are there just because it’s an excellent school (and the mixed classes bring all the students the psychosocial benefits of mainstreaming).

The hospital is a ministry of the
Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem
and the Middle East.

Disability is a source of shame in Palestinian culture because either the families, or the children themselves, are blamed for the burden they bear. So, a significant part of the center’s support is for parents dealing with depression and hopelessness from having been shunned – on top of the overwhelming work of caring for a child with disabilities, and making a living in a disadvantaged region, and existing in occupied territory. So, some of the divine love freely given here heals the hearts of the parents, to say nothing of the healing miracles that come to the kids. And walking though the facility, we could see miraculous works in progress, reflected in the joy on the kids’ faces.

The day’s second experience of grace was more personal. From Princess Basma, we drove to the Mount of Olives, stopping at the Church of Bethphage, where Jesus’ triumphal march into Jerusalem started (and where we learned that the short date palms we associate with Palm Sunday were introduced into the area centuries later, so most of the branches being strewed along his way were probably from olive trees instead). Then we visited the Church of Dominus Flevit (“the Lord wept”). Not long before he was crucified, Jesus looked out from the Mount of Olives at the beauty of Jerusalem and its Temple, and he wept over the city’s coming destruction at the hands of the Romans. Standing there, we, too, could see Jerusalem as the travel posters show it, the gold Dome of the Rock rising above the Old City walls and shining in the sun.

The Temple Mount as seen from the Mount of Olives. 

There was certainly grace for me in that moment, the fulfillment of a decades-long dream. I was here when I was 13, which priest-math tells me was 45 years ago. My parents, especially my mother, paved the way for me in so much, most pertinently right now by showing me travel as a way to connect with God. It was neither of their styles to wear their faith on their sleeve. But my parents opened a door for me to know, deep down, that if I go journeying in search of God, that pilgrimage will lead me somewhere extraordinary. Today, it led me to see the Temple Mount again. I can’t explain it intellectually, but I can see why pilgrims for millennia, from at least three faiths, have felt like they stood at the center of the world when they stood in Jerusalem. And I’m grateful for the love that brought me here.

A 2,000-year-old olive tree in the Garden 
of Gethsemane.

As if that remembered love weren’t enough, we then went to the Church of Gethsemane and the garden itself. As usual, the church is modern but built on ancient stones, both Byzantine and Crusader. Here, the modern renovation replicated the floor mosaic of the Byzantine structure from about 380 (as well as displaying a portion of the preserved ancient mosaic). But before the altar is the most important stone, the Rock of Agony, commemorated as the rock where Jesus asked the Father to open some other pathway for him to defeat sin and death. (I couldn’t get a photo of the rock because a service was in progress.) Then, more powerfully, we spent some time simply in the garden. As we’ve done at many of these significant sites, Fr. Bill offered a Scripture reading, this time from Mark about Jesus praying in the garden to be spared his coming agony. We prayed, too; and Joey McGee, the musician traveling with us, led us in singing, “I Come to the Garden.” Growing up, hearing my parents’ suspicion about people who talk about their personal relationships with God, I never much cared for the song. But the individual grace it illustrates, the direct connection with Jesus, is where this journey of faith ultimately leads, right? So, we sang about hearing Jesus’ voice and sharing his joy – the gift of love that only personal relationship brings. And just as we ended that song, sitting amid the beautiful roses and ancient olive trees, a loud, harsh bell began clanging. It might as well have been a police siren, a reminder that sin will have its way – the sin of the world, certainly, but just as much the brokenness of our own hearts. After all, Judas had been hearing Jesus’ voice and sharing in his joy for years – and then, that night, he walked up with the cops to identify the perpetrator. I am just as much there with Judas as I am there with Jesus in that garden. And the grace is that “He walks with me” anyway.

A diagram of the Garden Tomb. Unfortunately, the interior walls 
of the tomb have been plastered over.

From there, probably anything would have been a letdown. Filling that role was the Garden Tomb, the alternative (Protestant) site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. The guide from the site was very earnest, taking the opportunity to preach. This cave is thought to be an authentic first-century tomb, whether Jesus’ or not. Is this the one? Or is Church of the Holy Sepulcher the one? To me, it didn't matter. I’d walked with Jesus that afternoon already.

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 7

Sunday, May 7, 2023

St. George's Cathedral in
Jerusalem.

Trust the Brits to add a little
England just north of 
Jerusalem's Old City.

This morning, we took a long time to go a short distance, driving from our hotel in Palestinian Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Our first activity after getting off the bus was to worship, and I’d recommend that as a paradigm for entering the Holy City. We arrived at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, north of the Old City, and came in just as the procession was about to begin. I took a seat at the back, in the overflow seating … yes, they needed overflow seating for the fifth Sunday of Easter, not exactly a “y’all come to church” kind of Sunday. The service was in Arabic and English, and kudos to the Jordanian priest who preached compellingly in his non-native tongue (I’m guessing the Arabic version was even better). I didn’t know most of the hymns, but the sequence hymn was, “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones,” so we had lots of opportunities to sing “Alleluia.” (It was sort of a Mr. Bean moment, with everyone coming in strong on the word both languages shared.) 

In the cacophony of tongues at prayer, as I’ve experienced in Haiti, we got a foretaste of the day when the multitude of nations will gather around the heavenly banquet table. Like I said, I’d recommend it for all pilgrims as they enter Jerusalem.

The baptismal font and art at St. George's Cathedral.

The priest was gracious enough to meet with us (staying until he had just seven minutes to vest and get ready to lead worship), telling us about the ministries of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East. “Small but mighty” doesn’t begin to describe their witness. The diocese has only 28 congregations scattered across Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, but it provides 35 other missional efforts, everything from schools, to evangelistic ministries, to the Princess Basma Hospital (which we’ll visit tomorrow), to the guest house and college of St. George’s in Jerusalem. It’s a stunning incarnation, showing how to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the world from a posture of trust and relationship-building, which opens others’ hearts in prayer, minds in service, and wallets in support. The priest also shared his experience of being a Jordanian Christian serving in Israel, which aligned with the experience of Fr. Nael, the priest we met in Nazareth. He said that, when he first came to Jerusalem, he and some colleagues went to an event in the Palestinian territory, which ended a bit late. He was about to drive the short distance back to Jerusalem when the archbishop took him aside and instructed him to stay the night instead. It wasn’t about overindulgence at the party. It was about the danger he faced as a Jordanian passing through the Israeli checkpoint late at night.

Next, we drove to Hadassah Hospital in west Jerusalem to view the Marc Chagall stained-glass windows in the hospital’s synagogue. In the process, we heard an orientation to the hospital and the Hadassah organization, which began working toward better health outcomes in Palestine during the British Mandate and later founded a world-class hospital in Palestinian east Jerusalem. With Israel’s war for independence in 1948, the hospital opened a facility in Jewish west Jerusalem, given that east Jerusalem was becoming literally a war zone. For the second site, French artist Marc Chagall was commissioned to create windows representing the 12 sons of Jacob. (The hospital asks visitors not to post photos of the windows on social media, so enjoy them here.) The guide proudly described Hadassah’s policy of caring for anyone, regardless of nationality or religion, as well as its arrangements with healthcare providers in the occupied territories to transport patients needing care. The hospital visitor center shows a map of Hadassah’s locations, which makes it clear that Hadassah offers no services in the West Bank or Gaza. I asked the guide whether Hadassah could open a facility there – would that be a possibility? She looked at me like I was crazy or stupid and informed me that area was under the control of the Palestinian Authority. I said I knew that, but I wondered whether it would be possible to offer services in those locations. She said, “No. That’s a no-go. The Palestinians control that land.” She didn’t want to talk about it further, so I let it go. But – regardless of whether the hospital can’t offer services there, or won’t offer services there, or has made a business or security decision not to offer services there, it’s a tragedy – and one that undermines the hospital’s mission. In fairness, of course, more familiar contexts also reveal challenging dynamics of geography. In Kansas City, you certainly find more hospitals and clinics serving the suburbs and west Kansas City than you find serving the historically Black east side. So we all have work to do.

The Church of the Visitation
in Ein Karem.

Near Hadassah Hospital is Ein Kerem, honored as the hometown of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist – so, it’s the location of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, as they both celebrated miraculous pregnancies. The grotto and church commemorate Elizabeth and especially Mary as the preeminent example of a faithful person blessed to be a blessing to the world. To me, even more striking than the modern church is the courtyard statue of the pregnant Mary greeting the pregnant Elizabeth, as well as the scores of plaques behind them sharing the Magnificat (“My soul magnifies the Lord…”; Luke 1:46-55) in languages from around the globe. That Song of Mary is about God overturning our expectations and overriding our cultural priorities. It comes from a Jewish source, the song of Hannah (

Mary greeting Elizabeth, with the Magnificat
behind them in scores of languages.

1 Samuel 2:1-10), who thanked God for giving her a child she wasn’t supposed to have and prophesied about God raising up the hungry and helpless while bringing down the well-fed and powerful. That’s Mary’s message, too, singing about her Son’s coming kingdom, in which God casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly. And the Muslim tradition honors both Hannah and Mary (and Jesus) as forerunners of God’s work to bring us into heaven. 

Signs above a doorway in
Ein Kerem from past
Arab owners.

But just down the street from the church in Ein Kerem is an example of how quickly we forget, or how firmly we choose not to learn, the unity that could come from our common story. Apparently, Ein Kerem was predominantly Muslim before 1947. When the war for Israeli independence came, most of the residents fled; and Jewish immigrants took the houses. Now it’s a Jewish town whose older houses still have Arabic inscriptions in the stones over their lintels. Intellectually, we know we share so much … but still, we shoot each other and take land that isn’t ours because, after all, “It’s mine.”

And then – we got ice cream. Really good ice cream. For several reasons, this may have been the richest day so far.

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 6

Saturday, May 6, 2023

Today was a day of stooping down. That was true from the start, regardless of what we did, because we’re in Bethlehem, where the Word became flesh and deigned to dwell among us. For millennia now, God has been stooping down to meet us – walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening breeze, making covenants with Abraham, wrestling with Jacob, talking with Moses, raising up David the sheep-herder as king. Ultimately, God took divine stooping to a new low, becoming one of us in Jesus. And we spent today remembering that.

The "back room" of a cave such as Joseph's extended
family might have called home.

We began by going to the Shepherd’s Fields, a place honoring the ancestors of the Bedouin we saw yesterday keeping camels and goats near Jericho. The site also sets aside caves in the Judean limestone that would have been homes for Bethlehemites 2,000 years ago. And it’s in a cave like what we saw that Mary gave birth. The event and the language of Luke’s birth narrative make much more sense in the 3-D reality of this place. What we have in our heads is that Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem from Nazareth and, because “there was no room at the inn,” they holed up in a wooden barn for the night. Well, here, there are so few trees that no one would have made a barn from wood. What they have instead is rock – in fact, hills with caves. And people lived in these caves, bringing in their precious livestock (a.k.a., their savings accounts) into the back of the cave at night for protection and then sleeping in the cave’s “front room.” Families with a bit of means would put up extra living space on the hill above their cave – in Greek, a kataluma, or guest quarters, there for the use of extended-family members. That’s the word the King James Bible translated as “inn” and the same word used for the “upper room” that Jesus told his disciples to find for the Last Supper. So, when Mary and Joseph arrived in crowded Bethlehem for the census, other family members must have already taken the guest quarters, meaning there was no room in the kataluma. But even if there had been a place, I could see Mary wanting to go to the back of the cave, with the livestock, to have a little privacy for the birth. The journey into the cave we saw today, complete with a rear area for the animals and a manger chipped into the cave wall, made God’s stooping down in the Incarnation so much more real. (The video is not great, but at least it gives a sense of the "front room.")

The Shepherd’s Fields also helped reveal the geography of the Bethlehem area in Jesus’ time. Here in Bethlehem today, as I look out to the horizon from my balcony, I see a city sprawling over the hills. Back in the day, of course, the hills would have been … simply hills covered with rocks and some precious stands of greenery. That’s the image you see at the Shepherd’s Fields.

The Separation / Security Wall in Bethlehem.

The group then spent some time at a gift shop, not the most rewarding part of the trip for me. But, after that, we went to see an example of present-day stooping on a large scale – the Separation Wall or Security Wall. We were struck by the way the wall affects normal Palestinian people who are just trying to live their lives. A military veteran in the group compared it with what he experienced of the Berlin Wall. I don’t know what the Israeli side of the wall looks like, but the Palestinian side features amazing graffiti, real-life political cartoons drawn large. 

Aspirational art on the Separation /
Security Wall.

The most noteworthy are from the street artist and activist Banksy, but many hands have worked this canvas. Where we stopped, my favorite piece illustrated a hole blown through the wall, opening a view of Jerusalem across the Judean hills. The al-fresco table and chairs in front of the piece point to the everyday aspirations of people who are just trying to live like people anywhere else. For them, sitting outside and looking into the distance is an impossible dream.

After lunch, we visited an orphanage, Bethlehem Creche. It’s a Roman Catholic ministry largely serving unmarried pregnant women and foundlings left on the doorstep. The stakes are high in a culture where unmarried pregnant women face the real threat of murder, especially from family members. Apparently, this is the only place of its kind on the West Bank, and the orphanage provides a beautiful, loving environment to serve children others reject.

Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Entering the Church of the 
Nativity.

Then we stooped to enter the Church of the Nativity – literally. One of the hallmarks of this place honoring Jesus’ birth is that the entryway is maybe five feet high, the Door of Humility. It’s the second revision of a tall, majestic Byzantine entrance that was shrunk by the Crusaders to keep people from riding horses into the church, and then shrunk again during the period of the Ottoman Empire to discourage the building’s use as secular space. Now, it’s a good (if maybe unintentional) reminder of the humility to which Jesus calls his followers.

Lovely frescoes in the Church of the 
Nativity.

The beautiful "Smiling Mary" 
icon at the Church of the Nativity.

This is said to be the longest-running site of Christian worship in the world (begun by Constantine’s mother, Helena, around 330 AD), and the smell of centuries of incense greets you as you walk in. In the worship space, highlights include restored wall mosaics from the Crusader period, floor mosaics from the original building, a stunning iconostasis before the high altar, and what seem like countless lamps hanging from the ceiling. Beneath the high altar is the stone honored since the 300s as the site of Jesus’ birth. Along with the mass of humanity visiting at any given moment, you can go into the grotto under the high altar and touch this stone. The long line, the jostling for space, and the security guards barking for quiet all can be distracting, but people in our group came up from the grotto in tears. Glimpsing and touching the place where God stooped can do that to you.

Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 5

Friday, May 5, 2023

Bethlehem ... not such a little town
anymore.

I’m sitting on my hotel balcony in Bethlehem, looking across the lights of a very hilly city (think San Francisco), hearing the call of the muezzin to bedtime prayers, and enjoying the full moon.

Security checkpoint between Israeli
and Palestinian territory.

We left the Sea of Galilee early this morning and drove south though the Jordan River Valley, seeing and hearing the history of conflict here. The nation of Jordan is just across the water, of course, and security fencing runs all along the way as you drive to the traditional site where John the Baptist got his name, baptizing Jesus “to fulfill all righteousness,” as Matthew’s Gospel says (3:15). When Jesus and the crowds came out to hear John and wade in the water, they had no land mines to navigate (at least not literal ones). Now, as you approach the site of this pivotal moment in our salvation, you make your way through a checkpoint and note the yellow signs warning of buried ordnance. My first thought was, “What must Jesus think of all this?” I imagined a divine face-plant.

But amid the depressing evidence of human brokenness, God gets the last word. Across the narrow river, very close to the soaked pilgrims on the Israeli side of the river, pilgrims from Jordan were coming to do just the same thing, making their own commitment to renounce the powers of evil and follow Jesus as their Lord. Living all this out on “our” side of the river were large groups from Romania and Thailand, reveling in their anointing with the balm of Gilead. The Romanians wore long, white baptismal t-shirts over their swimming suits (today’s version of white robes) as they frolicked in the water of life. The Thai pilgrims stood on the bank praying, ending their brief worship by singing “Amazing Grace” in their language. 

A different security force.

Israeli security forces at the site
of the Baptism of Jesus.

Supposedly presiding over all this, and the movement of hundreds of other pilgrims, were two Israeli soldiers bearing rifles. But presiding over the soldiers were two white doves. They swooped through the site for a bit before coming to rest just above the young men in their fatigues.
It was another good reminder that “God’s got skills.” Oh, and that Jesus really is Lord.

At the border between Israeli and 
Palestinian land.

On the bus, we listened to our guide, Rayna, giving the history of Israel – 4,000 years in 20 minutes. She also reflected, like Fr. Nael yesterday, on what it’s like to be an Arab Christian in Israel. She isn’t an Israeli citizen but Jordanian instead, with security papers allowing her to travel in and out of Tel Aviv’s airport (and through highway checkpoints). One’s language speaks volumes. She was careful to describe the wall dividing Israel from the Palestinian territory as “the Separation Wall, or, as the Israelis call it, the Security Wall.” Both are true, from what I’ve read: The wall impedes the lives and livelihoods of the Palestinians terribly, and the number of bombings in Israel has decreased. As with everything here, there is no easy answer.

Speaking of which, one of the pilgrims asked a great question: “Wait; I thought we were supposed to be on the side of the Jews. After all, the U.S. has supported Israel for a long time now.” There was opportunity to reflect on the world in 1948, when Harry Truman and many other leaders devoutly believed the Jews deserved a homeland after the Holocaust. There was opportunity to reflect on the troubling manifestation of human brokenness that can make those who've been persecuted turn into persecutors themselves. And there was opportunity to reflect on American Evangelical Christian theology (and political power) that sees a historical necessity for Israel to be a sovereign nation, and for the Jewish Temple to be rebuilt on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, before Jesus will return in glory. That need for the Temple to be rebuilt and inhabited by “the lawless one” is based on 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, if you want to find the weak scriptural warrant for American foreign policy that supports Israel occupying Jerusalem and the West Bank. Unfortunately, given the need to keep on schedule, the pilgrim’s good question got just a quick acknowledgement of how complicated all this is. For us, this is interesting historical and theological reflection. For Ranya, it could be a matter of life and death. She asked us explicitly, as she began teaching about Israel’s history, not to record her so we wouldn’t post anything that might bring her harm.

The Mount of Temptation and 
the camel who didn't seem
tempted at all.

Back to the daily report. We passed through another checkpoint to visit Jericho and see an ancient sycamore tree – not “the” tree that Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus as he walked through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem, but one certainly old enough to count. We also saw the Mountain of Temptation, the peak where tradition says Satan took Jesus and tempted him with power and dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. If only now we could follow Jesus’ lead and decline the will to power….

Nearby, we visited an overlook giving a view of the “road” from Jericho to Jerusalem, the route Jesus had in mind when telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. The setting is as unforgiving as the bandits who lurked along the way. It’s as desolate a landscape as landscapes come – think every American Western where people are dying of thirst and being attacked by other people hiding among the boulders above them. And, Jesus says, even when you’re in a setting that challenges you simply to survive, think about the person you’re passing who has it worse than you – and act to help. (In the video, the dots of trees in the center of the image mark where the "road" ran through the wadi.)

Detail of the raising of Lazarus ... and 
the "stench."

Next was a stop at Bethany, home to Jesus’ friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. We visited the church honoring these three and honoring Jesus for raising Lazarus from death. This is the fourth church on this site, continuing the pattern of churches built, and destroyed, and rebuilt, and destroyed, and rebuilt again. The modern version of this one was designed to feel like a tomb, with only one entrance, no windows, and the only light diffused through a translucent roof. 

The tomb of Lazarus.

A bit up the street is Lazarus’ tomb. I was late leaving the church, and I thought the rest of the group had headed to the tomb. So, I went up the street, found the tomb, and was a bit annoyed by a man outside asking for $2 to get in. I understood why when I snaked down the narrow, slippery stairs to the tomb and crawled through the four-foot-high passageway from the anteroom into the tomb chamber. The group hadn’t come here, and for good reason, given the stairs and the crawling. So, I sheepishly paid the guy his $2 and just as sheepishly rejoined the group at the bus.

From Bethany, we drove to Bethlehem. If you look up the drive on Google Maps, it says 13 miles. But you have to come out of Palestinian territory, through Israeli territory, and back into Palestinian territory over those 13 miles, and we were diverted because of a closed checkpoint – so the drive was something like 90 minutes. For us, it was an annoyance at the end of a long day of riding in a tour bus. For the Palestinians who live on the wrong side of the wall, it’s a way of life.