Superwalk and Midnight Tunnels

March 13, 2008 - 16:58

Our travels today took us to the Old City of Jerusalem. There is security to get in this area, and the place is crawling with cops (I don't think most Americans are accustomed to seeing someone standing around with a submachine gun on every other corner!). The police in the Old City look even more no-nonsense than almost everywhere else, but then it occurred to me why.

The Temple Mount, the obvious focus of the Old City, is the most hotly contested patch of land on the planet. Muslim countries tend to blame Israel for everything, including poverty, displacement, bad weather, and probably bunions. It therefore behooves the Israeli security forces to be zealous about guarding against any shenanigans against the Dome of the Rock by extremists of any sort. If anything happened to it, full-scale attacks would almost certainly begin almost before Al Jazeera finished reporting it.

Having said all that, a trip into the Old City is well worth it. For me, that was kind of where "the rubber met the road." So much happened there. The Middle East is the epicenter of world affairs... always has been. Jerusalem is the epicenter of the Middle East. Always has been. And the Temple Mount has always been the epicenter of Jerusalem. I still don't know quite what the Muslim claim on Jerusalem is, but of course it is the place where Jews believe the presence of God (Shekinah) dwelt when the Temple was intact, and where Christians believe Jesus was tried, crucified, buried, and resurrected.

We saw far too much to try to chronicle everything, but I will try to hit the highlights that I am guessing will be interesting to the people I most anticipate will read this. As for the "Superwalk" in the post title? All of this that we saw was within the Old City... so we got there by bus, and that was the last we saw of the bus until we went back to the hotel. Everything else was on foot over innumerable steps!

Dome of the Rock. This of course is the blue, golden-domed mosque that most people probably think of when they think of the Jerusalem skyline. Until about eight years ago, anyone could go in. After the clash between Arabs and Israelis when Sharon showed up at the mosque with a bunch of armed men, it is now open only to Arabs or Muslims. Period.

St. Anne's Church. Though this church is definitely all about Mary, it is more or less named after Mary's mother Hannah. It was built in the 12th Century (1131-1138 A.D.) to replace an even older Byzantine church. The church has two particular characteristics: 1) It is adjacent to the Pool of Bethesda, and 2) its windows are made of translucent alabaster. Jesus healing the paralytic without him going down into the water is significant. There was a Roman temple to the god of healing there, and Jesus wanted to make it clear that it was He Who healed the man, not the pool or the god of healing that the Romans worshiped.

Church of the Condemnation. This chapel is Station 1 of the Cross. It was presumably built over the place where Jesus was first officially condemned.

Church of the Flagellation. This chapel is Station 2 of the Cross. Just across the way from Station 1 on the same property, this is built over where Jesus was scourged.

Via Dolorosa. Yes, we walked it. And it probably looks much the same as it did when Jesus was carrying His cross to Golgotha. Ryan A., I thought of you and your favorite song on more than one occasion on that walk!

Church of the Holy Sepulchre. One word: amazing. For a couple of reasons. 1) The church, though a bit on the gaudy side as Orthodox churches are prone to be, the church is nonetheless impressive both because of its size and the complexity of its design, being built around two natural formations of significance. 2) This church houses what apparently even some Protestant scholars are coming to believe what is most likely the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial both. As with the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, I had trouble making a connection between all the knick-knack bric-a-brac in the church, and a simple, ghastly cross on a skull-shaped mound and tomb a little ways away. That, and the wall-to-wall people weren't really conducive to heavy-duty reflection. But it still ranks as one of the top 5 things I hoped to see here, I think. Never before this trip did I fully internalize what is meant by the fact that Jesus was killed as a common criminal. Golgotha is not a spectacular hill overlooking the city or anything... it's a rock formation a little higher than the ground just outside the city wall where people would walk by. The condemned would have hung just a little higher than pedestrians on the road next to it. Somehow, that makes Jesus' death even more ghastly than it was... it truly would not have been a momentous event for a lot of people... the sacrifice He made for us was not marked as such; to some He was just one more criminal in a long line of criminals who met their ends on that little rise in the ground outside.

St. Mark's Church (Syrian Orthodox). This is the church our guide attends. It is built over what there is apparently strong archaeological evidence for is the room where the Holy Spirit came on the disciples at Pentecost. A lady who worked there, Josefina (sp.?), sang the Lord's Prayer for us in Aramaic, and then recounted a time where God seems to have re-enacted the tongues bit. A Russian man came in, and he and Josefina carried on a conversation in English for a good hour or so. The thing is, when she ran into him again a year or so later, he was speaking Russian. She asked him "why don't you speak English like we did before?" thinking he was playing a joke on her. He insisted he didn't know English. Never had. He insisted she was messing with him. She just said "no, it was the Holy Spirit."

A personal highlight of my day... finally getting to meet a friend I met almost by accident (my accident, anyway--I suppose God might beg to differ) some 14 years ago online. He was in the Israeli army at the time, and we landed in the same Religion & Theology forum at some point. At the time, there were some pretty excitable Christians in the forum we were in, and my friend was making comments he probably knew would tick them off. He played that violin beautifully, I gather, insofar as the excitable types were only too happy to commence flaming him up one side and down the other! I started a separate chat with him, and we wound up conversing for quite awhile. We've kept in touch ever since, some 14 years down the road. It was really fun to finally get to meet face to face. If all goes well, he'll be able to join us and tag along tomorrow. I hope so.

Western Wall Tunnels. This was our last stop of the day... or early morning, I guess I should say. They are so busy that our scheduled tour was at 12:00 midnight! There were several interesting things about this visit. Number one, men and women had to go in different entrances. Number two, women could pray at the western wall, but only separated by a partition from the men. Number three, in one of the tunnels, an orthodox Jew shielded his eyes on our side as he passed. At first I had half a mind to get offended on behalf of our group until I realized what he was doing... shielding his eyes from the women in our group!

The tunnels themselves are archaeological digs under the Old City, in part to learn more about the city in the time of Herod (much of which is still available under ground level). What I thought was the most spectacular feature: a single, solid stone more than 40 feet in length, and weighing over 400 tons. It is the largest and heaviest single stone ever moved by man as far as anyone knows. This dwarfs anything that even the pyramids contained... and I didn't know anyone could improve on that.

Part of what we're doing tomorrow is looking at the massive preparations underway for the building of the new Temple. Eschatology buffs, yes, I am well aware of the prophetic implications of that. I can't wait to see if our guide is as well. But the walking encyclopedia that he is, I imagine so. :)

It's now 2:12 a.m., so I'd really better get to bed. I just didn't want to fall any more behind in this thing, or I know I'll never catch up! Peace to you, whenever and wherever you're reading.

Tedd