My trip to the Holy Land: Part IV
Continuing on from last week, on March 11, after stopping at the Church Ecce Homo, we continued following the Via Dolorosa, or the path Jesus would have taken carrying His cross. We stopped at each of the stations of the cross along the way, each marked by a simple stone relief on the city wall. The farther we went, the more congested it became, with many pilgrims of all nationalities following the route, but also shoppers weaving their way through the market.
Finally, we arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is shared by six denominations. There is good reason to believe the church is the authentic site of Golgotha where Jesus was crucified, and the empty tomb. Early Christian pilgrims first marked the site. Roman Emperor Hadrian then tried to erase its Christian significance by building a temple to Aphrodite there. However, in 326 A.D., St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, located the site and had her son order the temple be torn down and replaced by a church. Two hundred years later, the church was enlarged by Byzantine Emperor Justinian. The building was destroyed in a fire in 614 when the early Muslims invaded Jerusalem. It remained in disrepair from the 6th-10th centuries. Then in 1100s, the Crusaders had the church rebuilt. The church has been added to and subtracted from since then, but retained its basic form. History goes to show how this and other Christian holy sites have been preserved over time. The Romans’ initial effort to destroy the sites and replace them with temples actually backfired, because it indicated where those sites were for future generations to find.
Anyway, we got to see the Golgotha mount, 45 feet up from today’s ground level. The stone hill is mostly enclosed in glass, but there is one opening where you can touch the stone. We also saw a massive, ornate shrine (known as the Edicule) surrounding what is thought to be Jesus’ burial cave. We would have been waiting in line at least four hours to see the cave, so we did not do that.
After visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we went to the Garden Tomb, north of the Old City just outside the city wall. Some believe this is the actual tomb from which Jesus rose; however, tradition would point to the tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, because that location been continually marked. We can’t say definitively which one it was. But, as our tour guide said, the point is that the tomb is empty. “He is not here: for he is risen!” — Matt. 28:6. Walking through the garden brought a sense of peace, as we strolled through the beautiful greenery and heard the birds singing. We saw the empty tomb, hewn out of a rough sedimentary rock face.
On the wall inside the tomb was a repainted cross originally painted by Byzantine Christians around the 5th century A.D., with the Greek letters standing for Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13). After seeing the tomb, our group ducked in a small room off the path with a domed ceiling where we had communion and sang a few worship songs, with full voices and hearts. The presence of God rested heavily on that room as we were filled with a sense of awe and wonder. Again, it was one of those moments that is hard to describe. As our tour guide said, “We don’t worship this place; we worship the Lord Jesus in this place.” It was amazing to hear other tour groups there worshipping in other languages and recognize the unity of the body of Christ.
Continuing our event-filled day, we hopped on the tour bus for a short drive to the Dead Sea for a swim. The Dead Sea has such a high salt content that it is inhospitable to life. I walked out on a ledge underneath the water and when I got to the drop-off point, I turned around and just sat back in the water. And I floated! It was the weirdest sensation. You don’t have to put any effort into floating there.
Sunday, March 13, was our last day of touring. The day began with a wade through Hezekiah’s tunnel, just outside the Old City wall on the south end of the city. This tunnel, built in the 8th century B.C., provided water from the Gihon Spring to the city while it was under siege by Sennacherib. The tunnel is a third of a mile long and took two years to build, with teams starting at both ends and meeting in the middle. It has about a 0.06 percent gradient. It was an impressive feat of engineering, especially given the fact they didn’t have any of our modern tools. It was fun to walk the tunnel and hear the acoustics through singing.
Upon emerging back on dry ground, one of our next stops was the Temple Mount. The top of the mount is occupied entirely by Muslims and includes the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome on the Rock shrine. There is heavy security, not surprisingly, because it is considered a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians. We viewed the mosque and the dome from the outside. It was quite spacious up on the mount, with 37 acres, including a large courtyard and green spaces. Christians believe that in the end times, a third Jewish temple will be constructed, and there would be plenty of space to do so up there without having to remove the existing buildings.
After that, we descended a passageway to get to the Western Wall, the only remaining part of the temple the Jews have for worship. People leave notes with prayers written on them in the crevices of the wall; except there were so many notes that they were falling to the ground. The overall mood was somber and I could tell it was a place with a lot of emotion wrapped up in it.
Our last stop was the Yad Vashem (“A Place and a Name”) Holocaust museum. This museum contains a “Hall of Names” circular library with nearly-floor-to-ceiling shelves containing books listing the names of those killed in the Holocaust. Seeing the rows upon rows of books was a very somber moment.
We ended our trip with a delicious meal at Naurah restaurant in Abu Ghosh before heading to the airport for our nighttime flight.
All in all, it was an amazing trip and I feel blessed to have been able to go on it. I hope my recollections have sparked some curiosity in you to know more of this special place and the One it points to. I will leave you with one final phrase our tour guide taught us: Le’shanah ha’ba’a b’Yerushalayim! (“Next year in Jerusalem!”).
Striking a
Chord...
