

### Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

My Sabbatical in Israel

The Rev. Daniel W. Kreller

Published by Daniel W. Kreller at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Daniel W. Kreller

Discover other titles by The Rev. Daniel W. Kreller at Smashwords.com:

The God of Abraham Praise - A Short Course in Christian Belief

The Ten Commandments \- With Commentary

St. Bartholomew's Haggadah - Prepared by The Rev. Daniel Kreller

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Foreword

I would like to thank the parish of St. Bartholomew's for funding a sabbatical in January 2008 to celebrate my 30th anniversary of ordination. Though the Sabbatical year occurs every seventh year, this was my very first sabbatical. I finally had gotten to a place where I was ready and eager to travel to the land of Jesus' life and ministry, a place I had only dreamed of visiting. It was the death of so many beloved parishioners over 24 years – 165 that I had buried in that span of time – that finally motivated me to go. I needed to get away and cease my labors.

The command to keep the Sabbath occurs as the 4th command in the Ten Commandments. There it refers to the seventh day of the week and is kept by resting from one's labors. But that is just the beginning of the notion of Sabbath, for every seventh year is the Sabbatical year, and every fiftieth year the Jubilee year (7 times 7 years plus one). All in all the Sabbath laws are well worth learning and observing for in them one will find a key to personal well being and the foundations for a more just, equitable, and peaceful society, not to mention a way to live in harmony with the natural world.

_At first one may think the Sabbath is burdensome since one must refrain from so many activities that seem to give our life its purpose. But this refraining proves to be a form of restraint that allows for receiving things (and people) as they are with out any desire to fix or change them. It allows for the "otherness of things" as one of my former professors, Diogenes Allen, defined love in his book by that title. Or, it allows for us to receive another as "thou," as Martin Buber expressed it in his book,_ _I and Thou_ _. This too is love and it takes us far beyond purpose into the realm of meaning._

I trust the reader will see in these 28 journal entries my love for this land and its people. No doubt you will also discover that I could not maintain the Sabbath mindset throughout for I do comment on things and people I would like to fix or change given a chance. But when I was in the Sabbath mindset I merely took in all that I saw and heard and at the end of the day digested it as best I could. Thus the format of this journal is to write first about what I did and where I went each day and then to record a few of the thoughts that occurred to me throughout the day.

I spent most of every day alone but was never lonely. I was too engaged to be so. And of course, I had the company of the Spirit within me. Thus, you will note my references to praying in tongues as I walked from site to site or sat for a time at various locations. For those readers who are unfamiliar with tongues it is a prayer language manifest by the Spirit. I think of it as the lazy man's form of meditation for it requires no effort other than moving one's tongue and allowing the Spirit to pray through one's voice (or under one's breath). It can be sustained as long as one's strength endures and the effect of it is to bring one to peace. That I found invaluable in this land where everywhere there are signs asking that we pray for peace and there is very little of it to be found.

January 1, 2008

I am in Jerusalem staying at Saint Andrew's Guest House. Saint Andrew's was built after World War I by the Presbyterians of Scotland to honor their soldiers who died in the Palestinian Campaign. It is nicely situated and about a fifteen-minute walk from the Wailing Wall. I went and prayed. I cried and cried. I touched the wall with my hands and forehead and said over and over, "My Lord and my God." I prayed in tongues as others around me prayed in Hebrew.

On the plane ride over, men gathered for prayer in the aisle by the bathrooms in the afternoon and morning. They put on their phylacteries. For the life of me it looks like too much work. I felt relieved I wasn't a Jew, or at least an Orthodox one.

I must rest. I haven't slept since Saturday night. It is only 5 PM here but I will try to sleep. I opened to Psalm 119: 135-136. "Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law." That seems to be what it is about here. Keeping the Law. All the observant are drawn to this place, but it hasn't brought peace.

On the plane I met an Orthodox woman my age. She looked much older. She was married at sixteen and a half years of age and had seven children and now grandchildren. Jerusalem is a special place she told me. The look in her eyes though was weary and worn. In front of her were a young Hasid and his wife. He was studying Shemitah, the laws concerning agriculture in the sabbatical year. (This is the sabbatical year in Israel and there is quite a bit of controversy among the farmers how these laws should be kept, if at all.) With euphoria he told another passenger he feels purposeful doing this work that has value for this world and the next. I wondered just how the sabbatical laws applied to the next world.

Tomorrow I am determined to visit the Coenaculum as it is called, the Upper Room, the site of the Passover Jesus had with his disciples, his resurrection appearance on the day of his resurrection and the week following, and Pentecost. I want a break from all of this observance of the Law. I want to see the place of the New Commandment, "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15: 12), and the place of his appearance when he said, "Peace be with you...Receive the Holy Spirit." (John 20: 21f.) Where has law upon law gotten us? I can see why Saint Paul was of that mind and rejoiced that Christ was the end (through fulfillment) of the Law

January 2, 2008

It is my fifty seventh birthday today. I decided to celebrate it by following John's narrative in his gospel from Jesus' last supper with his disciples to the breathing out of the Holy Spirit on the day of his resurrection. So, I started out in the Upper Room, the Coenaculum, at about 8 A.M.

From there I walked across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives. It was about a thirty- minute walk at a leisurely pace, stopping to take in the sights.

In the Garden I visited the Church of the Nations reputed to be the place of his agony. In front of the altar is a large outcrop of rock where Jesus prayed to have this "cup" removed, if possible. How many have prayed such a prayer, I wonder, and have gotten the same response? It was not removed and he like the rest of us must accept God's will for us and "drink" it.

Leaving Gethsemene I walked back to the Old City and entered at the wall through the Lion's Gate, so called because of the lion's carved into its façade. The narrow road, one of the few that admits vehicular traffic in the Old City passes by Saint Anne's Church to the right and the precincts of the Temple Mount to the left. Soon enough I came upon the neighborhood where the Antonia Fortress, built by Herod the Great, used to stand at the northwestern end of the Temple precincts. It was here, according to one tradition, that the High Priest brought Jesus to be tried by Pilate. So it is here that the Via Delarosa, the Way of the Cross, begins. I stopped to see the Church of the Flagellation where Jesus was stripped and beaten and crowned with thorns. Further down the street I saw the Pavement where Pilate condemned him to death.

Where the Via Delarosa takes a jog to the south, I went north instead through the Muslim Quarter and out the Damascus Gate, the northern gate in the Old City wall. A short walk north of the gate is Golgatha and the Garden Tomb discovered in the 19th century and favored by Protestants as the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial.

After seeing the Garden Tomb, I retraced my steps and proceeded once again along the Via Delarosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Golgatha and the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea in which Jesus was buried. The Roman emperor Constantine built the original portions of the church in the early 4th century A.D. so the tradition that this is the site of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection is very longstanding. The church is in the Christian Quarter of the Old City and within the present walls. In Jesus' day this area was outside the city walls.

Leaving the Holy Sepulchre I walked south towards Mount Zion and the Upper Room. On my way I stopped at the Citadel of David located on the western edge of the wall by the Jaffa Gate. The name is a misnomer since the towers and ruins are remnants of a magnificent palace fortress built by Herod the Great, the Judean King at the time of Jesus' birth. It would be here that the Magi came to inquire of the birth of the King of the Jews as recorded in Matthew's Gospel.

Proceeding through the Armenian Quarter I arrived at the Coenaculum again. At this hour the Tomb of David was open so I went in to see it. It is now a synagogue on the ground floor of the building that houses the Upper Room directly above. It is highly unlikely that it is the actual tomb of David but strikingly symbolic that he should be buried beneath the place where Jesus, the Messiah Son of David, appeared to his disciples in his risen glory. Yes, it was a good birthday to begin and end in this place where Jesus breathed out the life giving Holy Spirit upon the disciples, marking their spiritual birth. First comes the physical birth, Saint Paul says, and then the spiritual. My physical birth came in 1951, my spiritual birth in 1986 when I too received the baptism in the Spirit.

My chief impression of this day is how radical Jesus' message is. When you enter the compound that is the Coenaculum, it is surrounded by the Yeshiva and Synagogue of the Diaspora (Sephardic). They have the Ten Commandments posted at the entrance and the exit of the Upper Room so the visitor cannot help but feel they are asserting Moses over Christ and insinuating that Jesus is a false messiah. I could see how they might think that. At the Last Supper Jesus reduced the commandments to one, "love one another as I have loved you." And at the same time he promised his disciples an intimacy with the Father and himself through the Spirit that was unparalled. "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all I have heard from the Father I have made known to you." (John 15:15) Yes, from what I have seen of the devout Jews and Muslims thus far, they seem very much the servants of the master whether they are observing the commandments and rituals of the Torah or the Quran. They are scrupulous and seem, on the whole, to delight in observance as I suppose any servant who believes he is serving a great, or the greatest master, takes pride and joy in his position. Along with that goes a tendency to look down on other servants in the household whom they deem less worthy.

Yet, they do not seem to feel free and joyous, like those who live in the liberty of knowing they are children of the Heavenly Father. Jesus' message is truly liberating. He cleanses us. He attaches us to the vine. We bear fruit. If not, he prunes us so that we bear more fruit. Who is serving whom here? Jesus makes that plain by what he did at the supper when he washed his disciples feet. "You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." (John 13: 13-14) He inverts the position of servant and master. He overturns it. He serves us and we become like masters – free men. But at the same time he invites us to follow his example and love one another in the same way, freely choosing to serve others as though they were our masters. Not that we have followed that invitation to liberty as children and joy in serving. That is apparent when you go to the Holy Sepulchre and other sites where the various denominations vie for position and supremacy.

The Coenaculum is different since it is a spare room controlled by the Israelis. It has a minimum of decoration and a fraction of the visitors compared to other sites. There is also no evidence of the veneration of Mary there though right next door is a basilica much larger and grander than the building that houses the Upper Room that is said to be the site where Mary died, that is fell asleep. Thus, it is named the Church of the Dormition. In its crypt is a life-sized figure of Mary in repose at her death. Her tomb is a cave turned into a chapel in Gethsemene shared by several denominations and it is replete with lamps and icons and all the trappings of veneration.

What I sense is this. Slaves and children are roughly equivalent in that they are under authority and not free. All of this veneration of Mary reduces us to little children again I fear. And like slaves such children are fearful of not pleasing the parental figures of Mary and Jesus and so strive to be very "good." Plus a dreadful emphasis on the agonies and sufferings of both Mary and Jesus seems to go hand in hand with this type of veneration. One gets the impression that rather than being delivered by Jesus' cross and passion and Mary's sufferings we are set back into deeper bondage of guilt and shame due to our part in the whole affair. Our part is the blame. His and her part was the deadly pain. Yet as long as we bear the blame how can we ever feel free? Yes, so it seems as much as Jesus turned things upside down, making the master the servant and setting the servants free, we turn them back again where through guilt and shame and blame we are the slaves again. It just feels "right" to us. What part does mother fusion enacted through the veneration of Mary play in this and what part our own vanity and pride, I wonder? I don't know. I've never understood or appreciated the veneration of Mary and as to pride and vanity that is obvious to all except the one who is afflicted by both.

Both Islam and Rabbinic Judaism reject the notion that one person can atone for another. Reward or punishment; status as a righteous one or one doomed for destruction is entirely dependant upon one's own doing. One controls his or her destiny through observance. There is an occasion for pride in that and also utter despair if one fails in righteousness. In comparison Jesus offers grace and grace alone and I suppose that is humbling to us. But if one embraces humility he also rejects vanity and vanity is one of the chief hindrances to love. I have seen much vanity thus far. I wonder where has the love gone and along with it the peace? Everywhere there are signs asking us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and yet there is no peace. One is tempted to think it is time to give up the prayers for they disturb the peace as much as anything with all the rules concerning where to pray and how and when and with whom.

One thing I do observe about prayer here though. All the ethnos can pray together for I have seen many nations praying. Rich and poor also can pray together for I have seen that as well. But men and women cannot, at least for Jews and Muslims, for they are separated everywhere. Only among the Christians do men and women pray together. That alone should tell one something. Again Jesus turns things upside down or around. And I don't think this has much to do with Mary. For it seems among those who venerate her most there are the most divisions between men and woman – celibate priests (all men of course) and brothers and sisters segregated in their own orders. Curious. I suppose it is one way "mom" keeps her children from separating from her.

Well, tomorrow I will hike up to Bethpage and Bethany if my legs are up to it. They are sore now from all the walking today.

January 3, 2008

I went back to Gethsemane today to see the cave in the garden that is reputed to have been used by Jesus as a place where he taught his disciples. It is north of the rock of his agonies (covered now by the Church of the Nations) and next to the cave that is Mary's tomb. The cave where Jesus taught is a suitable chamber to hold a gathering of fifty or so. I could not enter yesterday because a mass was in progress. All of these sites have masses given by the priests who accompany their band of pilgrims and I have heard numerous languages spoken thus far. Today the mass was nearly over so I entered and waited until that group had left to take some photos and to look around. Then, I began the ascent of the Mount of Olives to see the cave that is reputed to be the place Jesus taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer and imparted his teaching about the destruction of the Temple, when the Christ will come, and, thus, when the consummation of this present age will take place. The cave is covered over by remnants of a church built by the Emperor Constantine, the Eleona (Olive) Church. It was one of three he built to commemorate the events cited about Jesus in the Apostles' Creed. The nativity Church in Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre still stand but the Eleona was destroyed long ago. The Carmelite sisters have a convent and church there, the Pater Noster Church, and they have restored the outline of the original church with some partial reconstruction. On the walls of the reconstructed church they have placed plaques of the Lord's Prayer in numerous languages.˙The prayer that Jesus taught was for all and now all, or nearly so, pray it in their own language.

Jesus is said to have ascended from the cave in the Eleona Church as well, but since it does not seem fitting to ascend from a cave, there is another site just to the west and north that is higher and was an outcropping of the mount. A chapel was built there at some early date and the present chapel is a small octagonal domed chapel within a larger octagonal courtyard. The whole complex belongs to the mosque next to it. Since these two places are reputed to be the site of the ascension, they are also the site of return, at his second coming when he will "come again to judge the living and the dead." Both Muslims and Christians believe in his ascension and return for judgment.

Each Palm Sunday a procession begins near the Pater Noster Church and descends down the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. I walked the route it takes with a detour to the Seven Arches Hotel overlook for the panoramic view of the city. I stopped again at Dominus Flevit Chapel half way down the mount where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace!" (Luke 19:42) I suppose he is still weeping for from this spot one can see the guard posts the Palestinian police have set up on top of the Golden Gate to monitor the worshippers and visitors to the Noble Sanctuary. As I continued my descent I stopped to visit the Russian church dedicated to Mary Magdelene who, rightly or wrongly, is also identified here as the Mary who anointed Jesus at Bethany. My descent was soon completed and I headed toward Mount Sion. On the way I stopped at the City of David Archeological Gardens to see what the archeologists have unearthed. It is the most ancient part of the city and the original site of the Jebusite settlement captured by David three thousand years ago. Jerusalem clung to this hill rising from the Kidron Valley because of the Gihon Spring at the valley floor. It was the originally the only source of water for the city. King Hezekiah dug a tunnel through the bedrock from the Gihon to the Pool of Siloam in the 8th Century B.C.E. when the Assyrians were threatening the city. I chose not to walk through the cool knee-deep water of the tunnel, but instead walked above ground to the lower reaches of the ancient city to see what remains of the pool. An artist's rendition of the site shows an impressive stepped pool just within the wall of the city. The blind man whom Jesus healed by applying mud to his eyes and telling him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam had quite a walk to get there, as did the priest who gathered water from the Gihon Spring at Sukkot for the water pouring ceremony in the Temple. Not that it is so far but the descent from the upper reaches of the city to the lower and the corresponding ascent upon one's return makes for a vigorous walk. Before I left the Pool of Siloam I dipped my hands in the water and anointed my eyes.

I walked on to Mount Sion stopping at Saint Peter's in Gallicantu. It is south of the Coenaculum on the mount and at a lower elevation. The church is built over what is reputed to be the site of the High Priest Caiaphas' house. Thus, it was here that Jesus was first brought after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemene and tried before a Jewish court. Below the church is a pit carved in the bedrock that is reputed to be the place where Jesus was imprisoned for the night and next to the church is a courtyard where Peter denied Jesus three times. There is an ancient set of steps leading up from the valley below that runs beside this courtyard. The steps date to Jesus' day and he may very well have trod upon them that night. On the opposite side of the church, the western side, there is an observation platform that affords a good view of the Hinnom Valley (Gehenna). The Greeks have a monastery on the hillside above the valley and behind that is said to be Alkadama, the Field of Blood bought with the thirty pieces of silver Judas was paid for betraying Jesus and that he returned to the High Priest. It was used as a burial ground for the city's poor.

Yesterday my impression was that Jesus was a threat to those who strictly interpreted the Law and were very observant – the Pharisees, the Scibes, and so on. Today I could see what a challenge he was to the "powers that be" to religious leaders who held political power as well, not to mention the political rulers like Pontius Pilate. He exerted a power that was greater than any king or priest by raising Lazarus from the dead and opening the eyes of a blind man. He brought Light and Life. And yet he did not act like ordinary kings who gathered armies and vanquished foes. Who was his foe? Where was his army? What did his gestures mean, like his entry into Jerusalem at Passover?

One cannot help but feel the truth that St. Paul proclaims was true for Jesus as well when he says, "we do not wrestle with flesh and blood but with spiritual powers of wickedness in heavenly places." The flesh and blood kings and princes seemed bewildered by Jesus and didn't know what to do with him. Killing him, at least they thought, would end their bewilderment. He does outward signs but they seem aimed at invisible powers. Jerusalem is such a place of outward signs. The religious all have their peculiar dress and peculiar routines of prayer and worship. My, what public address systems have done for the Muslims! Now the call to prayer resounds through these valleys as one mosque broadcasts the call to prayer from here and another from there. The voices are quit distinct and I can imagine Muslim, Jew, Christians and the non-religious alike rating the quality of the chant and the tone of the chanter. One can also imagine a good bit of competition between the chanters for popularity and acclaim. Yes, there are outward signs everywhere in this place, but one can't help but feel these signs point to an invisible spiritual reality, and I don't mean disparate "beliefs" that people adhere to but to the spiritual warfare in the heavenlies between light and darkness. So in one of those caves, perhaps, in Gethsemene, Jesus said to Nicodemus, "And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God." (John 3: 19-21)

This was the precise effect of the signs he did. They could only have been carried out in God, proving that Jesus was the light. So the blind man in his defense before the Pharisees said, "Why this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to a sinner, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him...Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind." (John 9: 30-34)

And in reaction to the sign of raising Lazarus from the dead the Pharisees and the Chief Priest together in Council said, "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." (John 11:47) So Caiaphas counseled, "You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation perish." (John 11: 49-50) Thus he prophesied concerning the sign of the serpent that Moses raised in the wilderness and the sign of Jonah. These works that the one man, Jesus, who by being lifted up on the cross and raised from the dead, bound the spiritual power that is death and loosed people everywhere held captive in its yoke, are indeed wrought in God. It was not only better that one man die, it was necessary that this particular man do so.

January 4, 2008

I started the day by visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I got a picture of the chapel where Jesus was nailed to the cross and also touched the stone of Golgatha this time in the chapel next door. There I lit a candle for Hoa, Joanne, and her family as they had requested in the birthday card they sent me (Hoa was a refugee from Vietnam that I resettled with his family back in the early 1980's when he was in 5th grade. Joanne is his American girlfriend.). Then I went down to visit the tomb again. While standing in line I chatted with a family from Denver – Conservative Jews. It was a second marriage – she with three girls and he with three boys. Only the youngest of the boys, Daniel, was with them but her three daughters, Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, were with them. Her name was Leah and she is a dentist. Daniel was asking Leah if this was also the place of the Ascension. Leah was unsure so I spoke up and explained I had just walked up the Mount of Olives yesterday to see the two possible sites of the Ascension. I described how to get there. I also explained our view of the resurrection for the girls couldn't quite understand if he left his body behind or not. I explained it is more a new kind of reality, a greater fusion of spirit and flesh and neither is left behind. I told them of my interest in Judaism. When we left the church they wanted to walk the Stations of the Cross so I pointed them in the right direction. I went into the Lutheran Church nearby but then walked the Via Delarosa toward Bethsaida. I met them again along the way and we chatted once more. At the final station, the first since we were walking in reverse order, Lea commented on the church and said Jesus was born in Bethlehem. So I explained how the Messiah must be from the tribe of Judah, David's tribe, and that Joseph was from that tribe and Bethlehem was his native village. So when the census was taken and each had to return to his hometown, Joseph took Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem and it was there that Jesus was born. I explained their flight to Egypt and their return to Nazareth after Herod's death. It was a charming encounter. Sarah, the oldest daughter is a senior at Philips-Exeter and wants to go to Brown. Lea said one of her patients is an Episcopal priest and she always allows extra time for his appointments so they can discuss religion.

I then made my way to Bethsaida. Next to the remains of the pools is the 12th Century Church of Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. It is reputed to be the birthplace of Mary. A grotto under the altar is venerated as the place of her birth. It seems for every site of importance in the life of Jesus there is a shrine of equal importance for Mary's life, except perhaps the Holy Sepulchre, though she is omnipresent there as well. The Church of Saint Anne's has spectacular acoustics. It is an entirely stone structure with asp and dome. When the church was empty I sang a verse of Silent Night and the beginning of the Exultet. The reverberations were amazing and without any effort my voice filled the church. When I turned around a French couple had come in and was listening. They told me I have a wonderful voice. I demonstrated the effect again for them by singing the beginning of the Exultet. Truly any voice would sound good there.

Bethsaida was impressive. I walked through the ruins of the pools and in one place stopped to read the story in John 5 of Jesus healing a lame man who had been afflicted for 38 years. John says there was a feast and it was the Sabbath. Since John 2 records Jesus at Passover and John 7 Jesus at Sukkot, it would be logical that the feast referred to was Shavuot, since it falls between Passover and Sukkot. The lame were impure and could not enter the Temple to worship. But when Jesus healed the man he went to the Temple and upon finding him there, Jesus said to the man, "See you are well! Sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you." It was another sign - Jesus working the works of God. When Jesus was questioned about doing this work on the Sabbath he replied, "My Father is working until now and I am working." In other words, it was a deed done in God, who does good even on the Sabbath. In reaction the Jews sought all the more kill him because he called God, Father, thus making himself equal to God.

It occurs to me now this may be the reason John uses the designation, "the Jews," in his gospel. It isn't because he is anti-semitic as it is commonly held today and writing at a time when there was a division between the Jews and the Followers of the Way as the first disciples were called. What seems more likely to me is that in making himself equal to God he could not be identified with his fellow Jews. He was a Jew in the flesh but in so identifying with God he must be dis-identified from the Jews to some degree, "or is God the God of the Jews only?" Was the law given to the Jews only, or through the Jews to all the nations? And the Messiah who brings fulfillment to the law is a Light to all the nations. There also seems to be a stark contrast between good and evil in this text. Being lame is identified with sinning and the realm of the works of darkness. Thus, Jesus charges him to abide in the realm of light and life now that he has restored him to that realm by the power of God.

From Bethsaida I walked to the Wailing Wall to pray again. It was rainy and cold so it was practically empty though a stream of Hasid came to pray just before the beginning of the Sabbath. Yes, as I write the Sabbath has begun. A young Hasid spoke to me at the wall and asked for a donation for the synagogue there. I gave him something and he tied a red thread around my right wrist. I wasn't crazy about that for it reminded me of the red wool chord tied around the neck of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. But he blessed me as a good man even after I disclosed I was a Christian and not a Jew. If I get a chance I must ask someone the meaning of his act. This was the second time I prayed there and again I was brought to tears. Janet asked me to pray for Scot Simon (a high school student in a coma after a drug overdose and the brother of my son's friend), which I did. I simply pray in tongues and it flows freely. In fact that is mostly what I do as I am walking the streets of Jerusalem – pray in tongues.

I ended the day by returning to the Coenaculum. It was toward closing and for a time I was the only one in the room. I prayed out loud in tongues for some time. It was odd to be praying in tongues by myself in this place where tongues first manifest to the 120 gathered on Pentecost. I was brought to tears here as well and so far these are the two places I have felt the Spirit so – the Wall and the Upper room. The attendant came to close the place and he saw me rocking back and forth and praying. He asked if I was Jewish, Messianic perhaps. I explained no. He was Christian. I asked him to explain a few things about the room and we walked out together. He asked for a little something too – a kindness, a mitzvah. I gave him something and he blessed me too and bid me shalom.

Shalom. How easily spoken and how difficult to live. Yesterday I saw a whole group (50 or so) of young male troops of the Israeli Defense force muster by the Zion Gate and board a bus. They had all their gear and were heading out for maneuvers somewhere. And then today there was news of a rocket fired from Gaza and landing near Ashkelon. The IDF shelled some places in response and killed eight. One militant was killed in his house along with his mother, sister, and brother. The IDF said the militants deliberately use civilian areas from which to launch attacks.

I have arranged to go to Bethlehem on Sunday, the Feast of the Epiphany. As far as tomorrow, we shall see. It is the Jewish Sabbath so much will be closed. Today as I walked the Via Delarosa I saw streams of men and women (mostly men) entering the grounds of the Haram esh-Sharif, the Venerable Sanctuary, to participate in prayers on the Muslim Sabbath. I have yet to visit there but plan to do so.

Since I arrived I have felt led to focus on John's gospel and to fill in with the accounts in the other three. I guess I am still intrigued by the difference between John and the others. It is helpful being here and seeing the sites. I would compare it to working on a puzzle that has a board with the shapes of the pieces impressed upon it but not the scenes. Before I was working with the individual pieces and their colorful scenes. I did not see how they fit together into one whole. But now that I walk the ground and see these locations I am beginning to see there is a "board" on which the pieces fit. Here are some of the things I am thinking.

1. Water is crucial in the overall picture. It is apparent here how precious water is. David's City, first settled by the Jebusites, was built by the spring of Gihon. Elaborate water systems were built around it – channels, cisterns, and pools. Everywhere you see cisterns carved from the bedrock to capture what rainfall does come, mostly in the winter. The first mention of water in John is in John 1:24 when the Pharisees question John the Baptist why he is baptizing (with water). The next is in John 2:6 at Cana when Jesus performed his first sign of changing water into wine. Then comes the story of the Samaritan woman by Jacob's well in John 4. There, Jesus speaks of the water that he will give that wells up to eternal life. John 5 has the story of the healing of the lame man by the pool of Bethsaida. He does not enter the water to be healed for God through Jesus is the source of his healing. This pool (that I saw today) is on the northeast edge of the Temple Mount . In chapter 6 Jesus walks upon the water of the Sea of Galilee after having fed the 5,000. Chapter 7 recounts Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) where he speaks of living water (the Holy Spirit) that will flow out from the believer. This he said on the last day, the great day, the day of the water pouring ceremony when the priest drew water from the Gihon spring and poured it out at the altar. Chapter 9 is the story of the healing of the man born blind. Jesus put mud on his eyes (made with his own saliva) and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Chapter 13 records the act of Jesus washing his disciples feet. Chapter 19 is the last mention of water (unless you count the miraculous catch of fish in chapter 21) where John says Jesus' side was pierced and blood and water came out.

So that is nine significant references to water, three of which entail signs that he performed. I would relate all of these back to the Prologue of the Gospel where John says, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4) There is no life without water. He is the water of Eternal Life – or the spring from which the water of Eternal Life (the Spirit) flows. One must come to the source and drink if he is to have Life.

2. The Festivals play a significant role in John's narrative. I see this order in John.

(a) Rosh Hashanah – John the Baptist baptizing with water for repentance (as the other Gospels specify). (John 1:26)

(b) Yom Kippur - John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. (John 1: 29)

(c) Sukkot (or the season after it) – Jesus is in Cana for a wedding which were often held after Sukkot – the Season of Our Rejoicing. (John 2: 1) The prior reference in John 1:51 to seeing heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man may also relate to Sukkot (to the sukkah).

(d) Passover – Jesus goes to the Temple and cleanses it and speaks of himself as the Temple. "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:16)

(e) Shavuot – Jesus heals the lame man at Bethsaida and makes himself "equal with God." (John 5:18) This seems to echo the Prologue where it says, "for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16) The law was given at Shavuot but the healing was certainly a manifestation of grace, if not truth also.

(f) Sukkot – Jesus gives the teaching about the rivers of living water. (John 7)

(g) Dedication (Hanukah) – Jesus continues to teach about being the shepherd and it seems to relate back to the healing of the blind man and the subsequent teaching on the Good Shepherd. The theme seems to be that the shepherd is the "eyes" for the sheep. He knows the way and they hear his voice and follow him into the light. The blind man heard and followed Jesus direction and had his eyes opened to the light. (John 10:22f)

(h) Passover – John 12 has Jesus come to Bethany 6 days before Passover. He had already raised Lazarus some time between Dedication and Passover. The rest of the narrative takes place around Passover culminating in his death at the time the lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple for the Feast and ending the Sunday following with his resurrection.

It is significant that it never records that Jesus was in Jerusalem for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in this or the other gospels. John puts the focus upon Jesus as the Yom Kippur sacrifice by having John the Baptist declare he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But even so he records, like the others do that Jesus died at Passover as the Passover lamb. The Passover lamb is a sacrifice for deliverance from evil and death. The Yom Kippur lamb is a sacrifice for sin. Jesus is both sacrifices but as in the order of the festivals, one is first delivered from evil and death and afterwards forgiven from sin.

3. The spatial relationships of the events are interesting but I don't know what to make of them. The Temple is the center – the place where "Yahweh makes his Name to dwell." Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say Mount Moriah is the center for Abraham and David sacrificed there before the Temple was built. Bethsaida is just to the north. The Pool of Siloam is to the south. Bethany is directly to the east near the top of the Mount of Olives. He teaches in the Temple but does no "signs" there. Why is that I wonder? And all of those for whom he does signs are ritually defiled and excluded from the Temple – the lame, the blind, the dead. It is as if he had the Temple surrounded, working the works of God on all sides except the west. I take that back. If the site of the crucifixion and resurrection is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that is nearly due west of the Temple and this was his greatest sign that truly in him was Life and this Life is the Light of men. So the scheme would be something like this: North – Bethsaida - Healing of the lame man; south - Pool of Siloam - Healing of the blind man; East – Bethany - Raising of the dead man; West - Holy Sepulchre - his own death and resurrection, the ultimate healing.

So, one wonders when will the center, the Temple, acknowledge him. They did not then and the Temple was destroyed 40 years (the number of completion) after his last great sign. They do not now for the inscription on the Mosque of Omar, built over the site of the Temple, denies that he is the Son of God (Allah has no son). But perhaps that is the point, going back to the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father...But the true worshipper will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24) The new locus, the new Temple is the believer who has received the Spirit and worships in the Spirit, just as Jesus was himself the Temple.

4. Just an observation. The history here is all about kings and kingdoms. There have been so many through the ages that have come and gone. The other Gospels speak of the Kingdom of God from the outset and make it the central proclamation of Jesus' ministry. The Lord's Prayer sets out the program – "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." John isn't as obvious. Yet the first mention of the kingdom is in John 3:3 where Jesus says to Nicodemus, "No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above." John doesn't exactly have a baptismal account of Jesus perhaps because that would relate to Yom Kippur and the repentance from sin. John doesn't have the Temptation account of Jesus being taken to a high mountain to be shown the kingdoms of this world by the Devil either. John does mention kingship in chapter 12 verse 15 where at the entry into Jerusalem he quotes the passage from Isaiah and Zechariah "Fear not daughter of Zion; behold your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." The next and last mentions of the kingdom relates to Pilate and the crucifixion. These are some of the references. In John 18: 34 he asks Jesus if he is the King of the Jews. In John 19:14 he says, to the Jews, "Behold your King." In John 19:15 he says, "Shall I crucify your King." In John 19: 19 we are told the inscription ordered by Pilate for Jesus' cross read in 3 languages, "The King of the Jews." Perhaps the key is the stress Jesus places on the otherworldly nature of his kingdom. Before Pilate he says, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered into the hands of the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36)

Nevertheless, there is a dominant Kingdom theme of judgment that is in keeping with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But the one who chiefly comes under judgment is the ruler of this world. Jesus speaks of this at Bethany after Mary anoints him and he is troubled in soul by his impending death (foreshadowing his agonies in the garden). He says, "Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." (John 12: 31-32) The sense of this seems to be that as long as the ruler of this present world darkness is in place, people are captive to the darkness. He must be cast out so that they can come to the light. This is reiterated in the discourse in chapter 16 about the Spirit where Jesus says, "he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged." (John 16: 8-11) Again the focus in judgment is upon the ruler of this present world darkness. As long as he holds sway he keeps people in the bondage of sin, here defined not by works of the Law but as unbelief in the one sent from the Father. Yet the Father testifies to his righteousness because he goes (ascends) to the Father. "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. They will receive the blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of their salvation." (Psalm 24: 3-5)

January 5, 2008

Today is the Jewish Sabbath so there a lot of things that are closed for the day. The Israel Museum is not, oddly enough, so I headed for that. Near to it is the ancient Monastery of the Holy Cross. The founding is unsure, perhaps Constantinian, perhaps Justinian, but in any case it is early Byzantine. The present church and complex dates to the 9-11th centuries though there are parts dating to the 6th century. It is in good condition and lovely. Situated in a valley west of the old city it is reputed to be built over the site of the tree cut down to make the cross on which Jesus was crucified. There is a chapel beside the church with an altar over the exact spot where the tree grew. The story of the tree is quite convoluted. Lot planted and it came about this way. He was full of remorse for the sin of incest with his daughters after he fled Sodom. He asked Abraham what he could do to atone for his sin. Abraham gave him the three staffs of the angelic visitors whom he had entertained as they were en route to Sodom. The angels had left their staffs with Abraham. Abraham instructed Lot to plant them and water them with water from the Jordan. If they budded it would be a sign of God's forgiveness. Naturally the Devil tried to prevent Lot from obtaining the water but in the end Lot prevailed and the three staffs grew. One was pine, the other olive, and the third cedar. The three grew together into one tree. When it came time to crucify Jesus, Pilate ordered the tree to be cut down thinking, because it was unnatural, it was cursed and would increase the suffering of Jesus.

From there I made my way up the hill on the west side of the monastery to the Israel Museum. Unfortunately most of it was closed due to renovations. But I was able to see the Shrine of the Book, which is what I most wanted to see. It was well worth it. The Shrine houses most of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in caves near Qumran, as well as other important ancient manuscripts. The centerpiece of the collection is the Isaiah Scroll that is virtually complete. The one on display is a facsimile. This is housed in a circular display that simulates the spindles on which Torah scrolls are rolled. I stepped off 24 paces, or 24 feet, to complete the circuit around the display. The scroll is that long. The Aleppo codex is also on display there – the oldest, most complete version of the Hebrew Bible. It is the standard text from which our current text is taken with few exceptions.

The building itself was designed to illustrate the beliefs of the Essenes and replicate the place the scrolls were found. So facing the Shrine is a black monolith set atop a white stone indicating the struggle between the sons of darkness and the sons of light. The Shrine itself is a conical structure that replicates the top of some of the jars in which the scrolls were found. Water spouts up on all sides bathing the structure. The water alludes to the Essenes' emphasis on ritual purity for they bathed twice a day in the mikvah before meals. To enter the Shrine you go down a flight of stairs into a narrow passage as though you were entering the mouth of a cave. Further down this narrow passage you enter the "cave" itself, a large circular room beneath the conical roof. In the center is the copy of the Isaiah Scroll and around the walls the other manuscripts and exhibits.

In reading the explanatory material concerning the Essenes' beliefs and practices there is a lot that on first impression seems to relate to the teaching and practices of John the Baptist and Jesus. Some assert John was actually part of the Essene community. After all, he did baptize in the Jordan just north of Qumran. Like any natural body of water it could serve as a mikvah and John's baptism for repentance could well be understood in terms of ritual purification. One goes into the mikvah with one orientation and comes out with another. One is turned around, or turned towards God, which is precisely the notion of repentance. The Essenes separated themselves from the Jerusalem establishment and others who did not practice as they did. They did not eat with those outside their community, for example. The Essenes were concerned with the calendar and the approved times of the festivals (it appears they followed the lunar calendar from the first Temple period). They shared communal meals. They substituted prayers and psalms, if properly recited, for sacrifices. They believed in the cosmic conflict between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. They were militant and envisioned warfare between the forces of light and darkness going through seven seasons of conflict and much tribulation before the ultimate victory of the sons of light. Then, they would experience eternal redemption. All in all the themes sound similar.

But upon further reflection the differences begin to make a greater impression. Neither John nor Jesus seemed to have a program of separating themselves from others who did not share their purity. Indeed, Jesus seemed to have had a program of doing the opposite. John's call to repentance was not for the righteous but the unrighteous. And in seeking the lost sheep of the House of Israel, Jesus deliberately ministered to the ritually impure and notorious sinners. Though John baptized, as did the disciples of Jesus, it did not seem to be a daily, or twice daily ritual, but a single immersion indicating a reorientation to the Kingdom of God. It was done once and after that one was cleansed not by water but by the word of Jesus' teaching. (John 15: 3) As for refraining to eat with the impure, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 is contrary to that. It's easy to imagine that there were many impure in such a crowd. And Jesus act of washing only the disciple's feet at the last supper almost seems like a repudiation of the Essene practice. Peter insists that he wash his whole body (thus making him ritually pure) if washing is necessary for communion with Jesus, but instead Jesus puts the emphasis on simple cleanliness (the feet being dirty from walking) and service to one another. And though Jesus may have believed in the conflict between light and darkness, he did not enlist his disciples to war against other men in literal battles that shed blood. Furthermore the Essene emphasis on the correct times of the Festivals and forms of prayer all seem to be overturned by Jesus' call to worship in spirit and in truth. "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him." (John 4: 23) It is not the outward form that counts but the inner reality. And I heard nothing at all about the Holy Spirit in the Essene teaching whereas John the Baptist announces that his ministry to Israel is to reveal the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. That one is, of course, Jesus. The Essenes did seem to think of the community as a replacement for the Temple but again their practices are oriented to maintaining an outward sanctity, separateness, and holiness. Jesus, on the other hand, emphasizes an inner sanctity and holiness from the Spirit that cannot be defiled by the things outside. If there is light within, his disciples walk in the light and do not stumble. (John 11: 9)

January 6, 2008

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. The hotel arranged a cab to take me to Bethlehem to see the Church of the Nativity. It, together with the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, and the Eleona Church on the Mount of Olives where the Pater Noster Church now stands, were all built by Constantine over cave sites venerated by earlier Christians. Thus, he memorialized the articles in the Apostles' Creed that reference Jesus' birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and return. The present Nativity Church dates to the age of Justinian and is a beautiful basilica style building. In a section of the nave they have exposed the original Constantinian mosaics, several feet below the present floor. They are exquisite. Unfortunately, the asp is obscured by the iconostastis placed there by the Greek Orthodox who control most of the site. Several large tours were waiting to enter the grotto beneath the altar. My guide, however, who had been secured in advance by my driver, managed to get me in before the crowds. It was apparent the guide was well known to the attendant. Inside the cave, which is large enough to hold 30 or more people I estimate, I saw the place of Jesus' birth now marked by a silver star on the stone floor and opposite it the shelf on which the Magi are reputed to have laid their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh that they offered him this very day, for the Epiphany does mark the day of their visit.

Exiting the grotto I viewed the Armenian altar to the left of the main altar. Then, my guide took me through the side door into the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Catherine that is immediately adjacent to the Nativity Church. It was filled with worshipers for the service on this feast day was already in progress. We descended by a stairs at the right rear of the nave to the caves below. First, I was shown the place where Joseph slept when the angel appeared in a dream warning Jesus to take the child to Egypt for Herod was plotting to kill the child. Beneath that are tombs where early Christians were buried and also a cave of the "Holy Innocents," the tomb where the children slain by Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus were buried. Nearby is another cave converted into a chapel where it is said Saint Jerome created the first Latin Bible, known as the Vulgate Version, by translating it from the original tongues of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.

At the end of the tour I felt obliged to buy something at the shop of the man who had facilitated the tour with my driver and arranged for the guide. I bought a Jerusalem Cross made of silver and inlaid with opal and a chain for Rachel. I paid 60 dollars U.S., which in my estimation was way overpriced. But considering the stories I had been hearing of how difficult it is for people to make a living in Bethlehem, especially where tourism has been greatly affected by the Intifada and the building of the barrier by the Israelis, I considered it something of a charitable donation.

As we entered Bethlehem, we had stopped to see the Shepherd's Field where the angel's had appeared to the shepherds on the evening of Jesus' birth. There is a small chapel there with some lovely mosaics depicting the events. There are also the ruins of a monastery and church from the 5th century or so. The landscape is rather dramatic and, of course, there is a cave where the shepherds stayed with their sheep at night. It is not hard to imagine an angel appearing in such a place. I wish I could see it at night for the sky must be filled with stars, though lights from the modern urban sprawl on the hills surrounding probably diminishes the view of the night sky.

After visiting the Church of the Nativity and the one obligatory gift shop, my driver took me to another shop to see some old icons. It was near Kendo's shop (which was closed that day), he being famous for obtaining some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other antiquities. I did see an icon I considered buying as a memorial for George Clark. It shows the risen Jesus in the center and 12 scenes around the sides. The 12 scenes were the 12 Festivals of the Orthodox liturgical year. I was told it was 19th Century Russian from Saint Petersburg. It was quite lovely and only $2700-$2500 to me, being a priest. I took the information and said I would consider it. I was told he would give me a certificate of authenticity. It didn't reassure me that he had a booklet of blank certificates at the ready on his desk to be filled out.

From there my driver took me on to Herodian, a fortress/summer palace built by Herod the Great. It is only a short drive from Bethlehem to the east towards the Dead Sea. The hill on which the Upper Palace and fortress was built stood alone on the surrounding plain and Herod had to top leveled and the sides filled to make a conical shape. It had four large towers and a circular wall enclosing the entire top of the hill. The rooms and amenities such as a large banquet hall, Roman style baths, and private apartments were several stories below inside the walls. The site, being 300 feet above the desert floor, commands a spectacular 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside. From the ramparts one can see all the way to Jerusalem to the north and to the Dead Sea to the east. There is also a Lower Palace complex at the base of the hill with a very large pool area. The Lower Palace has not been fully excavated but even so its dimensions are impressive. The whole site was the largest palace complex in the Roman world at the time of its building. With it's pools and gardens Herod had recreated Gan Eden (Paradise) here in the Judean desert. Well, maybe not completely for his own tomb had been discovered just last year on the midway up the hillside on the north side facing Jerusalem.

Upon returning to Jerusalem I went back to the City of David. I hadn't properly located the Gihon Spring the first time so I wanted to see where it was in relation to the Temple. It is covered by a springhouse that the public cannot presently enter. The Spring is roughly midway down the Ophel, the name given to the hill upon which the ancient city is built, on the Kidron Valley floor. The valley is narrow there and the hill opposite rises quickly to heights greater then the Ophel. In ancient times caves in that hillside where used to bury the dead. More recently houses have been built there and it is part of the Arab neighborhood of Silwan. I retraced my steps up the Ophel into the archeological park where one can enter Hezekiah's tunnel by descending straight down a flight of stairs into the interior of the Ophel. Again I chose not to walk though the water in Hezekiah's tunnel to the Pool of Siloam but exited through the more ancient Canaanite tunnel that no longer carries water. It may very well be the tunnel through which David's men entered the city when they captured it from the Jebusites. I ended the day by returning to the Wailing Wall to pray. Tomorrow I may go up on the Temple Mount. I spoke to a woman who had done so today and had no difficulty except for the fact that none of the mosques are open to visitors these days it seems. I had wanted to see the interior of both the Dome of the Rock (the Mosque of Omar) and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

I had several thoughts come to me today.

1.When Hezekiah diverted the Gihon Spring in 701 B.C. in preparation for Sennacherib's siege of the city and created a pool just inside the wall at the southern end of the city of David where the Pool of Siloam is, I wonder did he create the pool or simply channel more water to it? If I read 2 Kings 20:20 correctly he "made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city." The original Siloam, then, was Hezekiah's work. Now his name in Hebrew means, Yahweh is my strength and 2 Kings 18:5 says, "He trusted in the God of Israel." So, I wonder if there is some significance to the fact that Jesus sent the blind man to this specific pool. Why not send him to Bethsaida where the lame man was healed. The healing does take place right after Sukkot before Jesus leaves Jerusalem (if he leaves before Dedication which is the next feast mentioned). The waters of the Gihon that feed Siloam are used for the water drawing ceremony at Sukkot. By sending him to Siloam is Jesus making some allusion to Hezekiah and trusting in Yahweh alone? The healing did spark a controversy about Jesus and where he comes from. The blind man who received his sight said in response to his inquisitors that Jesus must trust in Yahweh and come from him or he could not do such things. For that they cast him out of the Temple. Odd, but that casting him out reminds me that Hezekiah at the beginning of his reign cleansed the Temple from the apostasies of his father Ahaz and restored it to the worship of Yahweh alone. Is Jesus identifying himself with this righteous king and his program of restoring the pure worship of Yahweh?

There is a lovely ending of the story. Jesus asks the blind man if he believes in the Son of Man. The blind man answers, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus replies, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you." So, having been blind from birth, one of the first people he is able to see is the Son of Man (after his parents and the council that questioned him).

2. Now that I have seen that Bethlehem is south of Jerusalem, I am thinking of the spatial relationships (including the churches built over these sites). I would draw the scheme like this: The Temple is in the center on Mount Moriah. To the north is the alternate site of Jesus death and burial, the Protestant Golgatha and Garden Tomb. To the west is the traditional site of these events, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Also to the west is The Upper room on Mount Zion. To the east on the Mount of Olives is the Eleona church and the site of the Ascension. To the south in Bethlehem is the Church of the Nativity. Again the Temple is the center around which the key events in the life of Jesus revolve. The Temple Mount (Moriah) is the place where the Father has made his name to dwell. The significant events in the Son's life surround this place of that Name. And the Spirit too is given on Zion (in the Upper Room) another place associated with the Son and his work on behalf of the Father.

January 7, 2008

I set off for the Temple Mount today with some trepidation. I was there by 9 A.M. and things were very quiet. It isn't possible for tourists to enter the mosques now but they permit you to walk the grounds. There are guards at the gates and on patrol through the grounds so I felt safe. Signs at the entrance I used by the Western Wall warn Jews that the chief Rabbinate has forbidden them to enter. No reason is given but I suppose there are two. They do not want to incite more hostility than already exists. And, there is the issue of purity. Every Jew is considered ritually impure today having been defiled by contact with the dead. One must be ritually pure to appear before Yahweh in the place where he makes his Name to dwell. Since the ritual that would remove this impurity is impossible to perform at the moment, the ceremony of being sprinkled with water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer, the prohibition has been enacted. The reason the ritual cannot be performed is that no pure red heifers exist though they are trying to breed them in Israel. Nevertheless, I saw one old Hasid and one young one walking alone through the Mount. The police do not stop them but fall into stride with them and escort them all the while. From the looks of it this happens often enough that they have a plan in place to forestall any confrontations.

I walked to the southeastern end of the mount to see where the new mosque had been constructed in the underground rooms known as Solomon's Stables. The vaulted chambers do not date to the days of King Solomon for they are part of the Herodian expansion. It appears the work is largely completed for the paved plaza and broad stairs leading down to the entrance doors have all been finished. I then walked along the eastern wall in the area that would have been Solomon's Portico in which Jesus taught when he went to the Temple. Now there are many olive trees and pines growing there. In fact the Temple Mount is the only park within the old city walls. The walls are 2 ½ miles in length and the city they enclose is entirely built upon or paved – a warren of streets and alleys, homes, churches, synagogues, mosques, schools and shops. Perhaps there are inner courtyards in some places but none that can be seen by the passerby. So there is no green. All is stone except for the Temple Mount. The western side of the mount is all paved in stone, as is the southern end, but the eastern and northern sides are park-like. That is fitting I suppose for the place that is supposed to be the site of Gan-Eden (for the Jews) and emblematic of paradise (for the Muslims).

I exited by the northeastern gate that is close to the Lion's Gate. From there I headed north on the street outside the wall to the Rockefeller Museum. It is now the headquarters of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. It is just across the street from the northeastern corner of the city wall. It exhibits artifacts from the earliest human habitations in Israel up through the early Islamic period in the 7th century C.E. I was struck by the partial skulls of two of our forbearers on display, one a proto-human 5-year old male from about 200,000 B.C.E., and the other an archaic Homo sapiens from about 100,000 B.C.E. It is hard to fathom how deep human history is, how many generations have lived before us enabling us to see this day. What we know of human civilization is a relatively brief span of time. Around 10,000 B.C.E. the development of agriculture allowed for settled villages and eventuality cities. Written languages are even more recent, around 2,000 B.C.E. or so. The Bible as we have it begins with the story of the great advance from nomadic life to settled societies. The scope of the human story is vast in time though we share the same space. On this ground that I am walking others have walked before for tens even hundreds of thousands of years. What thoughts did they have? What hopes? What dreams? How did they love and whom? This life is a mystery and the more I study it the less I understand it.

From there I went back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to walk around and observe the crowds. It was a contrast to the serenity of the Temple Mount but I suppose if one went to Mecca one would see this kind of fervor for a site specific holy place and even more so. I must say I felt more holiness in those ancient skulls of our ancestors at the Rockefeller Museum than in these cold stone slabs of marble that mark the place where Jesus was taken from the cross and then buried.

I finished the day by walking the district to the north and west of the old city, just below the Russian Quarter. There are lots of shops and restaurants in this area. I even saw a McDonald's - a sure sign I had found civilization again, our modern version of it anyway. I walked from 8 A.M. until 3:30 P.M. and did not sit once. I wander through the streets without much of a plan other than to take in all I see and hear. Tomorrow I will sit mostly for I have booked a tour to Masada, En Gedi, and the Dead Sea. I am really looking forward to seeing this desert landscape. So far I have only seen it on the horizon from a distance. Tomorrow we will drive into it.

In the foyer of the Rockefeller Museum they had a special exhibit from the collection of the Israel museum (since it is closed for the moment for renovations). It was on gods and homes. The homes in question were homes for the departed (ossuaries), and homes for the gods (temples, though it was the gods who were displayed and not the temples). The home is the place of safety and security the exhibit asserted. I thought of that text from 2 Kings 18: 31-33. When the envoy from Sennacherib tried to convince Jerusalem to surrender he said, "Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink of his own cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive tress and honey, that you may live and not die." It is a reference to living in one's own home first and foremost and then also in one's own homeland. The gods are suppose to secure one in his home and land but the envoy went on to say Israel should not trust in Yahweh to protect them for, "Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the King of Assyria?"

So the houses are related: private houses; the nation's house (the land); god's house (the temple of the god(s) of the land and of the people); the houses of the departed (tombs). You can see them all in a glance here in Jerusalem. You see the houses of the people on every hillside. You see the Kinnesset on a hill west of the old city – the house of the nation. You see the houses of Allah and Yahweh and Jesus. And, of course, at every turn there are the cemeteries that house the dead. Jerusalem has been described as one vast necropolis, and rightly so. There are more dead here than living. It reminds me of home. We have our home. Next to it is the house of God – my church. On the other side of our house is the Borough Hall. And set between these houses is our Memorial Garden where our dead our housed.

Two statues in particular struck me in the exhibit. The first was one of Artemis (Diana of the Ephesians) that stood about 5 feet tall and was in excellent condition. She is the great mother goddess. The description said it was once believed she was depicted with many breasts but a necklace of amber with many lobes that was found in one of her temples suggests otherwise. What appear to be many breasts are really the lobes of the necklace she is wearing. Does it make any difference? The lobes surely symbolize breasts or at least the necklace accentuates the breasts. Mother god. We wake up to her and we die calling out for her. In between we struggle to separate from her and have a life apart from her. From what I have seen of the churches here mother has won the struggle. We couldn't separate from her after all. Maybe Jesus was the only one who did. Just now I opened to John 19: 26-27 where from the cross he says to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!" And to John he says, "Behold your mother!" He does not call her his mother but John's. And from the cross he cries out to the Father and not to his mother.

The other statue that impressed me was of Baal standing upon a bull. It, too, was in great condition. The description said Baal was a storm god and also a god of fertility (the bull). I thought of Elijah at Mount Carmel and his contest with the priests of Baal. They were trying to get rain because there had been none for three years and the resulting famine was very severe. So rain from heaven causes the earth to bear fruit. It fertilizes the soil in the same way the male fertilizes the female with his sperm causing her to bear the fruit of offspring. In these images I could see the overriding concern for physical wellbeing – life, sustenance, nurture, fecundity – being the spiritual issues. Gods and goddesses who couldn't keep men safe in their homes, or make the rain to fall causing the earth to produce, or secure offspring for man and beast were of little use to ancients. Yahweh is not different than these gods. Does he not give the rains? Does he not nurture and save and protect? Does he not open the womb of the barren woman? Does he not save the nation and restore it when it has been sent into exile? What of Jesus and the Spirit? How do they relate to these gods?

January 8, 2008

Today I took a tour down to the Dead Sea, the lowest place below sea level on earth. The western side of the sea is Israel; the eastern is Jordan. Israel is part of the African continental plate and Jordan is part of the Asian. The Dead Sea is on the Great Rift Valley that starts down in Africa and runs all the way up to Turkey. So are the Jordon River and the Sea of Galilee. The continents are slowly separating here with the Asian moving north and the African moving south.

In the past the climate was much wetter and in those days there was a great lake that stretched from the Galilee to the Dead Sea. But as the climate turned drier and the rainfall diminished the one lake became the two seas connected by the one river. This was fortuitous for human habitation since the sediments left behind in the Jordon River Valley are suitable for agriculture and the river itself provided water for crops. Thus, a place like Jericho was settled 10,000 years ago and is one of, if not the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It sits on a relatively broad plain on the west bank of the Jordon just north of the place where the river empties into the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is so named because it has no outlet. Consequently it is filled with salt and minerals, the salt content alone being about 32%. Because so much of the water of the Sea of Galilee is being diverted for human use, less is flowing into the Dead Sea and its level has dropped considerably. This is quite evident for the ancient shoreline is near the present roadway but the present shoreline is a distance away. In between are salt and mineral flats. Signs warn people not to walk across them for there are sinkholes everywhere. The level of the Dead Sea has dropped sufficiently that the southern end of it is separated from the northern and that southern end is used for harvesting salt and minerals. Masada is near the southern end and you can clearly see the divide when you stand on the mount.

Perhaps there was an earlier fortress on the mount, but Herod built a palace and fortress there during his reign. It is impressive but it isn't certain Herod ever used it. Its present claim to fame comes from the fact that in 73 A.D. the Romans besieged it to defeat the last remaining stronghold of Jewish Zealots from the revolt that began in 66 A.D. The Romans built a huge siege ramp up to the walls on the western side and brought up a battering ram to breach the walls. When the Zealots realized their defeat was certain, their leaders convinced them to die rather than be taken captive. So they drew lots and chose 10 men to kill the others. The others, numbering 1,000, the men, their wives, and their children, lay down as the 10 came to slit their throats (the method used in Kosher butchering, I gather). When the 10 were left they drew lots again and one killed the other 9. The last man killed himself. One woman and 5 children survived by hiding in a cave and she lived to tell the tale.

The Romans then occupied the site until the early 2nd century. For 300 years the site was abandoned until some Christian monks moved there in the 5th century. They lived in the caves on the mount or on the hillside and built a small chapel for their worship. They in turn abandoned the site in the 7th century presumably because of the Muslim incursion. The site was rediscovered in the 19th century but it is only since 1948 that the site has become a kind of national symbol for the State of Israel. The place evokes the spirit of the Zealots who sought to be free and fearlessly fought a greater enemy even to the point of death. Inductees for the Israeli Defense Force are taken there for their oath of allegiance it seems.

To tell the truth, I was more moved by the story of the monks. Our guide didn't dwell on that at all, nor did the guides of the other tours from what I could tell. Most of the groups were college students from the U.S. on the Birthright Tours. These tours are free to the students, being funded by philanthropy and the state, and are meant to encourage, or at least plant the seeds, for emigration. So, none were interested in the Christian presence on the mount that had lasted longer than the Jewish or Roman presence and was undistinguished by its lack of conflict. One tends not to get excited by 200 years of peace when the drama of the Roman siege can still be clearly seen in the ramp and the remnants of the walls of their camps around the base of the mount.

We went from there to En Gedi where some went for a float in the Dead Sea. Because of the salt content it is impossible to sink. There is a story that the Roman general Titus during a boat ride on the sea had several soldiers who could not swim bound and thrown overboard to test that fact. Sure enough the men bobbed to the surface and survived. I tested the fact by watching others voluntarily throwing themselves into its waters. It was an overcast day so the scenery was not as dramatic as it otherwise would have been. I did meet a charming young couple from Zimbabwe who had moved to London because of the troubles there. They asked me to take their picture. We chatted about the dismal state of affairs in their native country. They were wistful for Africa. Her parents still live there and are reluctant to leave. Yes, I said, Africa is a bit of a paradise isn't it? They agreed, and that is the paradox, he added.

On the way back I was able to catch a glimpse of Qumran at the northwestern end of the sea just below Jericho. It isn't as far out of the way as I had imagined. With the new four-lane highway Jericho is only a thirty-minute ride from Jerusalem and Qumran another ten minutes. On foot, however, it would have been a difficult trek from Jericho uphill through the barren hills. It is not all that hard to imagine being beset by robbers in this place, as was the man in Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan. Bedouin live on the hillsides along the wadis even today and their camps are readily visible. They no longer live in tents so much as huts made out of discarded materials of every sort, especially corrugated steel. Our guide said they orient their "tents" so that there is a north and a south entrance with a divide in between the two sides. One side is for the men and the other for the women. It makes me wonder if Abraham's tent was so divided and Sara was on one side listening at her door when the angels spoke of her conceiving a child. Our guide, who seemed to have some disdain for the Bedouin, said the women do all the chores and the men sit around and drink coffee and entertain guests. Isn't that what Abraham did? And Sara did serve them.

My reflections on the day are as follows:

1. Water. You can see in a place like the Judean desert how essential it is. As much as possible water must be collected, stored, and used sparingly. Herod had very large cisterns carved into the interior of the mountain and gathered water in channels from the higher hills to the west of Masada to fill these cisterns. It doesn't rain much but enough to sustain life if the water can be collected. You can also see why "living" water is important. Living water is flowing water. Because there is no flow to the Dead Sea it becomes saline and can't support life. It is a beautiful big lake and anywhere else in the world you could imagine it being ringed with homes and filled with boats – sail boats and powerboats. Here there are none. Those that are used for commercial purposes must be drawn out of the water after use or else they too quickly corrode.

2. Women. The way the story of the Zealots is told the men decided to die and kill their wives and children so that they would not have to endure abuse and slavery. Did the women have a say? I find myself admiring the one who hid with the children rather than lying down and accepting death. And then there are the Bedouin women who are, apparently, the workhorses for the family. It makes me think that of the three main divisions Paul says Christ overcomes – Jew/Gentile, male/female, slave/free – this one, the male/female one, is still the basic division and the one with more conflict than the others. I think of my driver Michael who took me to Bethlehem the other day. He lives in Jerusalem with his mother and brother. She raised the boys because their father left when they were young. Now the boys care for her. It is not a dramatic story like the siege of Masada, but how many more casualties are there in these domestic wars between men and women than in all other conflicts?

It does make me think that Jesus' ministry was unusual. Women traveled with him. Women supported him from their own means. Women were at the last supper, I suppose, but we aren't told that. Women were at the cross and burial. Women were the first witnesses to the resurrection. Women were at Pentecost and received the Spirit just as the men did. Even with the subsequent layers of tradition that have tended to impose more restrictions on women there is obviously more freedom for women in Christianity than in observant Muslim or Jewish groups.

Yesterday at Masada our guide, when commenting on the Birthright Tour groups, spoke of culture and affiliation. He said in effect one can be culturally a Jew but the tours are aimed at affiliation, an identification with the land and its history leading, hopefully, to a commitment to living in the land and adopting its values. He declined to say just what those values are in that context of the tour group. But in retrospect one could say the same about Christians. We might culturally be Christians but are we also affiliated with Jesus? Have we adopted his values and have we committed to following in his ways? What I seem to see here in the bigger shrines drawing the masses of pilgrims is a cultural identification primarily. This is most evident in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the Greeks control the altar at Golgatha and the tomb, and the Latins have the chapels next to them, and the Armenians have a chapel on the left side of the tomb and the Copts have one behind the tomb. The Abyssinians are outside the door and the Syrians behind the rotunda. The cultural expressions are more noticeable at first glance than any sign of a deep affiliation with Jesus. After all, if there was a deeper affiliation would not these cultural attachments be secondary, diminished, or even eliminated, rather than be so dominate?

I read an interesting article in the paper last night about Christians in Cana. Their numbers have dwindled and so the Greek Catholics who follow the Latin rites and calendar and the Greek Orthodox have agreed to worship together at Christmas and Easter. They celebrate Christmas on December 25, the Latin date, and then celebrate Easter on the Orthodox date. The priests say they do this to lessen the mockery of their Muslim neighbors who say Jesus was born twice and raised twice. Yes, how foolish we look to those outside when we cling to our traditions more so than to Christ – our cultures rather than our essential affiliation. True to form the article quoted some official from the Greek orthodox Patriarch's office in Jerusalem saying there is no need to give up on tradition. The patriarch himself observed, "People will do what they want." The article noted the Greek clergy come from Greece and aren't familiar with the social realities in a place like Cana. Jesus attended a marriage there and changed water into wine - a sign pointing to the Spirit. It makes me think now that water represents our tradition and wine the Holy Spirit. We will not be "married" to each other as cultural Christians until our "water" is changed by Jesus into "wine" and we attain affiliation with and through him.

January 9, 2008

I started the day by walking to the Bible Lands Museum next to the Israel Museum and opposite the Kennesset. The sign said that it would be closed on the 10th and 11th due to President Bush's visit but it was closed today as well. So I headed back to the old city by way of Rambam Street. Police and soldiers were everywhere for good reason. It is the route the President will take to enter the city. As I was walking I saw a whole entourage of empty cars – 2 limos, vans, buses, police in cars, and on motorcycles going out to meet him. Presumably he came by helicopter from the airport in Tel Aviv to some place on the grounds of the government complex. The President's entry into Jerusalem wasn't quite as unsophisticated and humble as one man on a donkey with branches and garments being strewn in his way. I read in the paper that his visit is costing the U.S. $40 million and an undisclosed sum for the Israelis. They have 8,000 police and troops out in the streets. From what I could see they mostly look bored. I took a picture of two soldiers on top of the western wall of the old city facing the King David Hotel where the President was staying. They were on guard there.

When I got back to the old city I went first to the Church of the Dormition and sat there for some time looking at the mosaics. The asp has a large Madonna and child with the quote from Mathew about the virgin bearing a son and naming him Emmanuel. Below it are mosaics of the various prophets who predicted the birth of the Messiah.

I moved on to the Coenaculum next door and spent some time praying. Maybe it isn't the place of Pentecost. The texts aren't specific enough and I suppose that would be fitting for the Spirit doesn't descend upon a place but upon people as he did upon the 120 that day. So it would be futile to say this is the one place, the one and only place (well here there are two of everything) where the Spirit came down. He comes down upon whomever believes and receives the Spirit from Jesus, wherever they may be.

I then walked to the Jaffa Gate and did a portion of the wall walk from the Jaffa Gate south along the western side of the old city and then along the southern side as far as the Dung Gate, which is as far as one may go in that direction these days. It affords some marvelous views but it was overcast again today and not good for taking pictures. While on the walkway I heard a guide telling the Jewish family she was touring that in 1850 the Ottomans got so tired of the fighting between the Greek, Coptic, Armenian, and Latin Christians over the Holy Sepulchre that they decreed what is, is what will be. So the Greeks control most of the site with the Latins, Copts, Armenians all their bits and pieces. I suppose the Syrians and Abyssinians control so little they weren't worth mentioning.

Walking back towards the Jaffa Gate I stopped at the Museum of the Armenian Holocaust. Well, it is more a museum of Armenian history. I was the lone visitor. It was informative. Now I understand a little of their history. Armenians have been living in this quarter of the old city for a very long time, from before the Crusades, for some of the Crusader Kings of Jerusalem married Armenian women from Jerusalem. The Armenian Church broke from the Orthodox Patriarchy in the 6th century C.E. or so. They renounced the decision of the Council of Chalcedon that spoke of Jesus having two natures (divine and human) in one person. They sided with Cyril for the view that he has one divine nature, the Word Incarnate.

From the Armenian Museum I went back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to see what I could see. I took a path through the Jewish and Arab quarters and wandered down a street in the Arab quarter that I hadn't been on before. Its shops were mostly meat and vegetable markets. The meat was hanging at the front of each stall and the butchers were trimming it to order.

When I reached the Holy Sepulchre I sat in the Latin Chapel where Jesus was nailed to the cross. When the line cleared I went to touch the stone of Golgotha again in the Greek Chapel. Between the two is a rather dramatic depiction of a sword piercing Mary's heart based upon the text of Luke 2:35. It is a statue and not an icon, enclosed in a marble and glass case. Her face is realistically rendered with a look of startle and pain. I then touched the stone under the altar at Golgotha. From there I descended the stairs to take a closer look at the Coptic chapel behind the tomb itself. There was no crowd gathered this time so I looked in and saw on the floor a white stone inscribed in English, "Coptic tomb of Jesus." So, yes, there are two of everything here, sometimes, even three. Every so often two monks emerge from this tiny chapel with censers and first cense it and then go to the slab of marble where Christ was laid out and prepared from burial after being taken down from the cross and then they go up the stairs and cense Golgotha. No one seems to pay them much mind as they go about their business.

On the way to the Holy Sepulchre I bought a pendant for Janet in a shop next to the 7th Station on the Via Delarosa. It is where Jesus falls the second time and Simon of Cyrene is pressed in to service to carry his cross. The pendant is silver with the Messianic Seal of the Jerusalem Church on a background of roman glass fragments. The seal is a very early Christian symbol depicting the menorah, the Star of David and a fish with a tiny cross for its eye. I like it because it clearly expresses the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. It is the only Messianic Seal I have seen here. I wasn't going to buy it at first, thinking Janet is allergic to silver, but the shopkeeper was insistent. Over a cup of tea he told me he was a non-practicing Muslim who had studied engineering in Waco, Texas. He had returned to run his family's shop. Business was slow because of President Bush's arrival. Many tours had been cancelled owing to the restrictions on traffic. So, he sold it to me for 450 New Israeli Shekels. I don't know if I got a bargain or made another charitable donation. Well, it is unusual anyway. Now I have met two shopkeepers, both non-practicing Muslims. I wonder if that is unusual, or do they say that for the benefit of their Christian patrons?

My reflections for the day are these. This place seems to embody the sentiments of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.

For everything there is a season,

and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant,

and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill,

and a time to heal;

a time to break down,

and a time to build up;

a time to mourn,

and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones,

and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace,

and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek,

and a time to lose;

a time to keep,

and a time to cast away;

a time to tear;

and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence,

and a time to speak;

a time to love,

and a time to hate;

a time for war,

and a time for peace.

Tonight with the President in town people are hoping it is a time for peace. Not everyone is tired of war and there are those who want to press on in their cause. But the sense I get from the majority here is that they only want peace so that they can be born, plant, build up, laugh, dance, gather stones (they are everywhere here), embrace, seek, keep, sew, speak, and above all love. I did feel like the Preacher (Solomon) today, though, who reflected on the vanity of it all. "I the Preacher have been King over Israel in Jerusalem. And I have applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of men to be busy with. I have seen everything under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind." (Ecclesiastes 1:12-14) "For we are from the dust, and to dust all return." (Ecclesiastes 3: 20) Why do we strive so against one another if that is the case? No one can claim victory for the victor will die like the vanquished. Would that we could embrace one another as those who will sleep in the dust together, and as long as we have breath, cherish one another.

January 10, 2008

Today was extremely foggy at the outset. Fog had filled the valleys and settled over the old city so that it was completely invisible. But the fog soon lifted and the day was cold and partly cloudy.

I started the day with prayers at the Wailing Wall and then returned to the Rockefeller Museum. I thought it would be best to do something indoors in this weather, though the museum isn't heated and was as cold and as damp as the outside. I wanted to see those two skulls again of the archaic Homo sapiens. They struck me as being sacred, no, more sacred than any other objects I have seen in this land. I stood in reverence before them. Then I walked through the progression of artifacts starting with the oldest. These were stone and flint tools and instruments used by hunter-gatherers. Agriculture developed around 10,000 B.C.E. and along with that, permanent settlements, burial of the dead, and organized religion. Pottery didn't arrive until about 8,000 B.C.E. Then came the smelting of copper and tin for bronze (3,300 B.C.E.) and iron (1,300 B.C.E.). At any rate, one got the impression of an accelerated pace, if one can call several thousand years an accelerated pace, of invention and cultural sophistication. Glass was the latest of the innovations coming via the Romans in the 1st century B.C.E. We live as benefactors of an incredibly long and slow process of human development and are the inheritors of a vast accumulated body of knowledge and wisdom. It is hard to fathom and equally hard to know how to express appreciation for our privileged position.

From there I walked over to St. George's Anglican Cathedral just for a look. They have a guesthouse attached where many Anglicans and Episcopalians stay when in Jerusalem and a "college" that offers abbreviated study courses for pilgrims or those on sabbatical like myself. I could see the Cathedral was a vibrant place during the British Mandate ((1920-1948) when the English governed Palestine. The chairs had needlepoint cushions naming a host of English towns and parish churches. A homey touch, that. But today I wonder how the parish does. The past three Bishops have been local Arabs so I am sure there has been an attempt to make it an indigenous church. Considering the dwindling Christian population here I doubt that is going well.

After that I headed over to King George Street through the Russian Compound to find some pens. That took more hunting than one might suppose. Though one can buy food nearly everywhere in restaurants and little hole-in-the-wall shops, other goods are harder to come by.

I did meet some interesting young people at breakfast. There were two couples in their early 30's and one man. The two couples are from California and the man had been a missionary in Qatar for 5 years but is moving to Saudi Arabia. He works in business as a cover but is really a missionary. They are all Baptists of some sort. I shared my background, having grown up as a Baptist in a minister's household, and they were curious about what was happening in the Episcopal Church. Kendal, the missionary, had heard of Bishop Spong, my former Bishop, so I told him my experience of him. I shared with another, Neal, about healing because he had mentioned deliverance and said he had brought people to a protégé of John Wimber at Fuller Seminary for prayer. It was good to see these young people and their devotion and sincerity. Mathew was working on a doctoral dissertation on confession and why it had fallen into disuse in Baptist circles. He said he was interested because he and his wife Tamara had started a church called Sandals and their focus is on being "real." It brought me back to my college days when I too was struck by that verse in James that says, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." (James 5:16) I too wondered why we had given that up? Well, perhaps we'll have more conversations. Kendall speaks and reads Arabic so I would like to get his views on things. I am curious to know about the name Allah. Is it a proper name? Is it a generic name for God? I'd be curious on his take as to whether or not we worship the same God.

My reflections on this day are as follows. While at the Wailing Wall this morning I had this thought. None of Jesus' deliverances (exorcisms) occur in Jerusalem that I can think of. I suppose deliverance was on my mind from the discussion at breakfast. And John doesn't record one (nor does he record the Temptation). Why is that I wonder? And I also wondered whether in John there is some recapitulation of the Exodus/Wilderness/Promised Land narrative with baptism representing the Exodus, followed by the Galilean (Wilderness) type ministry and then the Judean (Promised Land). I don't know.

A quick check of the chronology of John reveals this. John the Baptist ministered at Bethany across the Jordon and it was there Jesus was baptized. John's baptism was for repentance so it relates to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It also relates to crossing the Red Sea where the ones who went down into the waters and came out on the other side (as in a Mikvah, or ritual bath) were reoriented to Yahweh rather than to the gods of the Egyptians. Israel became a nation then, a kingdom under Yahweh. Following his baptism Jesus went to the Galilee where he called his first disciples and attended the wedding in Cana. Is Galilee the Wilderness where Jesus the new Moses gathers and leads his people? This relates to Sukkot. And though he doesn't strike the rock to quench their thirst he does change water into wine with the promise he will quench their thirst for the Spirit of God. Next he appears in Jerusalem for Passover and cleanses the Temple and is visited by Nicodemus. Moses did tell Pharaoh that Israel needed to go into the wilderness to worship their God. And Jesus' "cleansing" of the Temple seems to have been an attempt to purify the worship and "deliver" the Temple from the element of commerce. Traveling back to Galilee Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman. Is that to emphasize that though the Samaritans had been separated from mainstream Judaism, their ancestors too had come up out of Egypt and were part of the nation? Returning to Cana he encounters an official that seeks him out because his son is dying. Jesus speaks a word and the son is healed. The text does not say it was his firstborn but I wonder if this is not the reverse of that last terrible plague – the 10th – the death of the firstborn males that led to the Exodus.

Next Jesus goes again to Jerusalem for what appears to be Shavuot and heals the lame man at Bethsaida and teaches on the witnesses to Jesus including Moses' testimony. "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." (John 5:46) Or perhaps it was Hanukkah or Purim for otherwise there is a long time gap, from summer to the following spring, for the text says he had returned to Galilee and now the Passover was near. These other festivals would indicate a shorter time between winter and early spring. At any rate, upon his return he feeds the 5,000 and then the 4,000 and teaches on the bread from heaven. Jesus makes plain in his teaching that these feedings stand in relation to the mana in the Wilderness with this difference. The mana sustained the physical body. The food he provides is the bread of life that gives eternal life. From then on the narrative has Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem. He appears first at Sukkot and teaches about living water, forgives the woman caught in adultery, claims to be the light of the world, foretells his death, claims to have existed before Abraham, heals a man born blind, and professes to be the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. None of these things endear him to the establishment so he is rejected at the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah). He then retires to Bethany across the Jordon but soon returns prior to Passover to raise Lazarus. That prompts the hierarchy to plot to kill him and the rest is history, as they say. He comes to Jerusalem for Passover, enters in triumph, is betrayed, eats his last meal with his disciples, is arrested, tried, convicted and crucified. Yet, those things and people we want to kill just don't stay dead. Nor did he. He rose, appeared to the disciples, and breathed out the Holy Spirit upon them.

I also did a quick check of the Synoptic Gospels (Mathew, Mark, and Luke). They don't speak of miracles done by Jesus in Jerusalem either, nor any deliverances. Jerusalem seems to be reserved for the death and resurrection – the place where prophets are killed. Galilee though does seem to have the wilderness themes. Feeding of the crowds. The Transfiguration - Moses like. The Beatitudes – a new Law given on a mount. Healings and deliverance – perhaps related to several healing stories during the Wilderness journey like the raising of the bronze serpent.

In contrast, the Book of Acts begins with a miracle in the Temple of a man lame from birth being healed by Peter and John. Then, the disciples performed many healings in Jerusalem, where people even laid the sick in the streets so that Peter's shadow might fall on them. People from surrounding villages brought the sick to Jerusalem to be healed. This was the case until the stoning of Stephen and then it ended, apparently, for the disciples moved out of Jerusalem and did signs and wonders in other places. Philip did so in Samaria. Paul and Barnabas soon would among the Gentiles. So the scenario seems to be this: Jesus did signs and wonders outside of Jerusalem save for the two recorded in John's Gospel; Jesus dies and is raised and grants the Spirit all in Jerusalem; the apostles do signs and wonders in Jerusalem and are persecuted in return; they move out to Samaria and then the world doing signs and wonders wherever they go. This pattern is in accord with the commission Jesus gave to them on the mountain in Galilee following his resurrection.

January 11, 2008

I began the day by taking the Western Wall tunnel tour. That was well worth it. We were shown the massive stone, the largest discovered so far, from Herod's reconstruction of the Temple, 61 feet in length, 10 feet high, and 10-15 feet in width. It is estimated to weigh 500 tons. The mountain rises above the point where it is set so it was quarried from above and then rolled down into place. What interested me the most were the gates. We saw Warren's Gate, named after the English engineer that rediscovered it in the mid 19th century. The guide said they had recently discovered a manuscript in the Cairo Synagogue that refers to it as Judah's Gate. When devout Jews came back to Israel they first walked around the walls of the Temple and said prayers at each gate. From the order of the prayers scholars have concluded the gate named after Warren is Judah's Gate. I asked the guide how many gates there were in total. He wasn't certain but he said four on the Western Wall, he was told one on the northern side, there are two on the southern side, and he thinks two on the eastern side. That makes a total of nine gates to the Temple where the Presence abides.

When we got to the spot along the Western Wall that is closest to where the Holy of Holies was situated (it was closer to the Western Wall than to the eastern) we came upon elderly women praying in a sort of niche. I asked the guide if there were different hours for men and for women. He said, no, the men have a synagogue above that they pray in. The synagogue wasn't visible from below but the sight of these women praying in the depths was moving. Next we saw the water system Herod built for Antonia fortress on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. The Romans had reworked the pools by covering over them to create a marketplace. When we exited the tunnel we were on the Via Delarosa at the Church of the Flagellation. Since the flagellation of Jesus supposedly took place within the Antonia Fortress, that makes sense.

Leaving there I headed towards the Mount of Olives, stopping first at Bethsaida and the Church of Saint Anne since I was passing by. There were some teens in the church with their families who wanted to sing to test the acoustics but were too shy. So, I sang the beginning of the exultet for them to demonstrate. As I headed toward Gethsemane through the Lion's Gate, I stopped to take a picture of Saint Stephen's church. It is reputed to be on the site of the stoning of Stephen and is close by the Church of the Nations and the rock of Jesus' agony. Saint Stephen's never seems to be opened but today I saw the door ajar. When I approached a woman told me it wasn't open. I asked when it would be open and she said next week. I'll be in Tiberias then.

Proceeding down through the Kidron Valley and up the lower slope of the Mount of Olives into Gethsemane I stopped to see the Church of the Nations again. This time it wasn't as crowded. A small Korean group was just finishing their mass. When they were done I went inside the rail to touch the exposed rock face in front of the altar. Here Jesus prayed and suffered his agonies just prior to his arrest.

From there I walked up the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Pater Noster. I first checked to see if the Dome of the Ascension was open but it wasn't, this being Friday, the Muslim holy day. The dome sits within the courtyard of a mosque. But the Pater Noster Church was nearly deserted and I sat in the cave by myself for most of the time reading Jesus' teaching on the destruction of the Temple and the close of this present age. He is reputed to have given that teaching to his disciples here in this cave during the week of his passion. It is also claimed Nicodemus visited him here by night and, at least following Luke's version, he taught his disciples the Lord's Prayer.

After that I descended again, following the path of the present day Palm Sunday procession, and stopped at the Dominus Flevit chapel. It too was deserted. I continued my descent and headed towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Before entering there I ascended the bell tower of the Lutheran Church that is situated near by and enjoyed the views it affords of the whole city. Coming down from the tower, I entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and sat for some time in the Latin Chapel where Jesus was nailed to the cross. I watched the various people who came principally to touch the stone of Golgotha under the altar in the Greek Chapel in the next room. From there I headed back to St. Andrew's Guest House purchasing on my way what has become my typical dinner, hummus, dried fruit, bread, a drink, and a chocolate bar to eat as I walk from the market. I devour the chocolate since it is the first food I have eaten since breakfast.

My reflections on the day are as follows. Some months ago when I was writing to Jesus about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Father and the Son within (tabernacling within us) Jesus spoke of the 9 gates in the wall of Jerusalem. I'll have to look back at my notes but I assumed he was referring to the wall that was rebuilt by the exiles that returned from Babylon. He said, by the Spirit the Father and the Son dwell within the believer, but their presence would be too overwhelming for a person to take full force. So, there is a wall around their presence, and along the wall there are gates, 9 gates. One doesn't enter those gates but it is as if he or she is camped outside them. One can "walk" around the wall and "knock" on a gate and receive through the gate a measure of the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. There are, according to Paul, 9 gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12), and 9 fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5).

Now the present wall of the city of Jerusalem built by Suleiman the Magnificent, the 16th century Ottoman ruler, has seven gates – Sion, Dung, Golden (which is sealed), Lion's, Herod's, Damascus, and Jaffa – eight if you count the New Gate that was added in the 19th century to accommodate Christian pilgrims. But then our guide on the tour through the tunnel along the Western Wall said there were nine gates in the wall of Herod's Temple. He also said those Jews who came to Jerusalem for the first time would walk around the Temple Mount and say a prayer at each gate. So, perhaps Jesus wasn't referring to the outer walls of the city but to the walls of the Temple Mount. This makes more sense as one can readily see from the devotion of the Jews who come to pray at the wall they regard it as the place where they are nearest to the Divine Presence. As our guide said, since the Temple was destroyed the Divine Presence has radiated out to the nearest wall to the Holy of Holies itself which is the Western Wall. No one goes to the southern or the eastern wall to pray and the northern wall no longer exists.

Let's suppose one did this circuit of the wall. Where would one begin? To me the logical place would be the Golden Gate in the east that led directly up to the gate of the Temple itself. And then I would think one would head south to the southern wall then west to the western wall, proceed north to the northern wall, then east along the northern wall and finally turn south along the eastern wall to end at the Golden Gate. If I could reference that text of prayers from the Cairo synagogue I could ascertain for certain. Let's suppose this is the order and let's enumerate the gifts and fruits in Paul's order. It would look like this: Wisdom and love would be the gift and fruit related to the Golden Gate. Knowledge and joy to the second gate on the eastern wall. Faith and peace and then healing and patience would relate to the two gates on the south. Miracle and kindness, prophecy and generosity, discernment of spirits and faithfulness, and tongues and gentleness would relate to the gates on the west. Finally, interpretation of tongues and self-control would relate to the lone northern gate.

Is there any merit to this scheme, or is it a symptom of the spiritual madness that afflicts those who come to this place? There may be some relationship between these pairings, nevertheless. For example, faith and peace. I think of Jesus stilling the storm by speaking to the wind and the waves, "Peace be still!" They did cease and there was calm. Then he questioned the disciples who were afraid saying, "Where is your faith?" Knowledge and joy may bear some relationship to each other if that gate was used by the priest at Sukkot for the water drawing ceremony for the themes of that season are light (knowledge) and water (rejoicing). So, perhaps there is some connection, or perhaps I am simply making something of nothing. Making something of nothing seems to be the preoccupation of most in this godforsaken religious epicenter.

January 12, 2008

Today was a most unusual day. Through the good auspices of Wendy Dockray, one of the Wardens at my church, I met Alan Segal before I left for Israel. He lives in Ho-Ho-Kus and is a professor of religion at Barnard College. He came to Jerusalem for a symposium that begins tomorrow sponsored by Princeton Seminary. They will discuss, among other things, the recently discovered ossuaries bearing the names Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. James Charlesworth of Princeton Seminary has also arranged to give the speakers a tour of Herodian today and Qumran tomorrow. Alan invited me to tag along.

Today we first drove to Bethlehem by bus with a guide who turned out to be the grandson of Kendo, the Bethlehem antiquities dealer through whom the Dead Sea scrolls came to light. The Bedouin who found the scrolls brought them to Kendo who in turn sold them to the various parties who now own them. The Israel museum estimates the Isaiah Scroll alone would be worth $35 million today. We first visited the Church of the Nativity and then the Kendo shop. One of the jars in which the scrolls were found is on display there. The grandson played the oud for us, a 10 stringed instrument, while a friend accompanied him on the violin. So, we had some authentic Arabic music with our tea.

From there we went to Herodian and met Ehud Netzer, the Israeli archeologist who has been digging at the site since 1971. Just this past summer he found what he believes is Herod's tomb on the north side of the hill. The Zealots who occupied Herodian during the first Jewish revolt in the 1st century C.E. destroyed most of it. At least that is what Ehud Netzer speculates. What remains of the base of the monument is very finely carved white stone with lovely detail. Ehud thinks it might have been modeled on the tomb (pillar) of Absolom in Kidron Valley in Jerusalem. It was a rare opportunity to hear him describe the site and his work.

From there we returned to Jerusalem where Alan invited me to his room for a cup of tea with April, his colleague from Rice University in Houston. They chatted and I listened but made the occasional contribution. Surprisingly, I could actually follow the conversation and knew much of what they were talking about. They were discussing some of the non-canonical books and the theories and controversies about them. I guess all my years of reading have kept me somewhat informed. I was also aware of how insular the academic world can become. April was talking about spirit possession and angel worship in Second Temple Judaism. They way she spoke of the invocation of spirits and rituals for healing made me think she was unaware that that is what we still do in baptism and confirmation and the laying on of hands for healing.

At breakfast I had chatted with the young ministers I met yesterday. They are here until Monday. They said their church is composed of 135 groups that meet together based mostly on a common issue – women who have been sexually abused, alcoholics, men who want to come out of homosexuality, etc. On Sundays they rent a college gym and have three services with an attendance of 1,200 or so. This year they have to think about buying property because their lease will be running out. They describe their movement as beyond the mega-church concept and more a virtual church. I asked about music. They have a band that draws heavily on the music of a group called Passion that I gather is big on college campuses. They call their church Sandals. They are big on changed lives – the "walk" being real.

Here are my reflections for the day. Tonight I am thinking of place and time. It was something Ehud Netzer said about the eastern tower at Herodian. It was built first and existed before the artificial mountain was constructed. It is massive in size and was five stories higher than at present. One could see Jerusalem from it and it could be seen from Jerusalem. Herodian is south of Bethlehem by a little bit and it is five or so miles south of Jerusalem. One can also see the Dead Sea from Herodian. Anyway, Ehud mentioned the towers that were constructed between Jerusalem and Babylon to send signals indicating when the new moon had been sighted. The new moon marks the first day of the month in the Hebrew calendar and the full moon the middle of the month. The tower at Herodian could have been used for that purpose as well to send the signal south. Since the new moon determined the months it also determined the days, and especially the days of the Festivals. The calendar was especially important to the observant. For example the calendar, as was explained in the exhibit at the Shrine of the Book, was one of the bones of contention for the Essenes. They felt they followed the correct calendar, perhaps one from the First Temple period rather than the Second.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the difference between Judaism and Christianity with respect to place and time. For Judaism the whole focus on the Temple is about the place where sanctity ultimately resides on earth. And as for time, well, today is the Sabbath, the last day of the week, and many things are closed. It is a day of rest, a holy day, a time of sanctity. Christians have some sense of sanctified time. Sunday is our holy day, more or less, in honor of Jesus' resurrection on that day, the first day of the week. As far as place goes, Christians have no singular locus comparable to the Temple Mount. Just consider the tomb of Jesus. A visitor can see two of them, three if you count the small Coptic chapel. One isn't shown alternative Temple Mounts. Why is that?

Well, in chapter 4 of John's Gospel, in the discourse with the Samaritan woman, Jesus speaks of the time to come when the place of worship will not be determinative of true worship (whether in Jerusalem at the Temple or on Mount Gerizim in Samaria) but true worshippers will worship God in spirit and in truth. The sanctity of the place does not matter, the sanctity of the worshipper does. Likewise, in chapter 5 of John's Gospel, when Jesus is in Jerusalem for Shavuot and heals the lame man at Bethsaida on the Sabbath, sparking a controversy, he defends his "work" by saying my Father is still working, so I am working. The sanctity of the day, of time, does not matter, the sanctity of the work does. So, any day could be a holy day, if on that day one works the works of the Father. And any place is holy where sanctified people worship God.

Here where I see such obvious attention given to place – the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the tomb of Christ and every other conceivable place where some event related to his life took place – and to time – Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews, and Sunday for Christians (not to mention the times of day and times of year) – one can begin to feel the heavy burden of sanctified place and time. The various groups argue over these things and from time to time shed blood over it. How liberating then to know that in any place one may worship in spirit and in truth and at any time one may work the works of God, if not great works, then little ones, like the little work of charity I performed for the deformed man in the courtyard of St. Catherine's church in Bethlehem today.

January 13, 2008

Again through the auspices of Alan Segal I was able to join the bus tour with the distinguished group that is here for the Princeton Symposium. Alan's talk will be on burial practices and view of the after life in the Second Temple period. We went to Qumran today. James Charlesworth of Princeton Seminary gave most of the commentary but Geza Vermes was the special guide. He first came to Qumran in 1952 and published his classic work, The Dead Sea Scrolls, in 1962. He has revised it in various other editions. He is as close as scholarship comes to a rock star. I doubt there are many other living scholars as famous as he. So it was a privileged experience to be with him. After the tour of the site some of us hiked up through the wadi attempting to reach one of the caves high on the cliff face. We actually overshot the mark and ended up above the cave. By that time we had to return to catch the bus for our return. Still the view was spectacular.

Returning to Jerusalem, Jim Tabor of the University of North Carolina took Alan, April, and myself on a drive to show April in particular, since this was her first time in Jerusalem, some of the sites. We drove down through the Hinnom Valley and into the Kidron Valley by the Pool of Siloam. We parked and walked to see the monumental tombs in the Kidron Valley. Jim pointed out the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount wall and said tradition holds James, the brother of Jesus, was cast down from there to his death in 62 A.D. and, of course, tradition suggests this was the pinnacle of the Temple where Satan had taken Jesus in the account of the temptation. We then walked to the Western Wall to observe the people at prayer.

We then drove to Mount Sion where James showed us a site he began to excavate in 2001 and will resume excavating this summer. Finally, he took us to a spot on the western side of the old city wall that he believes, based on some other man's work (Gibson?), is the true site of the trial of Jesus before Pilate. The wall here is from the Herodian period as are the stones outside the wall that form a retaining wall for a platform. Such a raised platform would have been used as a judgment seat by the Roman procurators. It allowed for an outdoor trial in an area that would accommodate a crowd without compromising security or purity. Inside the wall at this point at present is a parking lot in the Armenian Quarter. But in Herod's day it was part of the monumental palace that he had built for himself that ran from the great tower in the Citadel of David by the Jaffa Gate down to this point. It is near the path I have been walking daily to enter city by the gate on Mount Sion.

Tomorrow I am off to Tiberias in the Galilee. Travel and settling in will take most of the day and in the evening I will have dinner with Aliza Avshalom and her family.

January 14, 2008

Today I took the bus from Jerusalem to Tiberias. It was a three-hour trip. We left the hills around Jerusalem and descended toward Tel Aviv and the coastal plain. Then we headed north until we had to turn inland again and ascend the hills that form the mountainous spine running north and south in the middle of the country. And finally we descended to the Sea of Galilee and the town of Tiberias. It was a clear day so one could readily see to the other side of this beautiful fresh water lake. The hills rise quickly from the shoreline on the other side and there isn't much of a plain on this side of the lake either, at least at Tiberias. The main part of the town is at the level of the sea but then the town expands westward up the hillside. It is much greener here than in Jerusalem and there are many more trees, most of them planted by the Israelis since 1948. They are making a concerted effort to restore the forests of this land. I saw a lot of farmland along the way, or a lot for a place like this. I suspect that New Jersey for all of the loss of its farmland due to urban and suburban sprawl has more tillable land than Israel.

Aliza Avshalom picked me up after I arrived. She is Rona Eagle's (Janet's boss) cousin's daughter. She brought me home for dinner. But first she dropped me along the highway at the road to Cana. I walked the mile or so into the village to see the churches there. Today it is mostly an Arab Muslim village – a dreary one at that. There is both a Roman Church and a Greek Orthodox Church commemorating Jesus' miracle of changing water into wine at the marriage feast. The churches stand opposite each other across a narrow street. The Roman Church was opened so I toured that. The Greek Church was not, save for its courtyard so I took a few pictures of that. There was also a small church dedicated to the apostle Nathaniel Bartholomew. I certainly took a picture of that since he is the patron of our church back home.

After a few hours I walked back toward the highway and Aliza picked me up again and brought me to her home. She and her husband and their four children live in a relatively new community on the top of a hill near Cana. You can see the lights of Nazareth from there that is several miles due south as well as the tower in what is now the national park at Sephoris. The town is an Orthodox Jewish community sponsored by the state. The state gives incentives, like cheaper land for building in order to entice people into these "unsettled" areas. When the settlers first arrive they live in trailers (camps they call them) until they can build their own homes. It is gated, and guarded I'm sure, only I didn't see the evidence of the guards. Once within the compound it seems like a safe and secure world though it is within range of the Hezbollah missiles in southern Lebanon. Aliza said one passed over their compound last summer and traveled as far as Nazareth where it struck and killed a Muslim boy playing in his backyard.

Dinner was fine – a little chaotic with the four kids and the younger ones vying for attention. Aliza's husband Jonathan showed me a family history that one of his relatives put together. It was fascinating. There were many pages showing pictures of parents and their children. It gave their birth date and death date. On some pages one or more had the designation – d. Shoah (died in the Holocaust). On some pages parents and their children all had the designation – d. Shoah. On some pages a young couple would have the designation - d. Shoah – and beneath their picture would be a blank for they had no children. On some pages there would be a picture of a solitary young person – d. Shoah – and then blanks where the picture of a wife, or husband, or children would have been. Jonathan's family tree was severely pruned by the Shoah and the branches that were cut off would never again bear fruit. The tree survived but not in its full glory. There is no explanation for such an impure act as the Holocaust other than spiritual in my view. What problems were the Jews causing, or what threat did they pose to anyone? No, it had to be spiritual pure and simple. Satan hates the Jews for through them and their Messiah his ultimate destruction will come. And so he incites the nations against them. And that Messiah, was he not born in Bethlehem and raised nearby in Nazareth?

Here are my reflections for the day. At dinner I talked with Aliza about several subjects. One was about the tombs of the sages here in Tiberias. Rambam (Maimonides), Akiva, and ben Zakai along with other noteworthy rabbis are buried here. She said it was not our teaching to venerate sites of burial and for that reason when Moses died God alone knew where he was buried. She viewed it as something done by those who were more into folk religion and not the purer teaching. She realized that Christians do venerate the burial sites of saints, though. (Well, yes some do but not all.) But I wonder if there isn't some difference though. Jews are site specific with the Temple Mount. For instance, Jonathan, though he came to Israel when he was six years old, said when I told him I had visited there said that he has never been on the Temple Mount. That can only be because of the deference he pays to its sanctity and his acknowledgment of his own ritual impurity (without the ceremony of the red heifer being available today to purify from the contamination of death). So the Jews focus on places. Christians focus on people – the sanctity of the person in whom God by his Spirit manifests. The saints are such people. Indeed in the New Testament all the believers are referred to as saints and only years later was the term applied to a more limited category of Christians, first the martyrs, and then confessors, and so on. Alan Segal had asked me about the Christian practice of separating the bones of the dead and dispersing them in reliquaries to various sites as was done with the saint's bones. Perhaps that is the answer. If the locus of sanctity is in the person, or upon death the person's remains, then the bones could be dispersed to make this sanctity more accessible to the church at large. In contrast it would be a sacrilege for Jews to disperse the bones of the dead so the Rabbis lay undisturbed here in their graves.

I also mentioned to Aliza the parable of the four rabbis who entered Paradise. She corrected me by saying Pardes, the orchard. She said it refers to four level of interpretation of the Torah based upon the four consonants of the word –PRDS. P is the first level, the plain reading of the text at the face or literal level. R is a reading with some understanding or interpretation. D is a reading with more exegesis. And S is looking for the secret meaning, like the Kabbalists. I asked at which level does she read the texts. She replied she hasn't studied the Kabbalists' interpretations. She is Orthodox in practice but not like the ultra-Orthodox or Hassidim apparently. No, obviously, or she would not have had me over for dinner.

On the way to her home she showed me the hill where Saladin finally defeated the Crusaders and expelled them from the Holy Land. It is close by Nazareth and Tiberias. The battle took place in the summer of 1187 C.E. and Saladin set the dry fields on fire behind the Crusaders so that they could not retreat. They were already exhausted from battle and thirst and so they were defeated. She said the hill, called the Horns of Hittim, and the victory of Saladin serve as a rallying cry for the Arabs. They say just as it took 100 years to drive out the Crusaders so in time we will drive out the Jews.

January 15, 2008

Today I took a bus north from Tiberias to the Mount of the Beatitudes where Jesus gave his most famous sermon. There is a Franciscan Church there that commemorates the spot. After viewing the church I walked down the hillside on a dirt road to the main road by the sea turned right and soon arrived at the Church of the Primacy of Peter. It is built over an outcrop of rock very close to the sea. The rock bears a sign, Mensa Christ, or table of Christ, and is reputed to be the place where Jesus prepared breakfast for seven of his disciples after his resurrection. The disciples had been out fishing but had caught nothing. From the shore Jesus tells them to cast their net to the right side of the boat and they catch a large number of fish. Peter recognizes it is Jesus so he jumps in the water and swims to shore. It is during breakfast that Jesus questions Peter three times about his love for him and three times gives him the charge to tend and feed his sheep. This charming story is recorded in John 21. Roman Catholics point to this interchange between Jesus and Peter to bolster their claims that he was chief among the apostles and that his successors, the Bishops of Rome (the Popes) have primacy in the church. I suppose Aliza would say that is reading the text at the level of R – with more exegesis.

From there I walked east along the sea for about fifty minutes or so to Capernaum. There is a lovely paved stone walkway for the entire distance. This Pilgrim's Path, as it is called, was installed at the turn of the millennium for the visit of Pope John Paul II. Between the walk and the sea are olive groves and banana groves and stretches of grass. One can well imagine any one of these being the place where Jesus fed the crowds, taught, and healed. So many of the events recorded in the Gospels transpire along this stretch of the sea – the call of the disciples, some of Jesus' most profound teaching, like the Beatitudes, many of his healings and deliverances, the miraculous catch of fish, the walking on the water and the calming of the storm. As I was walking toward Capernaum I came across a stone marker at the site where the woman with an issue of blood reached out to touch the fringe of his clothing and was healed. He was on his way to Capernaum to raise Jairus' daughter. (Mark 5:21f) Here along this shoreline is where the Kingdom of God broke into this world through Jesus' words and deeds.

Capernaum is a beautiful spot. The land here juts out a little into the lake and provides some safe harbor on the west side. The remains of Peter's house are there as well as those of several churches built over it. A modern chapel, elevated above the site so visitors can walk under it, was built directly over the house. Inside the chapel there is a circular opening in the floor directly over the house so one may view it from above. There is also an impressive synagogue from the late 3rd or 4th century built over a previous one that probably dates to the time of Jesus. It was in that synagogue that he inaugurated his ministry and healed the man with an unclean spirit. (Mark 1:25) It was also in this synagogue that he gave his controversial teaching on eating his flesh and drinking his blood. (John 6: 22f)) And, of course, he healed Peter's mother-in-law in this town and did many other miracles there. The spot is rather idyllic.

Leaving Capernaum I walked back eastward past the Church of the Beatitudes and the Primacy of Peter to Ein Tabgha, the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fish. The church is a Benedictine establishment and there is a small monastery attached. The present church was built upon the foundations of a much more ancient church. Some of the mosaics from the original church have been preserved and they are of very fine workmanship. It is thought the workman may have been Egyptian since the mosaics depict birds and plants native to the Nile. Under the altar is an exposed rock said to be the very place where Jesus laid out the loaves and fish as he prayed and then began to multiply them. From there I walked to the bus stop on the main road and caught a bus back to Tiberias the moment I arrived. I thought that was a bit of a miracle in itself. We passed the village of Magdala on the western shore of the sea. If I have time I will go there. It was the home of Mary Magdalene (Mary of Magdala) and was the place where the fishermen like Peter brought their catch to be cleaned and salted and shipped to Jerusalem and other places. It is a kibbutz now and I am not certain what remains still exist, though recently they found the remains of a fishing boat from the time of Jesus and it is on display there.

My reflections on the day are as follows. Walking today was very satisfying. That section of the Galilee isn't developed yet and it is still devoted to agriculture. And so it is quiet and serene. No one else was walking the path that I took and so my serenity was disturbed only by the occasional car or tour bus that passed by on the road above the walk. I can imagine the crowds that pressed in on Jesus here but I can also imagine the serenity he found in this place. In the Sermon on the Mount he tells us not to be anxious about what we eat or drink or wear, and tells us to consider the birds that don't toil and are fed, or the lilies that don't spin and are wonderfully clothed. As I was walking towards the Church of the Beatitudes I saw a flock of yellow finches. And, of course, everywhere I looked the Father had clothed the fields with plants and herbs and trees and even a few flowers in this winter season.

I sat and read the Beatitudes and the rest of the Sermon in Mathew and Luke while sitting outside the church. They really are the highest ethical teachings I have ever read. Love your enemies. Forgive and you will be forgiven. It's not what goes in that defiles but what comes out from the heart. The eye is the lamp of the body but if the eye is bad how deep will be the darkness throughout the whole body. But if the eye is healthy the whole body will be full of light. That teaching particularly struck me. What we see and how we perceive the world does not depend upon what is, for what is depends upon how we see, the condition of our eye. How true. I know I see the world differently than others that I know. They see darkness; I see light. They see evil; I see goodness. We look at the same things but in a different way. I am grateful for the light I have and don't want to descend into darkness.

In the synagogue at Capernaum I read John 6 – the teaching about the bread of life and eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Curiously, I ran into the young couples from California (the Sandals Church) and the missionary from Dubai and soon to be Saudi Arabia. They are evangelical and I don't know what their position is on the Lord's Supper as they call it. I love their evangelical bent but I must admit I am ever so grateful for the Eucharist. Take; Eat; Drink; Live. How simple. How accessible. It makes sense to me. Wouldn't God make his Kingdom readily available to the least as well as to the greatest? The Rabbinical approach seems to emphasize the greatest, those sages who were so proficient in studying and diligent in keeping the Law. Yet, after all the knowledge we attain and the good deeds we do are we still not very far from the Kingdom? Oh, yes, I would say so – if anyone reads the Beatitudes and the rest of Jesus' teaching with sincerity. How then can any one enter the Kingdom? Who is worthy? No one is, really. We can't be worthy, only hungry. And since we are hungry and thirsty he says to us, take, eat, drink, and live. There is plenty for all, for he multiplies his body and blood until all who eat are satisfied.

January 16, 2008

I caught the bus from the central station in Tiberias early this morning and headed to Nazareth. I first saw the Roman Church of the Annunciation. The present building is a very large, very modern church built over an ancient site and ancient ruins. The grotto here is reputed to be the place where the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to give her the news that she would conceive and bear a son. Next-door is the Church of Saint Joseph, a much smaller church, again built over a grotto reputed to be his carpenter's shop. Further up the street is a Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. It is tiny in comparison but more charming in all respects. It is built over a spring called Mary's Well which is reputed to have been the ancient source of water for the village of Nazareth. Inside the church one hears the sound of its gushing water and feels the dampness it gives off. Nazareth is no longer a village but a modern city. It sits high on a hill but now it sprawls down the hillsides and to the neighboring hills as well. My last stop in Nazareth was to visit the old synagogue, now a church that was built over an even older synagogue, perhaps the very one Jesus worshipped in as a child. It is nearby the Church of Saint Joseph and the Roman Church of the Annunciation in the old section that is a warren of streets and alleys like the old city of Jerusalem. It made the biggest impression on me for it was a simple stone vaulted room about half the size of my church at home.

I was going to take a bus from there to Mount Tabor and walk up the mountain but the angels were with me. Next to the bus stop was a taxi stand and for 100 shekels plus a tip of 20 more shekels a young cabbie "volunteered" to drive me. We descended from Nazareth into the valley and headed toward Tabor. Tabor is an odd mountain for these parts for it sits by itself surrounded by the plain. It is conical in shape and for all the world reminded me of the mountain that Herod turned into Herodian, though much, much larger. One ascends by a road that starts about halfway up the mountain and is a series of switchbacks. Once on top whom did I meet but my Baptist friends! They were exiting as I was arriving but this time we took photos for we will certainly not run into each other again. They fly out tonight.

On the top of Tabor is a Franciscan Church built upon the remains of several previous churches. It marks the place where Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mount and was transfigured before them as Moses and Elijah appeared with him. Jesus was speaking to Moses and Elijah about his departure (Exodus). Tabor is also the mountain at which Barak gathered an army of 10,000 at the direction of Deborah who was a prophetess in Israel. He led the troops down to the plain below where they engaged and defeated the armies of Jabin the Canaanite led by Sisera. He met his end when he sought to hide in the tent of a woman named Jael. She drove a tent peg through his head.

The views from the mountain are unimpeded in all directions. To the west and south one can see the Jezreel Valley, to the northwest the hills of Nazareth, and to the northeast Mount Hermon was clearly visible today with its snow-capped peaks. The borders of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria all meet there. Mount Hermon's rains and snows are the source of the Dan River that is the principal source of the Jordan River. The name Jordan means proceeding from the Dan.

After seeing the sites I walked down Mount Tabor to the valley below to catch a bus back to Tiberias. It took me forty-five minutes of pleasant walking through the switchbacks to reach the road at one end of the Bedouin village on the mountainside and then another hour and fifteen minutes of walking through the village to reach the bus stop. The Israelis built the housing here for the Bedouins in order to encourage them to adopt a settled life rather than their customary nomadic life. From what I could see they seem to have adapted to it. When I reached the main highway a sherut (a minivan taxi that carries multiple passengers) stopped and so I climbed aboard for the fifteen-mile ride east and north to Tiberias.

In two days I have seen the main things I came to the Galilee to see. I am not certain what to do for the next few days but I have been going at such a pace it might be good to relax some. My trip is half over and I find my thoughts increasingly wandering towards home.

My reflections on the day are as follows. Today as I was leaving Nazareth I saw a sign hung in the square below the Church of the Annunciation. It had been placed there by Muslims and read in English, "The Eternal God has begotten no one and is Himself not begotten." Well, there you have it – no virgin birth, no divine Son of God. I had just been reading the texts from the synoptic Gospels while sitting in the old synagogue where Jesus when teaching was rejected by his own village. It prompts him to remark, "a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and in his own household." Yes, and so they reject him still in Nazareth, both Jews and Muslims. The Christians are diminishing in numbers and Nazareth is largely a Muslim town now I believe. Well, my Lord, you were certainly not from my hometown, or from my household, and so I do honor you. You are worthy of such honor.

Mount Tabor is a mystery. What was the Transfiguration about? John doesn't record the event unless his prologue alludes to it where he writes, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Yes, that must refer to the Transfiguration for what else could John possibly mean by that? In that case, since he places this at the very beginning of his Gospel it must be the thesis for him. The other Gospels have Jesus speak of the coming Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. For John it is the King who has manifest and wherever the King is, there is the Kingdom. And it is a manifestation of grace and truth John says. Moses, by contrast, gave the Law. Is there no grace and truth in the Law?

I had hoped that I would have some transfiguration moment there on the mount myself. Perhaps the mystery of why I took this trip in the first place would be disclosed. But it was not to be. Nothing was revealed and nothing has been revealed. What I have learned so far just by observation is that there are many people in the world. They live lives similar to us. They eat. They drink. They marry. They build houses. They work. They have children and raise them with expectations. I remember the Arab guard I met at Herodian the first time. He said he had relatives in Virginia and a son he would like to send there. But now it is hard to get a visa. He heard that if he had ten thousand dollars in the bank he could get one but where would he get ten thousand dollars. So people are the same everywhere.

And yet there are differences in beliefs and values and language and foods and culture. These differences do set us apart. I felt very much the odd man when I walked down Mount Tabor through the Bedouin village. The young children had just gotten out of school. They would steal glances at me when I walked behind them and if I passed they would giggle. I'm sure they told their parents that they saw a strange man walking in their village today. And this morning (for I did not finish writing last night) I ate breakfast with a group of Russians on tour. There seem to be a lot of Russian tour groups here with a priest or two in two. From what I can see the priest gives an explanation at each site and if there are icons they kiss them and, of course, they sing. I don't understand a word of it but it is lovely. Just now they finished breakfast and they all stood and the priest led them in a song, a blessing or thanksgiving for the meal, I gather.

These differences separate us but they give us a sense of place and belonging within a group too. And that seems to be the important thing. We all need a place and a position, something to locate us within the group context. And we live and die for this, for this sense of belonging to an ethnic, religious, and racial group seems stronger then the sense of belonging to a common humanity. Wars aren't fought over a common humanity. Walls aren't built to keep common humanity at bay. Wars and walls have to do with a particular humanity – our tribe, our clan, our ethnos. So Jerusalem is divided into four quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian. And here in the Galilee as in the suburbs of Jerusalem there are Arab Muslim towns and Jewish towns and settlements. There are some Christian towns like Cana and Nazareth but these seem to be disappearing for the Christians live as a minority among the Muslims.

When one is strong and self-reliant the boundaries are fixed. It seems to be the weak that move between them. For example, yesterday, as I walked toward the Church of the Annunciation, a woman approached me for alms whose young daughter was in a wheel chair. She came across the narrow street, for I was on the other side, crying out "please for my daughter, for my daughter!" She was Arab and had the head-scarf of a Muslim. Charity is charity. When I walked back that way there was a blind Arab Muslim man begging. He held up his hand calling out to passersby. I haven't refused charity to anyone except the first one who asked. My first night in Jerusalem a Jew dressed in the garb of the Hassid or ultra-orthodox approached me by the super market. I didn't understand at first that he wanted a mitzvah – charity. He said he had hard times. I was caught off guard and not prepared so I refused. I feel I shamed him terribly and perhaps angered him as well. He came into the market and I saw him buy a small handful of mushrooms. I suppose that was all he could afford. So, I see this weakness makes us aware of, or reduces us to, our common humanity and then we dare, of necessity, to cross the walls of division and reach out our hand to one another – one hand giving and the other hand receiving. Who knows when the roles will be reversed?

I wonder now about Paul saying, "When I am weak, I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:10) The weak are strong in this sense. They do what the strong in their strength do not do. They leap over the walls that divide us and touch the things that cannot be touched. The woman who touched the garment of Jesus was like that. In weakness she reached out and touched the holy – the impure touching the pure, the powerless touching the powerful. Perhaps the mystery is not to be stronger but to be weaker. The weak access a strength the strong do not – a common humanity, access to the holy. For has not Yahweh exalted the lowly poor and sent the rich empty away? The pregnant Mary said as much in her song she sang upon visiting her kinswoman Elizabeth. (Luke 1: 53) I could have wished that here in this land the Christians had not built such massive churches on the holy sites and adorned them with riches that in so many places have tarnished and rotted and faded. They speak of our strength and not our weakness, our riches and not of our poverty, and I don't feel one iota closer to God because of any of these. In fact I feel further from him. And considering the way the various ethnos fight over the sites, these monuments haven't brought humanity closer together either.

January 17, 2008

This morning I took the bus south from Tiberias to Yardenet where the Jordan flows out of the Sea of Galilee. There the Kibbutz Kinneret has developed an alternative site for the baptism of Jesus. Kinneret, meaning harp, is an alternative name for the Sea of Galilee owing to its harp-like shape. This site has some plausibility according to John's account of Jesus' baptism for the day after he is at the northern end of the Sea of Galilee and the day after that at Cana for the wedding. He could not have traveled from the lower Jordan Valley in that short time. But the other Gospels seem clear that the baptism took place in the Jordan to the east of Jerusalem, somewhere near Jericho. There they were on the edge of the Judean wilderness, the place of the temptations that followed his baptism. But again John makes no mention of the temptations so the Judean wilderness doesn't figure into his account.

The Jordan at Yardenet is a very small placid stream, a bit bigger and deeper than the Ho-Ho-Kus brook back home but not by much. In part that is due to the fact that there is a dam at the mouth of the river with floodgates. Only if there are very heavy rains do they open the gates but I was told they didn't open them at all this year. So they pump enough water into the Jordan to keep it flowing to support the towns and farms downstream.

When I was at the site several tours of Greek pilgrims came and were baptized. Well, they were sprinkled really for it is still cool here and the water is chilly. Some hearty young men did plunge in, however. Three Greek priests presided for the one group and two for the other. The prayers and readings went on for a bit and then the singing (chanting) before the actual baptism. I recognized some of the words like doxa (glory) and epiphany (manifestation). Shepherds with their flocks. I hope they are good shepherds. I find myself having some difficulty getting beyond their clerical garb and hair and beards. If they took off the garb and wore jeans they would look like hippies and I would find it easier to accept them. The sheep show a lot of deference to them I note – kiss their hand, carry their bags, and give them the front seat in the bus, that sort of thing. Well, pets do show deference to their masters who feed them. Maybe they are feeding their sheep and tending their lambs well and so the flock is grateful.

From there I headed south by bus to Beit Shean. It was about twelve miles further south and gave me a glimpse of the Jordan River and the country of Jordon. Just below the Galilee the river marks the boundary between Israel and Jordon. A little below Beit Shean the West Bank Territory begins that one day may become a Palestinian State. At one point we passed an observation post with a large Jordanian flag flying.

I was glad to see this river valley and the mountains to the east and west. I tried to imagine that great lake that eons ago filled this valley from the foothills of Mount Hermon to the Dead Sea. Now in this drier era only the two seas and the river remain. But what used to be the lake bottom is now a flat fertile plain perhaps five or six mile wide, maybe less. The land slopes down from the hills to a gorge where the river flows. The gorge isn't terribly deep from what I can see, perhaps thirty to forty feet at the most. The farms on the Israeli side of the river in particular looked lush. In fact the hills on the Israeli side were greener. I suppose that is due to the fact that the weather comes mostly from the west and the clouds drop their moisture on the hills of Israel first. It does appear Jordan gets less precipitation.

Beit Shean was well worth the trip. It is an ancient site and has seen successive occupiers. In the late 2nd millennium B.C.E. it was the northern most outpost of the Egyptian empire. On the top of the tell there are remains of the house of the Egyptian official who ruled the area. It was also a Canaanite stronghold and there are remains of their temples on the tell as well. It was a Philistine city in the time of Saul and he and his sons were slain on Mount Gilboa just to the west of the city. I Samuel 31 records their deaths and how the next day the Philistines from Beit Shean found their bodies stripped them of their armor, cut off their heads, and fastened their bodies to the wall of the city. Valiant men from Jabesh-Gilead mounted a raid to take their bodies from the wall and bury their bones after burning the bodies.

Then there are the Roman ruins at Beit Shean. During the period of the Roman occupation it was the most important city in the area. It would have been in Jesus' day as well but the present ruins, which are extensive, are from a later date – the 2nd century C.E. through the Byzantine period. There is a particularly fine theater that could seat 7,000 and a long Cardo with beautiful columns and mosaic pavements in front of the shops that ran its length. There is a large Roman bath and a stadium for horse racing and other events. Beit Shean was blessed with abundant water from natural springs and so it thrived through the ages. Its splendor ended in a great earthquake that destroyed the city towards the end of the 8th century A.D. After that it went into decline and was eventually abandoned.

Beit Shean's prominence is owing to its strategic position as well. It sits just at the point where the Jordan Valley meets the Jezreel Valley. So it was on a major trade route between the kingdoms to the north and those to the south, like Egypt. Also, many a battle was fought here as well as armies moving north or south met in the Jezreel. And, of course, in the center of the Jezreel is Har Miggido, Armaggedon, the most famous battle site of all in this area.

I rode back to Tiberias on a bus loaded with young military men and women with rifles, speaking of armies. The Israeli army is largely a citizen militia as Alan Segal called it so the soldiers live at home and go by bus to their daily stations dressed in their uniforms and outfitted with their gear and return home in the evening. I am sure there are bases where troops are stationed but I haven't seen any of them. Instead I see these young soldiers commuting. They have a pass that allows them to ride for free, though I imagine the government reimburses the bus companies for their fares.

My reflections for the day are as follows. As I lie on the hotel bed writing I can look out the window of my room to the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee. That shoreline is part of the Golan heights that run from here northward to Mount Hermon. Much of it was once a part of Syria but was taken by the Israelis in the 1967 Yom Kippur War. It looms over the Jordan Valley in this region and Syria used the Heights to shell Israeli towns. For that reason Israel annexed it in 1981 though this annexation is not recognized internationally. Now there are 15,000 Israeli settlers on the heights and I can see the lights of several of their settlements on the top of the hills directly across from Tiberias. One is very aware here that the enemies of Israel surround her. That was true in the Biblical period and it is still true today.

Thus, it is even more surprising to me that Jesus could speak of loving enemies and seemed to have no inclination to fight the enemies of Israel. King David fought the enemies of Israel. Yet for that reason he could not build the Temple for Yahweh because he was a man of war. So should the Messiah also be a man of war, the Messiah Son of David, who subdues all of his enemies? But if he is a man of war he cannot build the Temple and the Messiah will rebuild it. Thus does Messiah Jesus say destroy this Temple and in three days he will raise it up again. He was speaking of the Temple of his body – his own physical body and also the body that is his church. The raising of the former, his physical body, was also the beginning of the creation of the later, the church. So, the members of the church are a Temple built up by Messiah Jesus to house his Spirit. This Spirit is not a spirit of war but a spirit of peace, for so did he say on the day of his rising – "Peace be with you!" Then he breathed out his Holy Spirit saying, " Whosoever sins you forgive they are forgiven; and whosoever sins you retain they are retained." (John 20:19f)

We are a people raised up for peace. If we go to war it cannot be on his account for his Kingdom is not of this world. So it can only be on account of some other king or ruler of this world to whom we also belong and whom we also serve. Can we serve such kings and rulers that way without also denying Him? I have wrestled with this question since I was a teen and had to register for the draft and after all these years I still don't have a definitive answer that satisfies me. Perhaps it is more a case-by-case basis, which is really what all just-war theories are based upon – not in such cases can we wage war but in these other cases we can. It's not the high calling of the Gospel it seems to me, but a realistic compromise given the realities of this world. We are in this world but not of it, until some time when we are forced to be of it because we are in it.

January 18, 2008

I started the day with a blessing. At breakfast an old priest at the next table noticed my Bible. I had been reading the text from Luke 2:22f about the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. He struck up a conversation but I did not know Greek, French, Ukrainian, or Russian. His younger companion, also a priest, spoke some English so I learned that they were Ukrainian Catholics. The younger priest had been to London so I was able to explain that I was an Anglican (Episcopal) priest. He said they were under the Pope and I was under the Archbishop of Canterbury so he understood. He said our churches have very friendly relations with theirs and he added we are all children of God. So just last night I was writing about my difficulties with these clerics and this morning two angels appear. The old priest in particular struck me because he was like Simeon in the text I had just been reading – praying in the Temple and waiting to see the consolation of Israel. He did seem to have the Holy Spirit with him. He was, as all were in their group, wearing a gold and blue bandana. It was a symbol of the Ukraine, he told me with great pride. They gained their independence from the Soviet Union only 16 years ago. What did Simeon say, "For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles." (Luke 2:30-32) Well, here were the Gentiles, at least one of the ethnos, the Ukrainians. The old priest came and stood by me and offered me his cheeks – first the right and then the left – and so we kissed in peace. At the end of the meal the other priest led a song and the old priest turned to me and translated for me, "Glory be to Jesus Christ." Yes, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and a glory to your people Israel. Here we are together in Israel, in this land that is not our own. And what has drawn us, the Gentiles, to this place? Only one thing has \- Israel's most famous son - Jesus Christ.

After breakfast I caught a cab (the bus didn't come on schedule) to Ein Tabgah. I wanted to walk the northern end of the Sea of Galilee again that was so important in Jesus' ministry. My first stop was the Benedictine church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish. It is simple and elegant in its simplicity. They are closed on Sundays except for mass at 9 A.M. I think I'll try to make that. From there I went next door to the Franciscan establishment – the Church of the Primacy of Peter. Along the walkway as you approach the church they have a poster showing all of the Popes (the Bishops of Rome) since St. Peter. I counted the first 15, since all of those were of Jewish descent if I remember correctly, and that took you into the early 3rd century. So, for 200 years the Bishops of Rome had Jewish ethnicity. The church was still small in those days, not having the official sanction of the state yet and still subject to sporadic persecution. Only John (chapter 21) records the resurrection appearance of Jesus to seven disciples that this church commemorates. Here, too, Jesus engages Peter in that dialogue that can be interpreted, like the Romans do, as giving him pastoral primacy in the church – "Feed my lambs; tend my sheep; feed my sheep." Today there was a whole flock of Franciscan brothers and sisters dressed in their plain brown garb with sandals visiting. One young sister crouched by the sea and dipping her hands in the water bathed her face. She was beautiful and I couldn't help but wonder when Jesus said to Peter on this spot, "Follow me," if he really had the sacrifice of celibacy in mind.

I walked on to Capernaum but did not stop at the Franciscan site of the old town where Peter's house and the synagogue are. Instead I walked further down the road to the red domed church I had seen the other day but had not visited. It flies a Greek flag and a Syrian flag. Today is the day that the Syrian Orthodox church celebrates Christmas so there were busloads of people who had come for the services. It was a festive scene. A service was going on when I arrived and, as is typical of Orthodox services, the priests were chanting away and the people were coming and going. There were only seats for 20 or so along the walls and the older men and women had taken these. The younger people stood. The church is very near the sea and between the church and the sea were picnic tables shaded by various vines. Families had brought their Christmas dinners and were eating. Women were harvesting some green that I could not identify in the field nearby for their salad. A Syrian scout troop was assembling in the parking lot for their parade. The young men wore their uniforms with their distinctive red berets. Next to the church is a little national park with a boat dock. An excursion boat pulled up and a priest was busily putting up a string of pennants of Greek and Syrian flags. Apparently the boat had been hired for the day as part of the Christmas festivities and the congregation would go for a ride on the sea.

I walked the fifty or so minutes back to the bus stop after that. I wanted to make sure to get back to Tiberias before the stores began to shut down for the Sabbath. Tomorrow the buses will not run and most things will be closed. I am not certain what I will do. At least in Jerusalem I could still walk around and see the Christian sites and shop in the Christian quarter. Here it will be different. The Christian sites are not within walking distance and I have seen the ones I came to see. So perhaps tomorrow will just be a day to read and reflect.

My reflections for the day are as follows. On my walk by the sea I found myself reflecting on authority and power. When Jesus was in the synagogue at Capernaum a man with an unclean spirit stood up. Jesus silenced the spirit and expelled him. All wondered about and questioned this new teaching with authority. (Mark 1: 21f) And then when Jesus healed the paralytic let down through the roof of a house (Peter's?) they questioned his authority to forgive sins. To prove he had the authority he proceeded to heal the man – a work of power. On the walk between the church of the Multiplication and Capernaum you pass the marker where the woman touched Jesus and power went out from him to heal her. (Luke 8:40f) So there seems to be a distinction between exercising authority over demons and to forgive sins and the power to work wonders like the healings, or the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Then again the wind and the waves obeyed him when he commanded them to be still. That seems to be an exercise of authority as well rather than power. Is there a significant difference between the two? And if so, what is the difference?

Still the greater issue for me is what has become of this authority and power? Why do we not seem to have it to any degree these days in the church? Where are the deliverances? Where are the healings? Where are the miracles? Perhaps the Scots Hotel is an illustration of this. It is down by the waterfront and was built as a hospital in the late 19th century by a Scottish physician named David Torrence. It was the only hospital in Tiberias and the surrounding region at the time. In those days the people lived within the confines of the old city walls. It was an Arab village under Ottoman rule. Torrence had a calling to heal the people here. In fact the people said of him that he was the second great healer to minister in this area, Jesus being the first. At the time the sanitary and living conditions in Tiberias and the surrounding region were very poor. Even Torrence lost his first two wives and four children to the ills of this place. Yet he continued on and his son succeeded him in his work until the hospital was closed in the early 1950's. The hospital was no longer needed since a new municipal hospital had been built. So the Church of Scotland made it into a hospice for pilgrims and more recently (1999) upgraded it and added to it to make it a luxury hotel and conference center. It is lovely. I went in to see the facilities. In their mission statement it said the Church of Scotland wanted to keep their witness to Jesus alive in this place. From miracles, to medicine, to business - is that an evolution or devolution? Suffice it to say the miracles are gone from this place and where have they gone?

I am reminded of a Rabbinical teaching concerning the Kingdom in the Messianic age. And why shouldn't I be reminded of a Rabbinical saying? Tiberias was home to some famous Rabbis. After the destruction of Jerusalem some came here. Akiva's grave is here. The Romans executed him at the time of the Bar Kochba revolt in the early 2nd century C.E. He named Bar Kochba (Son of a Star) as the Messiah. Well, they all perished in the uprising. But Akiva is famous for his answer to a Roman soldier when challenged to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. He stood on one foot and replied, "Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you." It is like the Golden Rule of Jesus, "Whatever you wish others would do unto you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the prophets." (Mathew 7: 12) Characteristically, the Rabbinical version is a negative – Do not do – and Jesus' version is positive – Do. It is like the Sabbath controversy about healing the man with a withered hand when Jesus asked if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were hesitant about doing on the Sabbath since the focus of that day is on not doing. Yet by the Golden Rule the very thing that was required of Jesus was to heal the man – to do – even though it was the Sabbath – a day of not doing.

Maimonides is buried here in Tiberias as well. He lived here briefly before moving on to Egypt. He was the great 12th century codifier of the Law. He is to Rabbinic Judaism what Aquinas is to Roman Christianity you might say. Maimonides, or Rambam, as he is known, came up with the 13 principles that he said were essential to Jewish belief. One of them is belief in the resurrection of the dead. And Tiberias is the place where the Mishnah was written in the 2nd century C.E. Aliza Avshalom explained it was a new way of approaching the text since it organized the Torah by topics. The Talmud, several centuries later, follows this format, both in the Jerusalem version and the Babylonian version. Both are organized by topics of the Law not by the books of the Law. Thus, there is a whole tractate on the Sabbath, for example.

Well, my point is this, getting back to the issue of miracle. There is a Rabbinical saying that if we are worthy the Messianic age will come by miracles. If we are not worthy it will come by progressive advancements (evolution) in learning and the application of knowledge –like Doctor Terrance's hospital. It was not a miracle, but I suppose it was a labor of love and faith. Perhaps we don't need the miracles only. Perhaps the doing unto others as we would have them do unto us is miracle enough. But I do not really believe this. Miracles are a function of faith and though Paul in Corinthians speaks of knowledge and tongues and prophecy passing away, he never speaks of faith passing away. It abides with hope and love. He does say love is the greatest of the three, but he doesn't oppose faith and love, as though it is better to have love rather than faith. What he does say is that faith without love is nothing. He does not say love without faith is something. He does say faith with love is everything – not in those precise words but he implies it is so.

So, where are the miracles today? Is it a lack of faith on our part, or a lack of love, or both? Where is the authority and power? From what I see of the exercise of authority here in this land it is like that of the Gentile lords who lord it over one another and their subjects. The churches have divided up the properties and jealously guard them. They preserve the sites of the miracles and the teachings but can no longer perform them. We are powerless in our power, and in the exercise of our authority we are without the authority to work the works of God.

January 19, 2008

It's the Sabbath. Buses do not run until dusk. Taxis are nowhere to be seen. There is only the occasional car on the streets and the odd person walking on the sidewalks. I set out from the hotel to Rabbi Akiva's tomb and see hardly a soul upon the way. It's like a science fiction movie where suddenly everyone disappears. I feel like the lone survivor. When I reach Rabbi Akiva's tomb, which is high on the hillside overlooking Tiberias and the sea, there is no one there either. At least the gate is unlocked so I can enter. The little blurb in the guidebook says, "Rabbi Akiva was possibly the greatest and most exemplary contributors to the Mishnah of all times, a great authority in the matter of Jewish tradition, and the greatest of the Tannaim. His name is mentioned in the Mishna more than 270 times. He was the one who categorized the Oral Torah according to topics. He was a member of the Sanhedrin in Yavneh at the time of Rabbi Gamaliel the Second." The Tannaim were the Rabbis who lived in the period from the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D to about 200 A.D. They founded Judaism, as we know it.

There is also the tomb of Rabbi Moshe Herzim Lozato born in 1707 in Padua next to that of Rabbi Akiva. He was a prominent cabbalist. He died in Tiberias at forty years of age from a plague that broke out in 1747. He had only moved here three years before.

Descending the hill and entering the town I walked to the tomb of Rambam (Moses ben Maimonides) the most famous of all Rabbis. He died in 1204 C.E., the year of the fourth crusade when the Venetians sacked Constantinople instead of coming to the Holy Land. Born in Cordova, Spain in 1135 C.E. he moved to Fez in Morocco, then Israel, and finally to Egypt. He died in Egypt but the tradition says he was buried here in Tiberias. As is typical, the tomb area is divided - one side for women to pray and one side for men. There was one woman and one man praying at the tomb. I caught a glimpse of the woman on my way in, an older woman sitting on a white plastic chair (the cheap stacking kind) with her feet propped up on the woman's side of the tomb as she reads. His famous works are the Mishnah Torah (a commentary on the Mishnah) and The Guide for the Perplexed. Well, that is me I suppose. When am I not perplexed about most things? Like the relatively young man on the men's side wearing his black Sabbath suit and long coat with his tallit draped over it. But his boots – his boots are black leather biker boots with that steel ring on the side. I've seen the Hell's Angels wearing the same. I wonder if he knows?

Rabbi Ben Zakkai (Yohanan), a student and disciple of Hillel the Elder, is also buried here. The guidebook says, "He was the head of the council of Sages, alongside the president, during the second half of the 1st century until the destruction of Jerusalem. It was he who moved the Sanhedrin to Yavneh after the destruction of the Temple." That would make him a contemporary of the apostles and of Saul (Paul), though he was a disciple of Gamaliel. But it is possible that Saul knew Ben Zakkai and was following his instructions when the Council gave orders to arrest the Followers of the Way (the disciples of Jesus). And then Ben Zakkai would have been instrumental in the stoning of Stephen and the death of James as well. So here is his grave in Tiberias and the movement he sought to stamp out, well, it has grown like the mustard seed from a small seed to a big shrub and all the birds of the air (the nations) have found shelter in its branches. I am here in testimony to that. Ben Zakkai, I forgive you for you did not know what you were doing. And your co-conspirator Saul, he is buried in Rome. I have seen his tomb as well. He went on to become even more renown than you – though not him so much as the one he proclaimed as the Messiah. And even Saul understood that your rejection of Jesus was for the advantage of the likes of me – the Gentiles. For by your rejection the Gospel went out to the nations. I wonder what you would think of the recent Rabbinical statement, Dabru Emet ("Speak Truth"), in which a number of Rabbis (not the Orthodox or ultra- Orthodox to be sure) acknowledge that through the Christian preaching the knowledge of Yahweh, Israel's God, has spread to the nations in fulfillment, of sorts, of Israel's mission to be a light to the nations?

From there I walked down to St. Andrew's to inquire about the church services for tomorrow. The clerk at the hotel thought they were at 6:30 P.M. That would make sense since Sunday is a workday here. When I went to see the church there was a meeting in session. The sign said Morningstar Fellowship. It had a Star of David above the globe and the rest was in Hebrew and Russian. I take it it was a Russian Messianic group.

From there I walked along the beachfront to the ancient Roman remains of Tiberias just south of the modern town. Tiberias was founded in 20 A.D. by Herod Antipas and named after Tiberias Caesar. So it was an entirely new town in Jesus' day. The ruins have only been partially excavated but the Cardo (main street) is visible with the shops on either side. Remnants of their mosaic floors were exposed. The bathhouse is visible as well, one that is mentioned in the Talmud. And there is a basilica, formerly a public building but converted into a church in the Byzantine era. So, this was one of the important places where Judaism was reconstructed, so to speak, after the destruction of the second Temple. Of course, some of Rabbinic Judaism was already in place following the destruction of the first Temple and the exile to Babylon. At some point during that time synagogues developed and along with them the rabbis – the teachers – who had no role in Temple worship but were the chief figures in synagogue worship. What remains of Judaism is largely Rabbinic Judaism – the Judaism of the sages who rely upon the Oral Torah and the commentaries of the Mishnah and Talmud as much, or more so, than upon the Torah itself. They are fond of observing that God put the Law into our hands and so it is up to us to decipher its meaning and interpret it. Today is the Sabbath, for instance. The Torah commands one keep the Sabbath by refraining from labor. But what does that mean? The Rabbis say labor is to be defined by the 39 categories of work that were required for the building of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. The first category is carrying. So, one is forbidden to carry anything on the Sabbath. I thought of that when in my wanderings this morning I saw two young boys carrying trash out to the garbage container outside their apartment building. They looked younger than Bar Miztvah age so perhaps they were still permitted. But there are many things that are not permitted here this day. I suppose not enough things to please the ultra-Orthodox but enough to make this a day of leisure for us all.

No doubt this sheds light on Jesus' saying, "No one sews a piece of unshruken cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, if he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins." (Mark 2: 18-22) This is recorded in Mark as Jesus' response to a question about why the Pharisees and John's disciples fast but his own do not. He said, "can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them...the days will come when he is taken away and they will fast in that day." (Mark 2: 19-20) But the larger meaning of the sayings seems to be that Jesus is doing something new that cannot be contained by the old.

Seeing the Sabbath in practice today and other practices of the Jews who are observant, I do wonder how they could appeal to many beyond their own, and they have trouble enough appealing to their own for there are many who are non-observant. Was it just to incorporate the Gentiles that Jesus did something new – like declare all foods clean, remove the purity laws, teach that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath, and so on. His teachings and practices certainly burst the confines of Judaism. Was Judaism the old garment and wineskin? Now Jesus' teachings are old by chronological age but yet they seem ever new and as adaptable to this modern world as anything could be. How much more radical must they have seemed in his own day?

I doubt it was a tactical move on Jesus' part to lessen the requirements of observance in order to accommodate the Gentiles. I think Paul understood it best though he is often credited with starting a new religion called Christianity. He writes, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God that depends on faith..." (Philippians 3: 8-9) That is the new wine - a righteousness from God that depends upon faith in Christ, his righteousness not our own. And if it is not our own, then it does not rest upon strict observance of the Law. Thus, Paul often warns if we go back to the law (circumcision) then we abandon faith in Christ and take a yoke upon ourselves that is too hard for any to bear. For this reason Jesus says, take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden light. Yes, it is true. In Christ there is little burden for he has born the yoke of the Law for us.

My reflections for the day are as follows. At the time Jesus began his public ministry there were several Judaisms. There were the Sadducees who controlled the Temple. There were the Pharisees who controlled the synagogues. There were the Zealots who had Messianic dreams and sought to expel the Romans. There were the Essenes who seemed to be a rival faction of priests and Levites that controlled the Temple. They were sympathizers with the Zealots for they both envisioned the violent overthrow of those they regarded as the enemy, or the sons of darkness. Then, Jesus came on the scene and by the end of his ministry there was a new Judaism called the Followers of the Way that named Jesus as the Messiah, spoke of his resurrection as God's vindication of him, and manifested the Spirit. Within a generation only it and the Pharisees were left. The Essenes and the Zealots vanished during the time of the Jewish Revolt, as did the Saducees once the Temple had been destroyed. The Pharisees retreated to places like Tiberias. Across the lake to the north and east one can see Capernaum, Jesus' home base. But while the Pharisees were in retreat and re-grouping, the Followers of the Way were on the move. Think of it. Men who grew up around this sea and made a livelihood here left for foreign parts – to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south. They left their comfortable home and traveled to Egypt, to India, to Persia, to Greece and Rome, perhaps even to Spain. And very soon they had established a new fellowship with Jewish roots that grew into the Gentile world. Certainly it seems that the stone the builders rejected became the capstone or cornerstone of a new and different structure. (Mark 12:10)

January 20, 2008

I started the day by taking the bus to Ein Tabgha to attend the Sunday mass at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fish. The Benedictines who run the place are from Germany so the mass was in German when spoken, Latin when chanted, with a bit of English sprinkled in. There were 14 in attendance so we were invited to sit up by the altar. Six were Filipino nuns that I take it were Dominicans and lived on the premises. They wore black habits. Four were brothers and priests of the order. One seemed to be the groundskeeper and there were three guests – two women who seemed to be part of some order, and myself. There was a lot of incense used. At the consecration the thurifer stood near to me swinging the censor the whole time. I was enveloped in a cloud but I didn't mind it. It brought me back to my days at Grace Church, Westwood when we did the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on Sunday evenings. I was the thurifer then and would send clouds of holy smoke towards the monstrance on the altar as we chanted hymns of praise. The Gospel for today was taken from John 1: 29f, the witness of John the Baptist to Jesus – he will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Yes, he will, if we allow him to gift us with the gift that he came to bring us.

I have stopped to write this half way between the Church of the Multiplication and Capernaum. The stone marker is here to my left where the woman with the issue of blood reached out to touch Jesus and was healed. He was on his way to Capernaum to raise Jairus' daughter. Jairus was a ruler in the synagogue there. I am headed there now. It was at this place, too, that the word came that the little girl had died and not to trouble the teacher any further. But Jesus said she had merely fallen asleep. Actually he said, "Do not fear; only believe and she will be well." (Luke 8:50) It was at the house he said she was asleep. Crowds were following him because of the healings he was doing. I thought of that today in church. Where are the crowds? Of course, there was no expectation among us of being healed either, I suppose. Where is the faith to believe in the power and desire of God to heal? It is lost to us by and large. In its place we sit in quiet reverence.

There is a field of banana trees between the place that I sit and the sea. As I sat down a Jewish man donned his tallit and phylacteries and walked a bit further up the road to pray facing south toward Jerusalem. What is his faith I wonder? I see the outward form of piety, just as I did at mass today, but what is the inner reality? Odd, but one of the young men at church whom I took to be a brother in the order sat in the asp wrapped in a floor length black cloak. He had perfect Ayrian features – white skin, pale blue eyes, blond hair gelled so that it was swept back on the side and spiked on the top. I couldn't help but think if he had a German uniform on he would look the part of the Nazi officers one sees in the movies. How odd that he should be in this place of all places.

I continued on to Capernaum and sat on one of the marble benches in the synagogue and read the Gospel of John. It was quiet there today. Mostly there were Japanese tourists, several busloads. Sunday is a day when tours depart and arrive, I gather, so there aren't as many tour groups at the sites. I noticed the same in Jerusalem. When I finished reading (it takes about one hour to read through John) I walked back to the bus stop at Ein Tabgha. That also takes one hour. Again it was a quiet walk with only the occasional car or truck or bus on the road above me and no one on the walk with me. Did I mention before that they made this beautiful paved stone walkway for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 2000 A.D. Aliza told me that when I mentioned I had walked it. I said, "I didn't think they had made it for me!" I gathered she thought it was a bit of an extravagance for one visit. Well, I certainly have been enjoying it. I have walked it three times now to Capernaum and back. I don't tire of it for you have the olive groves and banana groves beside you and the sea below you and the hills of the Golan in front of you as you walk east. You can actually see the entire sea from this north shore. Tiberias is visible to the right, the Golan to the left, and the narrower southern end is in the distance, a dozen miles or so.

When I arrived at the bus stop a cab pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride. The driver already had one passenger but, as they are prone to do here, they try to fill up with passengers. I asked how much. He said 25 shekels and the bus won't be by for another 30 minutes. Cab drivers seem especially concerned about my time. Every one has told me I'd waste too much time if I wait for the bus. They don't seem to realize I've got nothing but time on my hands. Nevertheless, I took his offer. I thought it was a rather good deal. The other day I made the same journey by cab for 60 shekels. The driver had asked for 70 but I said 50 and we settled at 60. Granted I was the only passenger but even so it was far too much to pay. So it goes in this land. Just like the holy sites where there are 2 or 3 of everything so there are 2 or 3 prices for everything. And, of course, the driver today tried to sell me his services on the way back. First, he wanted to take me to Safed. I said I am going back to Jerusalem tomorrow so I don't have the time. Then, he suggested he drive me back to Jerusalem by way of Jericho (through the Palestinian territory) since the bus doesn't go that way. I was tempted by that offer, I must admit, since we would follow the Jordan River south but I didn't dare ask the price. I said I already have my bus ticket. This was not a lie for George at St. Andrew's advised me to buy a round trip ticket since it is much cheaper. I paid 73 shekels for the round trip and the journey is 3 hours each way. My 60-shekel cab ride the other day lasted 10 minutes. So that was the end of it and he made no further offers.

My fellow passenger was a young girl, perhaps 8 years old or so. She sat in the back seat across from me listening to her music on her i-pod – rap music in English from the States. Well, after all there is a McDonald's on the Promenade by the waterfront in Tiberias. And when people were buying their last minute groceries before the Sabbath on Friday I saw an ultra-Orthodox man carrying two large bottles of Coke in his sack. The cultural influence of our country is visible and audible everywhere here. The political influence is evident too. My expensive cabbie the other day asked where I was from. I said the U.S. He said there are 54 states right? I said no, 50. And Israel is the 51st he replied. I think he set me up for that one. Given the fact that he was from Nazareth, Palestinian, and probably Muslim, I gathered he wasn't too delighted about that.

My reflections for the day are as follows. John still doesn't divulge his mysteries to me. Not that any of the other scriptures are easier to understand. What is the theme of John? How would I put it in a sentence? Maybe, in this way; if you are taught by God, you would recognize Jesus as having come from God, and you would believe in him, and by believing receive life in his name. Jesus seems to be on trial though out the whole of the Gospel – where are you from, why are you doing what you do, where did you get your authority to do such things, why have you come? And wherever he goes and by what he says or does, he causes division, that is, din (Hebrew), judgment, or as the Rabbis prefer to say, separation, as when the sea was separated from the dry land. But in Jesus' case it is a separation of people – those who can see and believe and those who are blind and do not believe, the light from the dark. And since judgment, or separation, is more in keeping with the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I still believe John writes from the perspective of the Fall Festivals, especially Sukkot. He even includes Dedication (Hanukkah) that repeats some Sukkot themes. It was on Sukkot that Solomon dedicated the first Temple with a feast lasting 7 days. (I Kings 8:2) Hanukkah was the re-dedication of the second Temple at the time of the Macabees.

Then there is the whole emphasis on the Holy Spirit being given to those who believe. They become a temple for the Spirit of God. Yes, from start to finish the emphasis in John is upon Jesus granting the Holy Spirit and through the Spirit one also receives the indwelling presence of the Father and the Son. So, one is taught by God because God the Teacher is present within the believer. There in the synagogue of our soul Rabbi Holy Spirit instructs us in the things of God.

I have had this thought since coming to this land. Jesus is not here. He was here at one time long ago. He saw these hills and mountains that I am seeing. He saw the Jordan and the Galilee. He was here but is no longer. Coming here you will not find him. To find him you must look within and if there you find the Spirit you will find him also. But you do not have to be here to look within. You could be anywhere and if the Spirit is within you, there you will find him. It is good to set my eyes upon the things that he saw. It is better to look within and see him. I think of the words of the angel at the tomb, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5) Looking for Jesus in this land, in the outer places, is like looking for him among the dead. All the historic sites are tombs of sorts, remnants of past lives. But if one looks within, Jesus is alive – still speaking, still working, still...

January 21, 2008

Today I returned to Jerusalem from Tiberias. I am glad of it. I had seen what I wanted to see in the Galilee and Tiberias itself was not very attractive. It was more like a Jersey shore town than anything with its promenade by the water and stores to match. On the ride back we passed Nazareth. It sits on the hills to the north of the Jezreel Valley and today it was clearly visible. It sprawls over the crest of the hills for several miles and down both sides. It is now one of the larger towns in the area, if not the largest, and not a tiny village as in Jesus' day. And near to Nazareth we passed on the southern side of Mount Tabor and the Church of the Transfiguration was also clearly visible. Shortly after Tabor we passed the road leading to the tell at Miggido. I would like to have seen that but I think there is more to see at Beit Shean so I am glad to have opted for it instead. Driving past these places gives one a good sense of the topography and the distances. By modern standards the distances are short indeed. Even by ancient standards the distances were not that great. An army could move through the Jezreel Valley in a matter of days I suspect. It is a broad plain between the Gilboa range to the south and the Carmel range to the north. But it is not so wide that you cannot see the hills on either side. In the valley one feels comfortably nestled in between the arms of these two ranges.

I was back at St. Andrew's Guest House by noon. It is better appointed than the Eden, where I stayed in Tiberias, for 15 dollars more a night and their breakfast is better too. So I am glad to spend my last week here. I don't have the same room as before so I don't have a view of the Old City. But I do have a better desk for writing and a southern exposure so it is brighter and warmer. From my window I see the lights of the suburbs of Jerusalem on the hills to the west. When one thinks of Jerusalem one thinks of the Old City within the walls. But truthfully most of Jerusalem sprawls on the hills to the south and west and north of the Old City. There isn't as much development to the east since that is in the Palestinian territory.

After settling in I walked over to the Bible Lands Museum next to the Israel Museum. It isn't large but it does have a fine collection arranged by periods starting with the Neolithic. The oldest artifacts, mostly flint tools and weapons, date from 120,000 – 45,000 B.C.E. It's hard to know what to make of such ages. People lived lives. What did they know? What did they think? What did they feel? What did they believe? They knew enough to survive and pass on their genes to us. To some degree they are still with us. Then there is the magical date of 10,000 B.C.E. when all of a sudden men domesticate animals and learn to cultivate grains and fruit trees. So they settle in one place and build permanent homes and villages and towns and walled cities. Stone vessels are replaced by pottery. Stone implements are replaced with copper and bronze and eventually iron. The dead are buried. Religion gets organized. Classes develop. Kings rule, whether semi-divine or not. Rulers wage war and create or lose kingdoms. Written language develops (about 2,000 B.C.E.) and the pace of civilization quickens. The Bible Lands Museum records it all in artifacts from Egypt, Canaan, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylonia, Ancient Mari, Ur, and Samaria, Persia, Greece and Rome.

One gets the sense that though the span from 10,000 B.C.E. to the present seems like a long time, it is really relatively short and could almost be called a single phase or stage of civilization. Now I suspect we are in a new phase that started perhaps as early as the Enlightenment but more likely with the industrial revolution in the 19th century. In the Galilee I saw cultivation of trees and fields that hasn't changed for thousands of years. Yes, there is mechanization, but the olive trees still grow in the same way. It is when you come to the cities that you notice the difference. Here the technology is on display everywhere. How is it changing lives, and changing beliefs, and changing feelings and thoughts? My sense is that we are in a strange blend of times when two eras are mixing together. The old hasn't utterly departed, and won't entirely, and the new hasn't completely taken hold and can't. It's an uncomfortable time. It reminds me of the prohibition in the Torah of mixing two kinds of fabric, wool and linen. The garment is rendered impure and can't be worn. It's hard to wear the old age and the new at the same time.

How can I illustrate what I mean? Perhaps this will serve as an example. Again, today, I was on the bus with some young Israeli soldiers both men and women. We passed the Horns of Hittim and I thought of armies past. It was the men who fought and not the women. If there were exceptions to that they were rare. But here, today, woman fight as well. It is the same now in our own army (though they may not be sent into combat per se). It's a new epoch. When I was visiting Aliza, who has a daughter in 8th grade, I inquired if she would go to college after high school. Immediately both parents said no, the military – all young people must either do military service or some national service. The national service is a way for women mostly, I assume, to serve if they have objections to entering the military. The objection, on the part of the religious Jews Aliza explained, is that they feel it is inappropriate for women to be under the authority of men their own age (who are not their husbands). There is the old epoch – women are under the authority of men, first their father and then when they marry, their husbands. The objection to service, I would have thought, was that it was inappropriate for women to carry weapons and be in a position of killing or being killed in battle. That objection didn't even seem to figure into the calculation. This is the new epoch.

My reflections for the day are as follows. Speaking of the old epoch and the new, I wonder how many beliefs from the old epoch will survive in the new? One could see at the museum that many of the beliefs, and many of the gods and goddesses of the past, have already gone the way of all flesh. They have perished and have been relegated to the mythologies of the past. But there are many similarities between those that have survived thus far and those that have perished. The explanatory texts of the museum tried to distance the religion of Israel from those of other nations. For example, in describing temple sacrifices in Sumaria where the food was set before the idol for the god to eat, it noted that in Israel, though the same meals were offered – meat and grain and wine – the priests ate the offerings, for it was not expected God would literally eat the food. Or, in speaking of the numinous the notes observed that Israel believed in a transcendent numinous power whereas the others believed in an immanent power. So in the burning bush account in Exodus, God appeared in the bush but the numinous power did not belong to the bush proper. When God's presence left the bush the bush was what it had been before, merely a bush.

One might call this de-mythologizing for it takes the numinous out of the world and removes it further afield. So the gods and goddesses, the worship of the sun and the moon, have all been vanquished by the appeal to a more transcendent deity. Of course, the inclination of this modern epoch is to de-mythologize even the transcendent and so remove the numinous entirely from any and all consideration. But, then, what is left when the cosmos is nothing more than particles in motion and there is no God, no numinous, no mystery? It seems we have seen some early attempts in this new epoch to define life without God and they have been pretty abysmal. The state planning of the Soviets and the Maoists are examples. The consumerism of the Western democracies that is spreading to the east and south is another.

One can retire to a religious compound as Aliza has done with her family, I suppose. One does look for meaning and purpose somewhere, somehow. Truly, I don't know how one can find it without some belief in the mystery, the numinous, the Divine. But, so many of the rituals that are supposed to evoke the numinous seem to the modern person to obscure the mystery rather than reveal it, like censing the altar yesterday at the Benedictine church. The altar and the elements were censed as well as those of us in attendance to proclaim the sanctity of the place and people and the food we were about to eat. But what was that ritual, as charming as it was, suppose to evoke in me? I do have this thought now, though. As is typical of Jesus, he reverses things. The ancients offered food to the gods for the gods to consume. The Jews offered the same but consumed it themselves. In Jesus God offers himself as food to consume. What are the implications of such a reversal I wonder?

January 22, 2008

It was rainy and cold this morning so I gave up on the idea of taking a bus to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum (or Shoah as Jews prefer to call the Holocaust), and took a taxi instead. Upon arrival I spent nearly three hours walking slowly through the exhibits. The signage is in English and Hebrew as are all the multi-media displays. The main museum is a long triangular structure cut into the mountain with a skylight running the full length. There are side galleries and the traffic is so directed that you must go from one gallery to the next, zig-zagging your way down the length of the museum until you reach the end.

The exhibit starts by relating the history of anti-semetism focusing upon the Christian contribution. They quote St. Augustine saying not to kill the Jews but to more or less oppress them and keep them in second-class status until they convert. The exhibit reports on the blood liable (liable for the death of Christ) persecutions of the Middle Ages and upon crusaders killing Jews in Europe as they made their way to the Holy Land. Then, the exhibits turn their attention to modern anti-semetism that is based upon the notions of ethnic purity, social superiority, and conspiracy theories about Jewish bankers and intellectuals seeking to dominate the world. There wasn't anything untrue in what was presented but I couldn't help but feel it was rather superficial, a characterization and not a complete story nor one that acknowledges the good relations that Jews and Christians had together for most of the time and probably in most places. But so it goes that years of goodness can be spoiled by a moment of evil, and it is the evil that is remembered most.

Yet there is no doubt that there was a massive failure in the Christian world to be converted to the gospel rather than the cause of race and nation. Blood proved to be thicker than water, at least than the waters of baptism, and so after centuries of Christians waging war against Christians they finally indulged in the greatest bloodletting of two world wars. That is the context of the Holocaust – Christians marching off to war with the cross of Jesus going on before. Well, in the case of the Nazi's it wasn't the cross of Jesus exactly. And in the midst of it they turned upon the Jews. Hitler wrote Mein Kempf (My Struggle) and it resonated with many. Again, it is the struggle of the new order, or epoch, emerging and replacing the old. Everyone had their vision of the new order from Marx to Hitler but somehow these visions required the death of the old order, and any remnants of it that hindered its realization. The Jews were of the old order, a people without a nation who refused to be assimilated, clinging to ancient traditions and rituals. Of course they should be swept out of the way to prepare the straight path for the new messiahs who would usher in the kingdom, the millennial kingdoms of the Nazi's and the communists. They, of course, were rivals and would eventually have to wage war with each other for rights to that kingdom.

I'm rambling. I can't form my thoughts tonight. Perhaps the carnage was too much to take in. I remember in the section of the museum that acknowledged those that risked their own lives to hide Jews they quoted a pastor who said, "I don't know what a Jew looks like, but I know what a human being looks like." Yes, that is the Gospel – to be able to recognize the humanity in another whom is despised and rejected. I feel that way about the homeless I put up in the church, or at least I try to. "I don't know what a homeless person looks like, but I do know what a human being looks like."

From the museum I went to Ein Kerem by cab. The little village was the birthplace of John the Baptist and the place of Mary's visitation to Elizabeth. The village is situated on both hillsides of a narrow picturesque valley. Unfortunately, both of the churches I came to see, the Roman Church of the Visitation and the Greek Church of Saint John Baptist were closed. So, I walked around the village and then caught a cab back to Jerusalem. The cab driver was the same one who picked me up at Yad Vashem. We talked a bit both times. He is Palestinian, Muslim. On the trip there I told him I am a priest. On the return trip he wanted to talk beliefs. Basically he wanted me to acknowledge that Jesus was simply human. His first argument was that Allah would not make love to Mary to conceive a child. The second was that if Jesus was God he would not eat; humans eat, gods don't. (I half suspected his real argument was that gods don't defecate which humans do after eating.) Human is human he said, and left the corollary unsaid, divine is divine. When Jesus comes again he will slay the false messiah and gather Muslims on the Mount of Olives, he declared. He didn't say what would happen next. Another holocaust, I suspected. Well, I was weary of holocausts having just seen the slipcases of the names and biographical information of 3,000,000 of the 6,000,000 Jews killed in the "Action" that are stored in the Hall of Remembrance. The names and biographical information of the remaining 3,000,000 have yet to be collected. The empty shelves along the walls in the Hall, a circular room with an oculus open to the sky in the center and a corresponding black well with water below, await the additional slipcases.

Well, my Muslin driver was getting himself worked up saying, "Do you know this is true!" I know something of it I said, sounding unconvincing. What a strange place this is. Everyone (well some) here seems so bent on defending God, or Allah, and usually what that means is that someone, some human person or group will suffer for it, for some supposed offense they have caused to the deity. Just today I read of some ultra-Orthodox who beat up (yes beat up) an orthodox man for some thing they took offense at. The article said they are getting more and more intimidating and violent about "offenders" in their neighborhoods. It makes me like the divine Jesus who becomes human all the more. It's as if he said by his coming, look I need no one to defend me. See even if you kill me I can raise myself up, so don't bother trying to protect me, or my name, or my honor. I'm fine. I can take care of myself. But I did come to live among you as one of you, even eating and drinking, to help you see that you don't have to know what a god looks like, I only desire you to know what a human being looks like. Be able to see humans and in that way you will honor and please me.

My reflections for the day are as follows. Today at Yad Vashem I witnessed "the mystery of lawlessness revealed." The scriptures say that mystery must be revealed before the Messiah comes. The irony is that lawlessness comes dressed in the garment of the law. That much is plain. Adolf Hitler did nothing apart from the law for once his National Socialists Party gained power they passed laws to legitimate every act of lawlessness. And in such a situation it was those who acted apart from the law, by helping the Jews, who proved to be righteous. And it is the same today. Those who are most eager to fight and oppress others take refuge in the law. So those radical religious who don't want to give land for peace or divide Jerusalem in any way make arguments from the law. In the paper yesterday one such Rabbi rendered a ruling that no Israeli soldier need lay a hand on a settler to remove him from the land he has settled for God has given this land to the Jews and it would be against God's law. And the Imams of Hamas justify the actions of that organization according to their interpretation of the law. Hamas has been lobbing missiles from Gaza into southern Israel each day, 40 or so a day, all the days I have been here and even when President Bush was visiting.

And so what is lawlessness? It is not the absence of law so much, as the proliferation of laws, or the interpretation of law in such a way that goodness is vanquished and evil prospers. It makes me all the more wary of the law and those who are eager to pass laws. I think of John's prologue to his Gospel where he writes the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Yes, grace and truth is what is needed. What is truth other than the ability to see not a Jew, not a Muslim, not a Christian, not a black, not a white, and so on, but to see a fellow human being? And what is grace other than desiring the same good for them that one desires for himself and his own? Perhaps this is the meaning of being one in Christ and united in him and through him. As we live in his grace and truth we live toward one another in greater equality and freedom. From what I can see of the law in this place it perpetuates inequality and bondage, and that is true of the laws of all the parties in the present dispute.

After seeing Yad Vasham one must ask, though those who constructed this testimonial to evil apparently didn't, is there a spiritual force of wickedness in heavenly places? Certainly the New Testament answers that question with a resounding, yes! And the curious thing is that that spiritual force doesn't incite men to break the law so much as to keep it. By the way in which it is kept the law no longer helps but hurts, no longer heals but afflicts, no longer is a force for good, but becomes a force for evil. Conversely, in Jesus' ministry he was accused of being a lawbreaker and, therefore, not from God, precisely at those moments when he was healing and helping. The Sabbath controversies illustrate this well. Take the example of opening the eyes of a blind man on the Sabbath. He was accused of violating the Sabbath and breaking God's law despite the fact that the work that he did, the healing work, could only have been done by God, and for God's glory. The works Jesus performed were good works, healing works, works for man, and yet, they were condemned by men's interpretation of the law. On another occasion Jesus said, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?" They had taken up stones to stone him. They replied, "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God." (John 10: 32,33) Do they not accuse him here of what they do themselves? God is the giver of law and when men make laws and interpret law are they not making themselves equal to God? And when those laws, like the one's promulgated by the National Socialists kill or make alive, have they not become god?

In truth Jesus did make himself, and all men and women, equal to God. In making himself equal to humanity he made humanity equal to God. In that understanding, and the acts that flow from it, seem to me to be the fullness of grace and truth. With respect to the Sabbath this was the interpretation that flowed from this truth for Jesus, "The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath." (Luke 6:5) In other words, man is not a slave to the Sabbath laws, and the human interpretation given to them, but man is master of the Sabbath and may, like any master, freely observe it in a way that reflects grace and truth. One does that by acknowledging the essential goodness of God's work, and by blessing God and the works of his hand, and even by doing works like his on this day.

Yet, here in this place I feel more oppression and darkness than freedom and light. Observance is everywhere but truth seems to have been banished; law rules but grace has been imprisoned. In this "holy" place unholiness is the norm. People are not lawless. They are exceedingly lawful, and in their lawfulness they wish evil on their neighbors. And, thus, the mystery of lawlessness is revealed. It does not manifest apart from the law, it manifests in and through the law itself as men, through the law, perpetuate all manner of evil on one another.

January 23, 2008

I began the day at the Coenaculum. For the longest time I was the only one there, apart from the two cats who frequent the place. I sat and prayed in tongues. I was facing the southern wall of the room so I could see the stained glass windows the Muslims had installed when the room had been converted to a Mosque after the Crusader period. The present room is from the Crusader period, perhaps built in the 12th century by the Frankish (Crusader) Kingdom of Cyprus. I don't know what the windows are meant to depict with their blue background and red and yellow flowing shapes. They could easily be mistaken for the flames of fire of the Holy Spirit in my estimation.

Finally, several guides came in one after another with their English-speaking clients in tow. The first were Christian so the guide explained how this room was the room of the Last Supper and also Pentecost. When he pointed out the Muslim elements of the room, the mother of the family asked why would Muslims honor Jesus? The guide replied because they regard him as a prophet but not the Son of God. Yes, better not to go in to things too closely. The guide didn't mention the resurrection appearances that occurred here as well.

The next group was Jewish so there was only a mention of Jesus celebrating Passover, and then his going to the Garden of Gethsemane where he was arrested and so on. Oh, I forgot to mention that the first guide in explaining Pentecost said the disciples spoke in other tongues. Today, he said, Pentecostals will come on tours and when they come here they sing and shout in tongues. It is not a language that makes any sense, he said, but it is a sign of the Spirit. I could have demonstrated for them because that is what I had been doing the whole time I was there. Not singing, or shouting, but praying in tongues- letting the river of the Spirit flow through me.

A third guide came in with a lone client. "This is the room of the Last Supper," he said. "This is it?" the man asked. "Yes," the guide replied. The man snapped a few picture and left. Been there, done that.

Not all guides are equal, I can see, and it made me glad I was my own guide with the help of a book I bought years ago entitled, The Jerusalem Jesus Knew, by John Wilkerson, who was the director of the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem some 30 years ago, and the guide book Janet bought for me before my leaving entitled, Insight Guides: Israel, put out by the Discovery Channel. Both have been helpful, the latter to get me around to places as they exist today, and the former to illuminate the past.

From the Upper Room I went next door to the Church of the Dormition. Again I was the only one there at that hour. In the asp of the chapel in the crypt, where the life-sized image of Mary in repose on her deathbed is displayed, is a mosaic I am fond of. It depicts Pentecost with the dove of the Spirit at the top and Mary below with 6 apostles to her right and 6 to her left. Golden rays descend upon each from the dove. The background is a pleasing shade of red, like the color of clay. The whole effect is very satisfying. Looking at it this time I thought the first time the Spirit overshadowed Mary she conceived and gave birth physically. The second time, she, and the others were conceived and given birth spiritually. They received the Spirit and the Spirit remained with them. As Paul says, first comes the physical, and then the spiritual. The conception and birth of Jesus was unique to Mary. The spiritual conception and second birth of Jesus in us is common to all. In the mosaic Mary is the central figure, but all were seated together on the same level, and all received the same measure of the Spirit, for there was perfect uniformity of the rays that descended from the dove.

Exiting the Dormition Church, I descended the hill that is Mount Sion southward to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu. Both of these churches are outside the Old City walls as is the Upper Room. The man Suleiman put in charge of rebuilding the walls failed to extend them down the slope of Sion for no apparent reason. For this error he received the maximum penalty – execution. St. Peter by contrast, after his denial of his master, was pardoned and elevated to a position as chief among the apostles. Not all masters are alike! Gallicantu is where Peter's denial took place since the church is built over the reputed home of the High Priest Caiaphas. In the courtyard on the east side of the church, Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed at daybreak. As if on cue, when I arrived a cock did crow from over the hillside to the east where there are some Arab houses. Under the present church there is a pit carved in the bedrock that is reputed to be the cell in which Jesus was kept until the morning when he was tried by the council, and then taken to Pilate. In the pit there is a notebook on a stone lectern containing Psalm 88 in a variety of languages. I found the page with English and read it aloud. Again I was alone as I read out loud but shortly after a Japanese tour group arrived. Verses 3-6 of the Psalm read, "For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions of the dark and deep."

It was a pit indeed. Today, of course, there are stairs cut into the rock leading down into it for pilgrims like myself to descend and it is well lit. In Jesus' day there was only a small opening at the top, I would guess about 12 feet above the bottom. To be confined there in the dark would seem as if one had gone down to the dark deep pit of the grave and had joined the inhabitants of Sheol.

From there I went on to the Western Wall to pray. I intended to go up on the Temple Mount as well, but the green door at the entrance by the Western Wall was shut. I don't believe there are regular hours for opening it, at least that I can discern. It is either open, or not, and most times, not.

From the Western Wall I walked through the Old City to the Damascus Gate. It is not a long walk, maybe 15 minutes at the most through a bit of the Jewish Quarter and then the Muslim Quarter. Lots of Muslim women were shopping today. They had come by bus to the parking lot on the Nabulus Road just north of the Damascus Gate. The same bus lot is jammed with buses on Friday as worshippers come for Friday prayers to the mosques on the Mount. The stretch between the Damascus Gate and the bus parking lot becomes a frenzy of activity towards the end of the time of prayer as merchants hurriedly set up tables mounded with sweets and candies and other items to sell to the worshippers as they stream out of the Mount past their goods on the way to the buses that will take them home. I had headed for the Nabulus Road, since I wanted to see the Garden Tomb one more time. I hadn't gotten pictures of its version of Golgatha the first time. It doesn't sit within the boundaries of the land owned by the group that runs the Garden Tomb. But they do provide a nice overlook so you can view it. It is a rock outcropping with buses parked below it and a Muslim cemetery on top of it. There is even a television antennae affixed to one of the graves on top. I wonder who is watching TV up there, and what they are watching?

The Garden Tomb closes at noon for several hours so I went quickly into the tomb again and went on my way. I had actually come this direction to go to the Palestinian Potters a little further up the Nabulus Road to find a gift for my son Devin. The owner is a Palestinian Christian whose family has been making pottery since 1922. When you enter the shop the workroom is to the right and the showroom to the left. Through the windows of the workroom you can see women actually painting the various pieces. I bought Devin two square serving dishes with handles. One has gazelles and the other flowers. I hope he finds some use for them (he's a chef). The owner, who speaks English very well, told me he had attended Ohio University. He looked to be my age and wore his graying hair pulled back and tied into a small knot the way the Greek priests do here. I take it was more an artistic expression than religious devotion.

I pressed on to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and sat, as I have grown accustomed to doing, on the marble benches in the Roman chapel next to the Greek Golgatha. In the Roman chapel Jesus was stripped of his clothes (Station 10) and nailed to the cross (Station 11). Station 12 is when he was elevated on the cross at Golgatha and Station 13 is below where he was taken from the cross. Station 14 is a little beyond that where he was placed in the tomb. The Roman chapel is a good place to sit and read (there is a window here with a western exposure) and pray in tongues. I watch the people come and go, people from every race and nation and tongue.

I ended the day by walking over to the Sion Gate on the southern side of the Old City and through it out to the western wall of the city. I wanted to examine for myself that stone platform that is outside the wall that Jim Tabor, the archeologist from North Carolina, pointed out to us. It is true you can clearly see Herodian stones at the lowest levels of the present wall on both sides of the platform. And, you can see Herodian stones in the retaining wall of the platform itself. The platform sits on top of bedrock that falls away at that spot creating a natural elevation for the platform. Herod simply had to fill in the low spots and pave it with stones (some of which are still visible) and it would provide a perfect podium for a ruler like Pilate to address a crowd below. And if there was a gate in the wall at that point, he could go in to the Praetorium and come out with ease. All of this supposes Herod's palace along the western wall served as the Praetorium, rather than the fortress of Antonia.

My reflections for this day are as follows. Today, I was struck by the model of 5th century Jerusalem that is on the grounds of St. Peter's in Gallicantu. It shows all of the Jerusalem Churches in the early Byzantine period. Of special interest in the model they show two churches that no longer exist, New St Mary's and Holy Sion. Both were large basilicas. The former reveals how the devotion to the Virgin Mary had taken hold already in the Christian world. And the latter was built to contain the Upper Room and was referred to as the mother of all churches. If it were still standing it would encompass the area where the Upper Room and the Synagogue of the Diaspora and the Church of the Dormition are today. But on the Temple Mount there is nothing at all. The Romans had built a pagan temple there after 135 A.D. when Jerusalem was turned into a Roman town and the name changed. But at some point that pagan temple was destroyed. Why did the Christians never build there I wonder? They were prone to build over former pagan sites, such as where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is, and the churches by Siloam and Bethsaida. Even St. Peter's in Gallicantu seems to be built over a former pagan site. Building over pagan sites made a statement about Christianity displacing paganism. Whether it was triumphalism, or merely a statement of fact, it matters little. It was done. It was customary. Why then was the same not done on the Temple Mount? Did the empty mount stand as a better testimony to the truth and triumph of Christianity? Was there an aversion to building there since Jesus had prophesied that not one stone would be left standing upon another? Was it deemed sacrilegious, therefore, to build, and, thus, obscure the fulfillment of prophecy? Or, was simply that the locus had shifted from the Temple, as the place where Yahweh's Name dwelt, to Jesus. As Jesus said to Philip when he asked, "Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied," and he replied, "Have I been with you this long and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14: 8) The Prologue of John certainly makes it clear that the Word who was with God, and was God, became flesh and dwelt among us. The Temple was the dwelling of God in its day, but for believers, Jesus is the definitive dwelling today. He tabernacled among us as John says. So wherever significant events happened, where Jesus as the tabernacle revealed the Divine glory, there Christians worshipped, and there they built their churches.

The Garden Tomb is an interesting case in point. No church was ever built there but there is evidence of Christian worship. A cross is painted on the stone in the interior of the tomb and several on the exterior. There is also evidence of a mikvah, or baptismal pool. The cross would indicate a later stage of worship since it was not a common symbol until the 4th century or so, after Christianity was adopted by Constantine and officially recognized. It was then that Helena, Constantine's mother, came on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and discovered the true cross and afterwards the likeness of a cross became Christianity's common symbol. But since the re-discovery of the Garden Tomb in the 19th century, it has been the focal point of worship for Protestant Christians mostly. It suits the temperament of Protestants who disdain the priestly trappings so much on display in the Holy Sepulchre. I have heard the one guide twice now give his presentations to groups. He ends by saying you are familiar with tombs in the places you come from and in each of those there is a dead man's bones (women do not die apparently). But here when you enter the tomb you will see that it is empty. Why? Because Jesus is risen and ascended to heaven, Halleluiah! And any who believe in him will receive life in his name! Of course, there are plenty of other empty tombs in this place where long ago the graves have been looted and the bones scattered, like Herod's, for instance. But his is a standard evangelical presentation. He made no mention of the presence of Jesus within the believer through the gift of the Spirit. He is in heaven, but also within the hearts of those who believe, is he not? What is clear, however, is that he is not present at these sites. To my mind, the presence of God is as present to, and as absent from, these sites as any place in the world.

The same cannot be said for Jews and Muslims. For them there really are sacred places where God is more present. For Jews it is definitely the Temple Mount (or at present the Western Wall, since they only have access to it). For Muslims it is Mecca as is obvious by the direction in which they pray. One guide I heard yesterday in the Upper Room was explaining that the Muslim prayer niche faced south, because that was the direction of Mecca from Sion. He said Christians worship facing east, because that is the direction from which the Messiah will come. Well, that is only true if you are west of the Mount of Olives. Actually, I had learned that Christians orient their churches towards the east to face the rising sun, a symbol of the light of Christ, the Son of God, dawning upon us. But you will find churches oriented in various directions as location dictates, like St. Thomas' Church on 5th Avenue in New York. Its altar faces west because the church is on the west side of the street and thus the entrance is on the eastern end of the building. All of this testifies that Christians are not focused upon a particular location for the Deity, except heaven above, and the heart below.

January 24, 2008

The skies were clear today and the sun was finally warm, so it seemed a good day to climb the Mount of Olives one more time. I headed first to the Temple Mount and was able to enter this time. I walked around the Al-Aqsa Mosque and noted the eastern side has been redone almost entirely. There is a door on that side with a rose window above it that looks more gothic than anything. I wonder if it is from the Crusader period? I'll have to investigate the history of the building some more. (Perhaps the Byzantines did build up here, perhaps not. If so, whatever was built could have been destroyed by the Persians in 614 A.D.) I did a complete circuit of the Dome of the Rock looking carefully at all of the features. I was praying in tongues as I walked. This time I noticed there is a sundial on the southern side. It is a marble square with lines or rays etched into it and a spike at the top that casts a shadow to tell the time. The spike is bent. I don't know if that is intentional or not; whether that bend is a adjustment so the dial is precise, or some damage that makes the dial incorrect.

I walked from there out the north exit by the Lion Gate and down the hill to the Garden of Gethsemene to begin my ascent of the Mount of Olives. At the top I went first to the Eleona Church, now called Pater Noster. It is impressive to see the hand painted tiles of the Lord's Prayer in a number of languages affixed to the walls of this complex. From a handful of Jewish disciples meeting in a cave and being taught this prayer by Jesus, it has become a prayer on the lips of people from every nation and in every tongue. I then walked over to the alternative site of the Ascension. It was converted to a mosque in 1187 when the Muslims re-took Jerusalem and it does sport the customary niche facing in the direction of Mecca. But I doubt it has been used as a mosque for some time since a larger building for the mosque has been built adjacent to the Dome, and it now sits in the courtyard of the mosque.

I then walked a bit further west to see if I could glimpse Bethany beyond the "barrier" as the Israelis call it. I couldn't see much of Bethany so I gave up on that and turned around to begin my descent of the Mount of Olives. As I began my descent, I did stop at the "Prophet's Tombs" near the top of the mount. It is only open two days a week and today was one of those days. The Russian Orthodox Church runs the site and there was a young friendly priest outside watching his children play. There are several houses on the site as well. He explained to me in English that there is a cavern hollowed out of the rock that contains many tombs (all empty these days). Most are from the Byzantine period (1500 years ago) but two, by tradition, are thought to have been the tombs of Haggai and Malachi (500 B.C.E.). I went down into the cavern for a look but it was so dark I could see very little. Only when the flash of my camera illuminated the cave could I see the rows of tombs cut into the rock. The priest said early Christians might also have used it as a place of worship, a catacombs, like the catacombs in Rome.

As I continued my descent I stopped at Dominus Flevit, where Jesus is supposed to have wept over Jerusalem as he was making his entry before Passover (Luke 19: 41f). It affords a wonderful view of Jerusalem and you can easily see the whole of it (the Old City anyway) in a glance. Certainly in Jesus' time he could see the whole of it and particularly the Temple for it would have been directly in front of him across the Kidron Valley. I sat there for some time just gazing at the city and praying in tongues. When I finished the descent, I decided to walk down through the Kidron Valley to the Spring of Gihon. It is rather desolate with a Jewish cemetery to the left on the hillside and a barren hillside to the right. I wanted to get a visual perspective of the Temple Mount from the bottom of the valley. It is quite a drop off from the southeast corner of the Temple Mount to the base of the valley. Jesus was supposedly tempted by Satan to cast himself down from that point and tradition says that James was cast down to his death from there.

When I reached the Gihon Spring I met two black clad ultra-Orthodox types who were asking for directions from an Israeli soldier. They were speaking English so I spoke up. I heard the soldier tell them not to go further in the direction they were heading. That was sound advice since at that point there are Palestinian dwellings on both hillsides that are part of the neighborhood of Silwan, Muslims, who are rather hostile I have been told. So, I led them up the stairs that connects to the City of David archeology project and we chatted a bit. It turned out they live in Brooklyn and are part of the Satmar sect. They were surprised I had heard of it, but I said I am from New York after all. I had already told them that I lived in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and am a priest. I explained what we were seeing as we ascended the stairs. For all of their Jewishness, here in Israel they were like innocents abroad. The site was filled with groups of young soldiers on tour, both men and women, and I could tell they were a bit taken aback. The younger of the two asked, are these all Jews that are here visiting and working on the dig? The soldiers are, I replied, and the workers mostly, I imagine, but others as well who are interested in archeology. The Sitmar sect if I recall doesn't support the Zionist State of Israel. They believe (I think) that the state can only be restored when Messiah comes. The elder man had said to a soldier with a gun on guard we had passed, "I hope you haven't had to use that!" "I haven't so far," was the reply, "except in training." "Are you well trained?" the elder inquired. "Yes," the soldier replied, "Very well."

When we reached the top, I walked on and out of the City of David and through the Dung Gate to the Wailing Wall. I prayed there for some time. It was crowded today. Alan Segal had said that Thursday was the day they did Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs at the Wall. And today there were a number of boys there for their Bar Mitzvah. These were joyous family celebrations. Of course, a boy must go with the men on the men's side, while the women watch from the forecourt. Today, though, I saw one Bar Mitzvah take place by the fence that divides the men's section from the women's, and all of the boy's female supporters were standing on chairs and leaning over the fence to be a part of the ceremony. As I was leaving after my time of prayer at the Wall I saw a touching site. A young boy in a chair with wheels (something more substantial than a wheel chair) was being wheeled down to the Wall for his Bar Mitzvah. My heart broke for him, and I prayed for his healing.

My reflections for the day are as follows. I was browsing in the library at St. Andrew's tonight and found a book on the Dome of the Rock, the golden domed mosque that sits over the spot where the Temple used to stand. The Caliph Omar had built a structure there over the rock in the second half of the 7th century C.E. but not the present grand one. That was built by his successor, Malik, who wanted to compete with the Caliph who controlled the sites of Mecca and Medina, and with the Christian site of the Holy Sepulchre. Pilgrims were making their required pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and enriching the coffers of that Caliph. So Malik had the Dome constructed and required the subjects of his realm to make their pilgrimage there rather than to Mecca and Medina. He could boast of the importance of the site, of course, for it is reputed to be the place Mohammed ascended into heaven to converse with Allah, mounted upon a "magical" steed that had transported him overnight from Arabia. No one, it seems, likes to mention that it was in the course of that conversation that Mohammed was granted permission from Allah to change his tactics for the propagation of Islam from preaching and persuasion, to battle and forced conversion. Well, it could be argued that conversions were not forced, but those who did not convert were relegated to a lesser status and various restrictions were imposed that in time led most to convert. At any rate, the Dome was intended to elevate the site as a destination for pilgrims, and enrich the coffers of Malik while increasing his prestige.

Mecca and Medina were not his only competition. The Holy Sepulchre had long been a pilgrim site for Christians and Malik wanted a monument that would outshine that. In fact, it seems, he copied the dome over the rock of Christ's tomb. The dimensions of the domes of both are almost identical, though those of the Holy Sepulchre are a foot or so larger. The drums beneath the domes are sized the same. And both domes sit upon pillars and columns that create a circular ambulatory around the sacred spot. After that the comparisons cease, for the Dome of the Rock is elaborately decorated with painted tiles inside and out, and the exterior of the Dome was originally gilded with real gold creating a dazzling display. Hugh clothes were made to cover the Dome in winter, and during rainy weather, in order to preserve the gilding.

In the front of the Dome of the Rock on the east side stands the Dome of the Chain. It is believed to have been an architectural model made for Malik so that he could visualize and approve the plan for the actual Dome of the Rock. It owes its name to a legend concerning a chain of David that in the judgment the righteous are able to grasp and be saved, whereas the unrighteous are unable and they perish. All three great monotheistic faiths believe the last judgment will take place here in Jerusalem on this mountain, Moriah, and in the valley below to the east.

Malik's son built the Al Aqsa Mosque to accommodate the pilgrims that came here to worship, for the space in the Dome of the Rock is limited. The book I was reading said that he used the stones from New Saint Mary's Church, built by Justinian, and destroyed by the Persians in 614 C.E. It also speculated that the mosque might have been built on the site of that church, though the model of Byzantine Jerusalem at St. Peter's in Gallicantu shows it in a different location and not on the Temple mount. The model shows it on the cardo created by the Byzantines to the south of the Holy Sepulchre and represents it as a large basilica that looks similar to the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Crusaders converted both the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque to churches when they occupied Jerusalem. The Knights Templar dedicated the Dome to the Lord – The Temple of the Lord, and the Al Aqsa to Solomon. When Saladin reclaimed Jerusalem in the 12th century, he restored both to their former use. Both have been refurbished over the centuries, as is obvious today with the work going on at the eastern side of the Al Aqsa. Mason's workshops are set up along the southern wall on the eastern side of the mosque. When I walked there the other day I could see the workman at their labors.

The legend of David's chain intrigues me for it raises the issue of judgment. When I was at Dominus Flevit yesterday sitting and praying, I heard a guide explaining to a couple in English various things about the Temple mount. As seems so typical, there was a mixture of information, and misinformation, in his talk. Misinformation – he said the mount you see is from Solomon's day. The mount as it stands reflects Herod's extension of Solomon's mount. Herod built up the southern end and joined it to Solomon's mount. They are not at the same level for one must walk up some steps from the Herodian addition to the level of the original Temple mount on Moriah. He also extended the northern end. Information – he said the reason people are buried close to the eastern wall, and the Golden Gate, is that when Messiah comes he will judge the people and they want to be the first to rise to judgment. Curious. I can't imagine why anyone would want to rush to judgment. But then again this place, this Jerusalem, seems to reveal the hearts of humanity. Mostly what I see is the vanity of confidence. "Oh so sure and oh so wrong," as my friend Alfred Nehring was fond of saying. Who can tell when the Messiah holds out David's chain to us whether we will be able to grasp it, or not?

It causes me to ponder both Jesus and Paul on the theme of judgment. In Jesus' teaching, particularly in John's Gospel, the judgment has already begun – the separating out of believers from unbelievers, the disclosing of the hearts, the casting out of the ruler of this world, and so on. In Paul, since we are not judged according to the Law but according to faith in Christ, we have already passed through the judgment, with respect to whether we will be inscribed for life or death (the second death). The only judgment we face is that of elevation, or demotion, at the banquet table, depending upon what good we have done for the Kingdom, or what ill. And I suspect that many whom seemed great in their day like Urban II, who called for the first crusade, will be regarded as one of the least, as will great Augustine who counseled the oppression of Jews, but not their slaying. They betrayed Christ, who taught us to love our enemies, and to do them good, not ill. Well, betraying Christ is a common thing among us who profess him, and so Jesus still weeps, as he did that day on Olivet.

I had this thought, too, about the Jews here. There are somewhere between 5 and 6 million living in Israel now. That gives me some perspective on the Holocaust. What a vast project it was, requiring the co-operation and participation of many! Imagine the task of rounding up the entire Jewish population of Israel today, herding them into camps, and exterminating them. Imagine the vast amounts of property and wealth left behind to seize and plunder. Imagine, also, the greater loss to humanity of the wit and wisdom and invention of those that were killed.

And, I had this thought about the Palestinians. They could be greatly helped if they made peace with the Israelis. Their economy could be built up; their culture advanced. This is a time of visitation for them, I suspect, but they seem not to recognize it, or their present leaders refuse to acknowledge it. And in not doing so, I do believe destruction will come to this place, not peace.

January 25, 2008

I began the day by walking the length of the Hass Promenade. It is about a 45- minute walk along the hillside south of the city, and it affords wonderful views of Jerusalem and surrounds. It provides a good perspective on the lay of the land. Although the Hinnom Valley is obscured by the hill in front of your view, Mount Zion is clearly visible, as is the Temple Mount, the City of David, the Kidron Valley, the Mount of Olives, and the surrounding neighborhoods. On the hillside below the Hass Promenade is a Peace Forest planted with a variety of pines, cypress, olive, and other trees and shrubs. The whole area is well maintained, and for long stretches I was the sole walker. At the end of the walk there is an overlook with parking for cars and buses. There I found the tours. The buses park for a few moments and the tourists disembark, take a few pictures, get back on the bus and move on. I was glad of it, for I knew my walk back on the same route would be just as solitary and peaceful.

From there I walked back into the Old City and did the route of the Stations of the Cross. I went slowly, stopping where there is a chapel to sit and read the texts appropriate to each station. Of course, some of the stations have no biblical basis but are traditions, like the one for Veronica's veil when she wiped Jesus' face with her veil and it left an imprint of his face. There is a quaint chapel there run by the "Poor Sisters of Jesus." I was charmed by the name, so I stopped in their chapel to pray (when I say pray, I mean pray in tongues, which is what I do as I walk around all day). Two "Poor Sisters" were in the gift shop stamping post cards they were offering for sale.

One can easily miss a station for they are not clearly marked, and sometimes the little chapels are closed (don't expect to see schedules posted in most places either). Much of the Via Delarosa runs through the maze of the Muslim Quarter before ending in the Christian Quarter. The reason for this is the first few stations are all supposed to be within the precincts of the Antonia fortress (which no longer exists) on the northwest corner of the Herod's Temple Mount. Now that area is an array of buildings and homes, and a warren of streets. Today was Friday, the Muslim holy day, which meant there was an abundance of armed police and soldiers stationed on the street corners, and at the entrances to the Haram esh-Sharif (the Venerable Sanctuary) to monitor the streams of worshippers who come flooding in, not only from the Moslem Quarter, but from the outlying regions, like fans to a sporting event. There seemed to be more police and soldiers on hand. Yesterday there was a shooting of a guard just north of Jerusalem. He was killed and his female partner wounded. And, there was an attack on a school where the two attackers were killed. Not to mention, the Gaza border with Egypt has been open the last two days after Hamas blew up part of the barrier. The Israeli Defense force has warned that a dozen terrorists used it as an opportunity to escape from Gaza. They are on the loose in the Sinai, and the road through the Negev to Eilat has been shut down. So, the tension level does seem higher today.

I finished the stations at the Holy Sepulchre, again sitting by Golgotha to read the texts of the crucifixion by the slab that marks the spot where Jesus was taken off the cross, and by the tomb. So much happens by the tomb if you read all four versions of the Gospels. He was buried. He was raised. The soldiers guarding the tomb are struck down by the angelic visitation. The angels appear to the women. Peter and John come to see the empty tomb. He appears to Mary Magdelene. I sat there opposite the door to the present chapel that marks the spot, watching as a rotund Greek Orthodox priest kept the line moving and bounced any gate crashers who made a b-line for the door without going to the end of the line. I would estimate from my own experience of entering the chapel twice, that it was a good 45-minute wait today to get a minute or two by the tomb. At least it is free, as are most of the religious sites. Jerusalem does out Disney Disney in some respects, but at least it hasn't become a theme park yet.

From the Holy Sepulchre I walked across the Old City to Mount Zion and the Upper Room. There I sat and read again the accounts of Jesus' appearance to the eleven on the day of resurrection, or in John the ten on the day and the eleven a week later when Thomas was with them (I'm not including the others who might have been present as well). I also read the account of Pentecost in Acts since it is implied this took place in the same house as the last supper, only this time 120 were present. 120 could fit in the present Crusader room but that would be about its capacity I would guess. And so I ended my day at about 3 P.M., the hour of Jesus' death. I can understand the haste to bury him before the beginning of the Sabbath. I hurried to my regular supermarket to buy something for dinner and it was already closed! I was fortunate to find another market or else I would be fasting tonight. Of course, a few months from now at Passover the sun sets an hour or more later than now and so the Sabbath begins later. But even so Joseph of Arimethea had to act with haste to get Pilate's permission to take the body, prepare the body, and bury it.

I found an interesting remark in Acts regarding the Ascension. In Acts 1:12 Luke says that after Jesus ascended, "they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath's days's journey away." I've walked that several times now, and it takes 50 minutes, or so, at a slow pace. So, that gives me some feeling for a Sabbath's day's journey, which was the maximum amount one could walk without violating the Sabbath rest, at least in the Rabbinical interpretation. My other thought is that Luke may note this to assert that Jesus ascended on the Sabbath. Perhaps it has something to do with the controversies Jesus got embroiled in with the teachers over "working" on the Sabbath. His "works" were to heal, and to cure, and he defended these by saying his Father was still working, on the Sabbath, and so he also was working. So, perhaps Luke simply means the Father is still working on the Sabbath, in this case by exalting Jesus to his right hand.

One more thing, when I approached the Old City today by the way of Mount Zion I encountered a peace march. There was a long line, single file, of marchers all wearing a white sash over one shoulder and tied at the waist on the opposite side, like a deacon's stole. Police were accompanying them. They were marching around the Old City. One woman handed me a card that was mostly in Hebrew and Arabic, but the little English explained this was a silent march for peace, and it invoked the example of Ghandi. Curious, I thought, for Ghandi himself invoked the example of Jesus.

While walking the Stations of the Cross today I was struck by the text in Luke 23: 26-31 that is the basis for one of the stations, "Daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' Then they will begin to say to the mountains 'Fall on us' and the hills, 'Cover us,' for if they do these things when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?" It seems to me the wood is dry here, and the right spark could ignite a great fire that no one could put out. That fire would become a big blaze and many would be consumed in its flames. There are just too many people running around with matches thinking they can ignite a fire that will consume their enemies and then they will have peace. They do not seem to understand that they also will burn in the flames.

Those I saw on the peace march were a rag tag bunch: middle aged and older women, young people with youthful idealism; men, who like myself, seem to come from the margins of society, not the power centers of politics, the military, or business. They looked to me like the women of Jerusalem who wept for Jesus – just as powerless, and just as unable to influence and control the events around them. They are sane, of course. They know that peace is better than war, giving life better than taking it, nurturing life better than destroying it, and building up better than tearing down.

But there is madness in the ones in power and they seem ignorant of it. For example, there was an article in the paper yesterday about some members of the Kinnesset who wanted to make a trip to Ramallah to speak to Abbas. It was a peace initiative. But they had to go through their own Israeli checkpoint at the wall (barrier) that they had established. The guards would not allow these MK's to pass through because their paper work was not in order. They hadn't signed the waiver rescinding their rights as citizens of Israel that Israeli's must sign to enter the territories (the government doesn't want to be responsible for what happens to Israeli's who choose to cross through the barrier). All the MK's were perturbed, but all but one finally signed and entered. The one who refused said now he has a better understanding of what the Palestinians go through, and he will keep that in mind when next they discuss the fence in the Kinnesset. So, in effect he admitted to voting for the barrier, and funding it, without thinking of the consequences for the people who were sealed in, or needed to pass through. Only when it affected him, and his movements, was he incensed.

So it goes. It reminds me of Martin Niemoller (a famous German pastor during World War II) who is quoted in Yad Vashem as saying, "When they came for the communists I didn't protest because I am not a communist. When they came for the socialists I didn't protest because I am not a socialist. When they came for the Jews I did not protest because I am not a Jew. When they came for me there was no one left to protest." Only when it affects us are we finally moved and outraged by the injustice. How is it that we can have such a spirit instead that we "look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others?"

Well, the holy shrines here are a testimony to self-interest as each group marks off its territory and guards it religiously. As Aliza Avshalom told me, it would be in the best interest of Israel (for tourism's sake) to fix up the Holy Sepulchre but all plans are thwarted because the groups cannot co-operate. It's true the place is a bit of a shambles. Of all the places I've been it has the most tourists, and the worst bathroom facilities. And its two entrances are very narrow passages hemmed in by shops selling the cheapest goods. Meanwhile, the Wafq Authority (Jordanian) that controls the Haram esh-Sharif is keeping it in good repair comparatively, as are the Jews with the Western Wall area. It is the Christians who lag behind at the "holiest site in Christendom."

I was reading something from the library here at St. Andrew's Guest House. It was a translation of the Canons of St. Athanasius (370 A.D.) In one place he was railing against a certain Miletus who had started a schismatic church accusing him of tearing the "seamless robe of Christ." That, too, is one of the Stations of the Cross in the Latin (Roman) Chapel next to Golgotha – the place where they stripped him of his clothes and cast lots for his robe, or tunic, because it was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom and they did not want to tear it. (John 19: 23.24) Well, we have little compunction these days about tearing it.

January 26, 2008

I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre early hoping to beat the tours and get into the tomb one more time. No such luck. By the time I arrived shortly after 8 A.M the Armenians were setting up for a service, and so I could not enter, nor could anyone else much to the consternation of the tour guides who started coming with their charges sometime after 9. Turns out it was Epiphany for the Armenians and their service that began a 8:30 would go on for three hours or so. It was an all male affair, of course, with young men as a choir, monks, priests, deacons, sub-deacons and so on. The Patriarch presided and sat enthroned facing the tomb. A Bishop celebrated and preached, though I didn't stay for the celebration since I had already spent two hours watching and I was chilled to the bone. It is cold and rainy today and the stone in that place gives off a chill on such days.

There was constant chanting, and constant censing, and processions around the tomb every so often. What congregation there was came late, at least an hour or so into the service. On one side on benches sat thirty or so adults, and on the other side about forty schoolgirls who came in single file with their teachers. They sat and stood and sat again, spectators to the liturgy. What they understood of it was hard to tell. Mostly they looked bored and shamed with heads down. They had the same look on their faces that the Palestinians had I saw this morning whose mini-bus had been stopped by soldiers. The soldiers were in their jeep checking the men's identity cards. The men were sitting outside the mini-bus by the side of the road smoking, heads down, not speaking. They were a captive audience to the powers that be, in their case the political ones, the adults and schoolgirls at the service to religious ones. It all would have been too much for me, I'll admit, either as a priest or a congregant. It seemed like the heaping up of prayers and praises in a way that struck me as vain. Was it an attempt to imitate the ceaseless voice of praise of the 4 living creatures, the 24 elders, and the myriad of angels in the heavenly court? I know it is said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but if this was imitation, I doubt the angels were flattered. There were comic elements to it, like the choir not being sure where to stand, or how to line up. The marshals that were dressed in colorful uniforms from the Ottoman period with swords at their side led the various processions encircling the tomb, and between time stood off to the side checking their watches to see how much longer this was going to go on. One priest, or monk, in his black habit was the official photographer. He had unrestricted access to the event, even popping in and out of the tomb as needed to get a picture.

I finally went back into the Syrian Chapel behind the tomb and behind the rotunda to warm up a bit. Because it is small in size and the ceiling is low it seems to hold the heat better. There are some first century tombs off to the side of the chapel. Tradition holds one was used by Joseph of Arimathea, since he had given up his own tomb to bury Jesus. There was a guide in the chapel with an English group and he was informative. He had already taken them to the Garden Tomb and was of the mind that that was more likely the tomb of Jesus. But he concluded by saying, whether here or there that is not the important thing. The important thing is that, "He is not here but has risen." That was the angel's message to the woman who had come to the tomb and discovered it was empty. Yes, that sums up my sentiments, too, not only about he Holy Sepulchre, but about all of the sites I have seen where he once was but is no longer. He isn't here. He can't be found in these places. As I stood for several hours watching the Armenian service I was praying in tongues. He was there within me and remains so wherever I go. If there is anything that I have learned (or had confirmed to me) by coming here it is that he is not here. He is raised. Look for him above, or within, and that is where you will find him. He is now, as Paul declares, a life giving Spirit. "The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit." (I Corinthians 15:45)

My reflections for the day are as follows. Janet phoned to say Margaret Gillies died and she had requested that I do her funeral. I will do it Wednesday morning at VanEmbergh's. So she has fallen asleep at last. One day I will, too, as we all do. As I think of this now perhaps that is another reason Jesus became flesh and humbled himself even to the point of death. He wanted us to break through our denial about death. As he said to Peter, "Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." (John 21:18) We all have a foe in death, and he has already defeated us, and won the victory over us. We pretend it is not so because he delays in coming to collect his spoils. But one day he will come, and whether we are prepared or not (and how can one prepare?), he will carry us where we do not want to go. Jesus allowed himself to be carried off in just that way and he did not hide the horror of it crying out to the Father, "Why have you forsaken me!"

So, are we to learn from this and if so what? One thing we might learn is not to hasten the day for ourselves, or others. If we kill another, as people are bent on doing here, we will live on. We may dispatch our own foe to the grave but we will meet him there soon enough. So, why hasten the day? Why not recognize the end we face and have compassion for one another? As I stood at the Sepulchre today and watched the people from many nations come and peer and stop and marvel I thought I saw a truth in their eyes – even he died, and so will I. He teaches us this truth as well. He is indeed the way and the truth. We would like to hasten to the last affirmation that he is also life, but we cannot affirm that before acknowledging the way he walked and the truth of his death, thus our own. Margaret is gone. She will not return to us here. She has gone the way of all flesh, of all living beings. That is the truth. Now she awaits the life, if there be life. We have hope based upon the first fruits of the resurrection - Jesus himself was raised and became a life giving Spirit. We believe this because we know this Spirit within us. And, so, we hope that the greater harvest will come, and that all will be raised even as he was raised. "His tomb is empty, Halleluiah!" the man at the Garden Tomb proclaimed. He has affirmed it thousands of times to the pilgrims on tour. Yes, Halleluiah! Praise. (Hallel) Yahweh. (Yah)

It is a curious fact that that word Halleluiah is the one word I have heard and understood among all of the languages I have heard in this land. It is Hebrew, of course, and is taken directly into all languages, so it is on every tongue. Even at the Armenian liturgy today when I understood nothing else, I heard this word now and again, Halleluiah. Halleluiah. Praise Yahweh. Praise him all ye peoples; praise him.

January 27, 2008

I went early to the Holy Sepulchre to beat the crowds and was able to enter the tomb chamber without waiting long. Since it was Sunday there were various services already in progress. The Greeks were having a service in their large chapel, the Copts in their small one behind the tomb, and the Syrians in their small one behind the Rotunda. All three altars are in line. Apart from the services being in their native tongues, it did strike me as odd that they just didn't worship together. Oh, well, we don't either in Ho-Ho-Kus, so I can't say we are any better off. I saw the chapels on Golgatha as well.

From there I walked over to the Temple Mount to take one more tour around, and then to the Western (Wailing) Wall to pray one more time. I also went to the Coenaculum (the Upper Room) to pray there. And, as a last stop, I walked down the Hinnom Valley to see the Greek Monastery on the site of Potter's Field. It was purchased with the 30 pieces of silver that Judas had been given to betray Jesus and he returned. It is also known as Alkadema, The Field of Blood, since the High Priest had told Judas they could not take the money back since it was blood money.

Since I was to have lunch with Kahlil Harb, the brother of my parishioner Ghada Harb, I returned to St Andrew's to freshen up. I met an Englishman in the lobby who works for the United Nations overseeing their property at their headquarters in Jerusalem. He was waiting for his wife to come out of the service being held in the chapel. He explained he ordinarily would attend with her, but this morning he was on call for emergencies. He and his wife have been here for 6 1/2 years and they had served a prior tour, so he is well acquainted with the situation. I asked his view of things here. His view, in a nutshell, is that both sides deserve each other, for rather than sitting and talking they have a knee jerk reaction to something the other side does. He said the barrier has helped things, for before it was built they were having as many as 10 bombs on buses a day in Jerusalem alone. He said it never got reported, even locally, unless it was a bomb that killed more than 25 or so, or children were victims. And, he said, there are still 100 or so rockets a day shot into Israel from Gaza. The barrier has stopped the suicide bombers at least. He said he thinks both sides really want the barrier for they realize they cannot live together.

I then joined Kahlil and his wife Anna and his son Emile for lunch in an Arab restaurant in East Jerusalem. His take on the situation in Israel was quite different. He said the barrier has just raised the frustration level of the Palestinian population and is fulminating more violent intent, if not actions. He used to shop in Ramallah that is a short drive to the north where prices are cheaper than in Jerusalem. But to get there now he has to go through the barrier. Leaving is no problem; it is getting back through, that is. It can take hours of checking. The same is true if he goes to Jericho where they long had a family home. We used to go on weekends, he said, but now it isn't worth it. It is too much aggravation. Plus, he was angry about the Russian émigrés who have flooded into the country with the support of the government under the right of return program. First, he said, most of them are really Christians though they may have some Jewish ancestry. They fill the churches at Easter and there are more of them now than the Greeks. The Israeli point of view seems to be that we can tolerate that for now because their children will serve in the military and be converts to Judaism. Second, he finds it really irritating to be stopped by a Russian Israeli who came several years ago and has full citizenship and to be questioned about his identity papers. Palestinians don't have citizenship in Israel, only identity papers, despite the fact that he can trace his family's ancestry here in this land back 1800 years. Because of such things most of the Christians have left. He said in 1948 the Christian population was 40% but now it is less than 2%. Christians leave because they feel they will be welcomed in other Christian countries but it is not so. In those countries religion doesn't matter as much as race or origin so they find they aren't accepted since they are Palestinians. He said only here does religion come first and Israel is trying to make a religious state.

Kahlil acknowledged there are extremists on both sides who want to keep the flame burning. I had mentioned Jesus' saying about what will they do when the wood is dry, if they do this (crucify him), when the wood is green. He said that if the wood was green the extremists would be out of business, and that is why any time there is a move toward peace they thwart it – like with the assassination of Yitzak Rabin. He feels the United States will have to impose a solution on both sides. We have to live together he said. The state of Israel is a reality. The Palestinian people are a reality. We have to accept reality, he concluded.

He agreed with me about Christianity not being site specific like Judaism and Islam. Yes, he said, God is everywhere and one can pray in any place. He also said Christianity is the highest and the hardest of the religions. Jesus' call to love and forgive is the best teaching, but the most difficult, and there are no loopholes. The other religions have loopholes, he observed. It was good to speak to him and hear his perspective. Life has gotten harder for him over time, not easier, and increasingly he finds himself marginalized in his own land. It is all so humiliating, I can see, and an assault on his dignity, as it would be on any one's.

Well, after having a mild sore throat the last few days, I have finally come down with a cold. I hope it doesn't make the flight home too unbearable. Today was warm and mostly clear in Jerusalem but the previous days were wet and raw. Maybe the prospect of ending this trip and going home put me in a more vulnerable place with respect to the elements. It will be good to be home again.

January 28, 2008

So, the day has arrived for me to depart Israel. I am sitting in Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv waiting for the flight. Check-in went fairly smoothly, though I had an extra screening. They are suspicious of someone traveling alone who has been in the country for one month. They asked if I knew Hebrew. No. They asked if I met anyone or knew anyone in the country. Yes and no. I didn't really know Ghada's brother but I did meet him. They searched my luggage and wanted to know about my books and shoes and pottery. Did I bring these things with me? Did I pick out the pottery personally, etc. In the end they let me pass. All in a good cause, I suppose, this security. At least they don't make you take off the shoes you are wearing as they do in the U.S.

This is my thought today. Every day arrives at a good time. I was surprised when the day came to fly to Israel one month ago, and I am surprised the day has come to leave. And this day is also the 30th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. That really surprises me. When I was ordained at St. Andrew's in Murray Hill, New Jersey on this day 30 years ago, I certainly did not have this anniversary in view. I don't remember much about that day. Bishop Belshaw ordained me. I wonder if he is still alive? I haven't heard otherwise but he must be in his 80's. Canon Shreve, who was my boss and Rector of St. Andrew's, is gone. He died a few years ago well advanced in years. So that day comes to us all, and no doubt it is a surprise.

All of these coming and goings of days – what does it all mean? We are powerless against it. Who can stop the sun and the moon as they mark the course of our days? Joshua may have stopped the sun for a few hours as the battle raged, but then things went back to normal. When I arrived the moon was half full, and this morning it was half full again. Twenty-eight days have passed and the moon is back to where it was before. And so I will return to where I was before in the midst of my family and my congregation. What else is there but to live out each day with as much enjoyment as possible? This life is a mystery, and despite our attempts to de-mystify it, it still remains a mystery. Only when we see God face to face will we know the mystery. And who knows when that will be?

The ritual attempts I see among all the religions to honor the mystery, or perhaps to penetrate it, seem comical to me now in comparison to the mystery itself. Yet, what else can we humans do, other than carry on with all of the rituals? I suppose we should do them in all sincerity, but not take them seriously. God himself must laugh, but with the humor of one who cares for us and delights in us. What else can we hope for other than God's good humor? Perhaps we could hope for humor among ourselves so that we could laugh together, rather than fight each other. I don't recall anyone laughing this month in Israel. Perhaps that is the problem. Everyone has lost his humor. Laugh a little. God is.

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About the author:

The son of a Baptist minister, I was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1977. I studied for the ministry at Princeton, General, and Union Seminaries. I have served as a parish priest for over thirty years. I have a particular interest in the healing ministry and the Jewish roots of Christianity. I am married and have a grown son and daughter.

Connect with Me Online:

Kreller@aol.com
