There is a Blog in Gilead: Holy Saturday & Easter Sunday

Holy Saturday

I spent the morning resting quietly and preparing for that night -- I was going to attend three separate church services from three different denominations, two of which would be Easter Vigils lasting over two hours.

While I read and snoozed away the morning, the ceremony of the Holy Fire was taking place at (surprise!) the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is a fascinating ceremony, but since I didn't go I won't spend time explaining it; instead, here's a brief news clip (narrated with an astonishing level of disinterest) all about this year's ceremony:

You just know that if I'd have been there, my hair would have gone up in a flash of smoke and glory faster than you can say Watch It There With Those Candlesticks, Dear Sweet 4-Ft-Tall Nun from the Philippines. As the news clip says, the Holy Fire is taken (by car!) to Bethlehem and also to churches all over Jerusalem. What they neglect to mention is that after the ceremony, some poor dude from the Greek Orthodox church has to immediately board a private leer jet and fly the Holy Fire to the Vatican. Yes. I, too, find this hard to reconcile with the usual safety standards for air travel. But I guess you just can't screw around with miraculous fire.

I went to the first of three Holy Saturday services alone. It was a cool, breezy day with thick clouds (a rare thing in Jerusalem) and scattered droplets of much needed rain. More appropriate weather for Good Friday, but what can one do? The service was a contemporary Evangelical service to take place outside by the Garden Tomb -- a beautiful garden with ancient tombs located just outside the Old City gates, where most Protestant traditions say Jesus was actually buried (as opposed to Orthodox and Catholic tradition, who say the tomb is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher). The service was in Arabic and English, and was led by Christian pastors from all kinds of backgrounds; Messianic Jews, Palestinian Christians and Evangelical Christians from western churches made up the bulk of the congregation.

Afterwards I joined the British brothers and A for a delicious Arabic meal (can anyone say 'no' to endless varieties of grilled spiced meats?), and then the boys went off to their Catholic Easter Vigil at St Stephan's while A and I went a few blocks farther north to attend the Anglican vigil at St George's.

Outside the entrance to St George's, a small pit of smoldering charcoal -- it had been lit by The Holy Fire that afternoon, and as we entered the sanctuary we all ignited candles from that same source and waited in darkness for the announcement that Christ was Risen. It was a joyful service, concluding with one of the more rousing sing-alongs to the Hallelujah Chorus I've ever participated in, all accompanied gamely by the little old lady who has played organ at St George's since before time.

A and I then slowly made our way to St Stephan's -- we knew for sure the Catholic Vigil would be just now, a full hour after its start, getting into the real swing of things. The entrance to this church was also marked with a small bed of charcoal which by this time in the evening burned lovely and low, and which had -- like at St George's -- received its initial flame from The Holy Fire.

Beyond the embers we entered the sanctuary on tip-toe and were greeted with a breathtaking sight: this church, built from the ruins of a fortress designed in the incomparable Mamluk style (including signature rose-and-white layered stone), with its huge vaulted ceilings and glittering floor-to-ceiling mosaics, was filled to capacity with thousands of worshippers from around the world, sitting in rapt silence as a choir told us all, once again, the whole story of Christianity. In chant. In French.

After two hours or so of listening in darkness, the time finally came to announce the Resurrection -- to rise and sing Gloria! as bells were rung with reckless abandon and light once again flooded the sanctuary. It was the most transcendent moment I've experienced to date in Jerusalem; it was a waking dream of great beauty and scope. I recorded several seconds of it to try, in some small manner, to share the experience. It falls achingly short of the real moment, but listen for all the bells anyway:

The mass ended at midnight, and after the many rows of clergy had processed out of the church, representatives from congregations from the breadth and depth of all Africa filled the aisles with their colorful apparel, dancing and singing and generally inspiring widespread revelry. It was a true celebration, and as I left the courtyard with my new trio of friends we knew we weren't prepared for the night to be finished. We headed back to A's apartment, where we drank Israeli wine (it's not bad) and talked until four in the morning. We covered am impressively broad range of topics, including but not limited to: a comparative analysis of the strengths/weaknesses of the last three popes, how cool we all think the current pope is, what's the deal with Catholics and the pope anyway, education in the West Bank, the worsening problem of Jewish extremist culture, the failure of peace talks yet again, how to make hollandaise sauce without curdling it, what the inside of a human lung looks like, and what it was like growing up in our different families and different faiths.

We crawled into our beds at 4:15 am, and at 5 am a series of carefully timed alarm clocks sounded, one after the other, from various locations around the apartment, to wake us for the Sunrise Easter Service at the Lutheran compound atop Mount of Olives.

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Headlines: 19 April 2014

Easter Sunday

If Good Friday had been inappropriately glorious weather, then sure enough the one time we four would be in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday and hauled our tired... souls out of bed after 45 minutes of sleep in order to watch the sun rise over the Judaean desert and announce the empty tomb... well, than sure enough it was hazy and we saw no sun that day.

Alas. Here, though, is a picture of the little congregation taking communion above the settlements of the West Bank. If you look closely enough, you will see "the wall" snaking out from the garden below us and into the vast and dusty horizon toward Jordan, separating Israel from not-Israel.

I must have accidentally air-brushed this picture (I don't understand technology!) because it wasn't this colorful. It was, sadly, only a palette of grays in the sky and dusty yellow stone. And the light green of desert plants, too. No pink though. Can't explain the pink.

We shared a bacon-ie breakfast (pork! in Jerusalem! HOORAY!) with this tiny but eclectic group of early-risers, and then A and I said goodbye to the Brit brothers and drove to Bethlehem, where we spent the rest of the day in the company of a fiery, vivacious, passionate, loving, dance-ie Palestinian family, sharing with them an Easter Feast.

It was very strange to have spent, just a few days prior, Passover meal in the company of a fiery, vivacious, passionate, loving, dance-ie Jewish family. My heart was both consoled and deeply saddened when reflecting on these things. So similar, and so far apart: these families -- these cultures -- these religions. So much beauty, love, and deep-seated joy. And yet, political impasse after impasse. Continual streams of stories of murder and abuse and terror and sickness and tears, from every side. From all sides.

When will it end?

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Headlines: 20 April, 2014

There is a Blog in Gilead

Friday, May 2

Holy Saturday & Easter Sunday

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