Friday, May 2

Maundy Thursday & Good Friday

Maundy Thursday

I attended an evening service at St George's Cathedral, where my new best friend A was singing in the choir.  Afterwards, a group of about 30 of us -- including laity and clergy from all over the world -- silently march to Gethsemane carrying a large wooden cross.  We are accosted by a few of the Muslims leaving evening worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque -- Thursday sunset is the beginning of Islam's holy day, and so busloads of worshippers were on their way home after attending mosque just as we walked past.  Most of them watched curiously, but silently, as our small band of noiseless Christians waded through the current of families and friends exiting the Old City.  A few young men spat and shouted angry words.

We continued our march past the heated tempers and frantic honking of the traffic jam occurring at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, and processed into the deep, dark, cool of the olive trees and ancient stones of Gethsemane until we were well insulated from acoustic reminders of modernity.

photo from Gethsemane, courtesy of Al & Judy Melton (fellow Jerusalem bloggers)

We took seats along a low wall of rock and gazed in silence down at the Temple Mount, and to modern Jerusalem lighting the hills beyond.

Some of us, though, looked up at the night sky: there were the ancient stars, constant in their vigil, arrayed very nearly as they had been on the night Jesus had prayed in this garden several thousand years ago.  Had he looked up and seen Sirius, the brightest star in the spring sky? Had he made his prayer of agony and immeasurable suffering looking to the heavens, and instead of seeing a way out of it all he saw only the still, distant radiance of Betelgeuse and Rigel? Did mighty Orion shine his light down into that dark garden, and was he noticed by God Incarnate, who, on his knees, was pierced by the dry grass and stained by over-ripe olives?

There in that place, it wasn't so hard to imagine.  We stayed there in silence for some time.  Eventually a few people spoke, and we sang together old hymns chronicling the dark hours to follow Jesus as he rose from his quaking supplication and received Judas' kiss.

After a time, and without any words, we each left our place in the garden and made our way home.

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Headlines, 17 April 2014


Good Friday

 At 6am my friend A (with whom I spent most of Holy Week) and I left her apartment in East Jerusalem and took the Light Rail to Damascus Gate.  There we were briefly looked over by several Israeli guards and allowed to enter the Old City (a group of 3 teenage Arabic boys trying to enter at the same time were not so lucky-- they were detained and full searches performed).

A and I made our way to the entrance of the Holy Sepulcher -- my friend Gregor the monk (in the Franciscan order that serves at Church of the Holy Sepulcher) had told us to try to make it to the 7am Passion of St John, in Latin, that he and the other Franciscans would sing on Golgotha.  The plaza outside the church was brimming with tired, sun burnt, angst-ridden pilgrims from all over the world, pushing shoving and clawing to get closer to the still-locked doors.

As is tradition, the Ladder of the Status Quo stood propped against the church's wooden doors; the Christian family that are custodians to the Church (and have been for many generations) come to the door dressed in their traditional regalia, and rap on the door loudly with silver-coated staffs. After a moment, the Muslim family that holds the keys to the Church (it is the same family that has held the keys since the 15th Century, I believe!) make their appearance, unlock the doors, and a stream of clerics of all orders and stripes floods the sacred space.

And after that come the tourists.

Madness.

"Knock..." 

"...and the door shall be opened unto you. And also unto your digital recording devices."


My friend and I made it inside the doors of the Church just as they are closed and once again locked -- yes, locked --keeping the first several hundred of us inside the Church for the duration of the Good Friday services (one in Arabic for the Orthodox and one in Latin for the Catholics).  The doors were locked from 7am until 10:45, and I must say I am grateful that despite all the candles and fire and tension, we all lived to see Saturday.  At which point more fire happened (see below).

There is of course a rush of persons who try to climb the steep steps up to the chapel on Golgotha, where the Franciscans hold their Latin ceremony.  A and I stand against the wall and silently observe the madness.  Eventually it settles down, and we hear music from the choir above and smell the burning fragrance of Catholic incense (it smells very different from the incense the Orthodox use!) as it drifts down to us below.  A, my friend, is to her very core a people-person (in contrast to my increasing introversion) and she immediately befriends one of the Christian Guard with silver-coated staffs who basically referee the holy-hullabaloo in that Church.  His name is Jack, and he's cool.  Jack and A talk for a while (I can only assume he's already telling A his life story.  She's the sort of person other people immediately want to tell their life story to) and then he nods over to me, and allows A and me to climb up the steps and enter the service.

We get to the top -- to Golgotha -- just as my friend Gregor the Monk (that's fun to say) was singing the words of Pontius Pilate: "What is Truth?" he asks Jesus -- "Quid est veritas?"




When we are finally released from the Church A and I have a little brunch outside the Old City at the lovely and spacious Notre Dame de Jerusalem.  It is a great relief to have escaped the intensity and crowds and soldiers of both the IDF and the PLO -- along with their assault rifles -- filling the streets and markets within Old Jerusalem.  We luxuriate in the gardens of Notre Dame and drink fresh-squeezed carrot juice, and make plans to meet new friends of ours --two Catholic brothers (not "brothers" like My Friend Gregor the Monk -- they were actual siblings) from England -- and walk the Via Dolorosa that afternoon.

Notre Dame of Jerusalem

Walking the Via Dolorosa was yet another crowded, intense, rifle-filled experience and under the beating sun and shamelessly brilliant blue sky of Good Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, the two brothers and I suddenly grew very weary of it all.  We finished the Stations of the Cross inside (once again) the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  I went in for a moment and immediately turned to leave again -- it was more densely packed than that morning and I became really terrified in a crowd for the first time in my life.  I pushed and shoved and flung myself back out into the open air and hid around a corner, kneeling in the shadow of other tourists, until I'd caught my breath and calmed my heartbeat.

Eventually the boys rejoined me and we got OUT of there.  In a quiet part of the Old City (oh yes, we found one!) we ordered cold beer and sat in the shade discussing Mideast politics, the role of sacred space in Catholicism versus in Protestantism, and whether or not Tony Blair was currently staying in the American Colony Hotel just outside Damascus Gate and if so, how could we stalk him for a while, you know, just for kicks.  And we vowed over our pints of Taybeh not to re-enter the Old City for the remainder of Holy Week.  To that promise we adhered.
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