Palestine of Jesus - III

Now that a few days and a few excursions have gone by, it might be a good time to say something about my fellow pilgrims, here at Saint George's College.  Diversity is definitely not a problem!  There are six of us from the U.S., one from Canada, thirteen from New Zealand of which ten are Moari, two from Tonga, one from Figi, and, of course, six Brits.  We range in age from fifteen to eighty-one, and seem to get on quite well.  The New Zealanders, in particular, are great fun.  They came armed with guitars and ukuleles with which they accompany their singing (hymn and secular) during long and not very interesting bus rides.

We've had a couple of those in the last few days.  Yesterday we travelled to Jericho to the Israeli site for the Baptism of Christ.  Having covered his annunciation and birth, we were ready to move on to the beginning of his ministry.   That, of course, requires a visit to the baptism site.  The traditional and probably authentic site is in Jordan, and I had an opportunity to visit it and explore the deeper traditions related to it when I was here two years ago.  But, the Jordan is pretty narrow, and getting to Jordan (the kingdom) is pretty complicated, and the Isralis have created a super facility for Christian pilgrims to visit as the Baptism site (more of less), so it was the one we went to renew our baptismal vows.  Several people seemed the think that the renewal service was pretty special.  I told them that at Saint Anne's we renew baptismal vows four time each year.  They were amazed!  It's weird how few people are acquainted with the rather explicit rubrics in the Prayer Book.  Well enough of that.

The site was pretty crowded as it always is, and I was more facinated by what was going on around me.  There was a particularly large and enthusiastic group of Ukranians who were really into it.  The Ukranianss seem to be everywhere.  But, what caught my eye was the actual baptism of an infant taking place on the Jordan side. 

The couple in white are holding what appears to be a little girl, and the whole family has turned out for the occasion.  There was a Japanese group doing baptisms right next to us, and just before we left, andother huge groups of Ukranians showed up, having donned "tourist" baptismal gowns (45 shelkels) and were preparing to take the plunge just as we were leaving.

 

After his baptism, Jesus was "driven out" into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  So, our next stop was a view of the Orthodow Monestary which commemorates the first temptation, turning stones in to bread.  It is high up a rather sheer mountain, perched among many caves which could certainly have served as a dwelling place for forty days and nights, if you brought your own food and water, that is.

No trip to Jericho would be compolete with out a stop at the Zacheaus sycamore, and so, even though it was out of out chronological sequence we stopped there to ponder how a small man (and a very small man was he) could shinny up such a tall tree without a ladder.  Perhaps something was omitted from the biblical narrative.

We finished off the day with a demonstration of Palestinian cooking given by our great chef, Joseph Arbeed.  He promised to give us some of his reciepts so that we can use them back home to help raise money for the Diocese of Jerusalem.  I might add that the Diocese of Jerusalem is a very worthy cause.  It operates more institutions, schools, hospitals, refugee ministries, job training facilities, than it has churches.  It is hard to imagine how Bishop Suhiel and his small staff do it.  Anyway, Joseph is giving us a means to do some charity work as well as indulge our curious culinary interests.

Today was Masada, the Herodian palace/fortress on the Dead Sea, where the last resisters to the Roman conquest on 68 A.D. made their last stand, and committed mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans.  It is an amazing place, but difficult to photograph in any meaningful way.  I've learned through experience that ruins pretty much all look the same, and at this point, ruins are all that there is available to photograph.  I will incude one picture of the impressive mountain plateau on which Herod built his palace.  It is hard to imagine the manpower and resources that it must have taken to satisfy the paranoid leanings and the taste for luxury which characterized Herod's personality.  It had Roman-style baths and swimming pools, all supplied by a water system that could fulfill the needs of the royal entorage and military garison from the two inches of rain that fall in the regeion each year.  Amazing!  One of the things I've observed in my time in the Middle East is that these desert dwellers are far more sophisticated about water use and conservation that any of us "modern" Westerners ever thought of being.

Next stop was Qumran, the site of the community/monestary that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Again, it is a desolate place with no fresh water, but they tooo had developed an elabortate system to supply their needs, which were prodigious.  The Essene community which lived there were obsessed with the idea of ritual purity.  they were required to bath twice a day!  They would have needed a lot of water and somehow they got it, because they were active there on that site for over 150 years.  A Beduin boy, looking for a goat, found the first of the scrolls in a cave, but the major find came from cave #4 (there were eleven, altogether).

What could top off a day in the hot desert better than a float in the Dead Sea?  And so that was the way the day ended.  The atached picture shows the party had by those who did not go into the chemical bath.  They made the better choice!

Tomorrow morning early, it's off to the Galilee for three days, back on the trail of Jesus, after a desert diversion which was fun but lacked much educational focus and certainly had nothing at all to do with the Palestine of Jesus.  I'm not going to try to blog during that sojourn.  The wifi is tricky enough here, I don't feel like trying to negotiate the wifi in the lobby of a guesthouse at the Mount of the Beatitudes.  I'll just have to catch you up when I return onTuesday night.

I'd like to think that I have figured out how to get these blogs published with pictures, in place where I put them as I write.  We'll see!

Vale.

Pix from Palestine of Jesus IA

Churc of the Nativity - Bethlehem

The Very Spot where Mary gave birth to Jesus

The stone manger where he was layed

Pix from Palestine of Jesus

Church of the Annunciation - Nazareth

Shoping in the Nazareth market

Stone Jar at Cana of Galilee

Elizabeth's house in Ein Kerem scene of the Visitation

The Palestine of Jesus - Part I

The course began in ernest, yesterday, with a trip to Nazareth.  Previous introductory material was really helpful in laying out the trajectory of the course.  So far as it makes sense to do, the excursions and lectures will follow the chronolological events of Jesus' life, meaning that the Annunciation, which St. Luke says, took place in Nazareth, was our first stop.  Heading out of Jerusalem, down the present-day Jericho Road is a wierd experience.  In just about twenty-five miles the elevation drops from 1500 feet above sea level to 250 feet below.  It makes one glad to be riding down rather than walking up.  A left turn at Jericho takes one along the Jordan River Valley, past the all the intensive farming activity which the Jordan River makes possible, and all of this is fraimed by the absoute desolation of the Judean wilderness immediately behind it.  As the route travels further northward, the hills of Samaria replace the desolation of the sandy wilderness with the desolation of a rocky wilderness.  Only with the turn westward into the lower Galilee does the landscape dramatically transform into verdant, high intensity farming that looks similar to what we know and would recognise.

Nazareth, which historians tell us, had probably no more than 300 people at the time of Jesus' annunciation, is now a city of 125,000, with suburbs, no less.   It seems to be a rule in Israel and Palestine that all cities must be perched on the very top of the hill, and so it is with Nazareth.  The most prominant feature in Nazareth is the Church of the Annunciation.

 It is a twentieth century building standing on the foundation of a Byzantine church which was first build in the fifh century.  It contains the grotto which purports to be the remains of the house where Mary was living when she received that Ave from the Angel Gabriel, which changed her life, and I guess I should add, all of ours as well.  It is the largest church in Israel.

This was a return visit for me, and I believe I have already shared some of the pictures I took on previous visits to this magnificent shrine church.  It has pictures and artwork from all over the world depicting Mary in the manner which is more of less native to the country of origin.  I found the experience to be very moving, as I did on previous visits, and I was not at all bored while others viewed its many facinating exibits for their first time.

There were two or maybe three completely new sitess for me to take in.  The first was the Church of Saint Joseph, near the Church of the Annunciation, of which I had never heard.  Joseph often gets overlooked in the praise and adoration poured out on Mary.  But, especially in St. Matthew's Gospel, his role is absolutely essential.  It was nice to see that there was also a shrine chruch dedicated to him.  Some nice artwork, a lovely garden/plaza and a handsome church add a necessary acknowledgement of his considerable role in salvation history.

Our visit took a leap into Jesus' future and outside the course timeline so that we could see another site in Nazareth of importance to the Jesus narrative.  The synagogue in Nazareth where Jesus was rejected by his own townsfolk is only a fairly short trip through the Nazareth market, to what is, today, a Marcionite parish called the Synagogue Church, an active Christian congregation who have maintained this chapel for centuries.

Nazareth has one of the largest Arab Christian communiies in Israel, and is one of the Israeli cities which has an Arab majority, and an Arab member of the Kennesset (I don't seem to have any spell check, which is a problem, since I also have no dictionary!)

We left Nazareth for the archeological site of Sepphoris which is only about five miles from Nazareth, and which was the capital of the Galilee during the time of Jesus' childhood.  It is sometimes postulated that Joseph may have been working in Sepphoris, since there was a lot of building and construction going on at that time.  Perhaps even Jesus himself may have apprenticed there.  Unfortunately, the park was closed because it was the day before Rosh Hashanna.  This happens in Israel fairly often.  A Jewish holiday will close any site which is run by the state.  It was not planned, but since we were in the area and had the time, we diverted to Cana, of Galilee, another important location in the later part of Jesus' life.  Here is where Jesus turned the water which had been drawn into the stone jars for purification into top drawer wine.  A nice garden, still used for weddings, (in fact one was going on while we were there) two nice churches, one Roman Catholic, one Othodox, and replicas, or maybe original stone jars (but not wine, although the shops all around offered "Cana Wine" for sale to any wishing to partake.  (I don't think it is the same wine)

It was a long, hot and tiring day, and I was relieved to get back to St. George's and into a shower and some fresh clothes.  I know that I wasn't alone.

I can't seem to get this post out of Israel, so I'll have to scrap some pictures. More to come.

Palestine of Jesus - Part IA

Today, we were back on couse with the chronology of Jesus life.  We gathered this morning for our class photo, then boarded the bus for Ein Kerem, the traditional site of the Visitation, when Mary came to see Elizabeth, her cousin, who was having a late-in-life pregnancy with John the Baptist, and the two women met, and John the Baptist, leaped in utero at the presence of his Lord.  The Bible does not name Ein Kerem as the town in the hill country, but the two churches and the fountain located there, have been pilgrimage sites since the eariest days of pilgrimages.

Not too many yards away in Ein Kerem, is the Church of Saint John the Baptist, which purports to mark the birth place of John the Baptist.  No one asked why he would have been born in a different location from his mother's house (where the Visitiation shrine is said to be).  Such questions are irrelivant in the Holy Land.  It also is a beautiful church with appropriate artwork reflecting Luke's telling of John's Birth and the restoration of Zechariah's vocal abilities.  One of the items I will always try to remember is the exhibit of the rock (the very rock) which protected the infant J the B and his mother from the soldiers of Herod, who were killing all babies under two years of age, at the time, by opening up and completely engulfing them.  It looks like an ordinary rock.... who knew.  If you are not familiar with the story (and I certainly was not) it can be verified in the Gospel of James, also known as the Protoevangelium, the very book which gives us the birth of Mary, her parents names, Anne and Joachim, her growing-upyears, and her post birth gynocological exam!

Next, we were off to Bethlehem, to the Church of the Nativity.  This is one of Saint Helena's churches from the fouth century, and while it has been tampered with and rebuilt a couple of times, it is one of the only churches to have remained more or less intact.  That is stirring, but also means that it is under almost constant repair.  This time we could not even use the main door because there is extensive work being done on the roof (eight million eros worth, our guide told us).  Usually, and by that I mean always, the place is packed and the cave/grotto, which is the place where Mary gave birth, and layed baby Jesus in the stone manger about ten feet away is so packed and hot with burning candles, lamps and bodies that any sense of devotion and awe is suplanted by the need to survive.  But, because of all the construction, the authorities are allowing only guided tours, which means that huge groups of pilgrims are milling around in Nativity square, waiting for their turn in the holy place.  Fortunately, our course director, Rodney Aist has a friend among the Palestinian tour guides who found us rather quickly and ushered us directly to the cript/grotto, and kept all others out for about 15 minutes, giving our group ample opportunity, and space to pray, admire, offer thanks and take pictures with little distraction of fear ofasphyxiation!

As an added bonus, we were able to tour the other caverns and grottos under the complex including the work and living space of Saint Jerome and his monks and admirers.  Saint Jerome, in case your soteriology is slipping, was the sith century translator of the Bible from  the original ancient languages into Latin and was the standard text for the Roman Church until Vatican II in the last century.  In any case, we had to make our way through another wedding in the adjacent church, used for the annual Roman Catholic Mass from Bethlehem which is broadcast all over the world on Christmas eve each year.  The wedding party was not really happy with our presence.  But apparently, no one gets to tell an official guide where he can go, or not.

Back on the square, we hopped on the bus headed for home, but not before we stopped at a large and very impressing gift shop operated by Palestinian Christians with authentic Palestinian-made goods.  It was filled with an impressive selection olive wood carvings and statuary, and of course, the usual Holy Land kitch.  

Over all it was an excellent day and a very educational and inspirational experience.  The weather is beautiful, a little hot in the daytime, but cool enough in the evenings to suggest that maybe a light jacket would be in order.  The food at Saint George's and on the road has been truely excellent, and those of you who dine with me from time to time, know that that means, pretty darn good!  I spent some of my bus time today, (there wasn't really that much of it) thinking that I have the makeings of a pretty good Nativity of our Lord in situ program.  If so, Advent, or maybe even a fifth Wednesday in December time may be possible.

I'm sorry that I can't seem to include more pictures this time.  For some reason, these blog posts seem to fail, today, with pictures attached.  I'll try to make some additional picture posts tomorrow.

UNEXPECTED BLESSINGS AMID THE DISAPPOINTMENTS

My second and third day have had their share of curious events.  Sunday began with church at Saint George's Cathedral, followed by a little reading time while I waited for the next planned event of the day, Solemn Vespers at the Armenian Patriarchate Church of Saint James.  The Armenians rightly claim  status as the first Christian nation, back in the fourth of fifth century, if memory serves me right.  But, the history of their devotion is so full of tragedy, persecution and repression that it is a miracle that they hang so tenaciously on in the face of so much sadness and hardship.  One of the abiding places of hope for them has been their hold on a section of the old city of Jerusalem.  When their churches were suppressed and their people slaughtered, they found a foothold in the Holy City.  Today, as I understand it, their main theological seminary for training priests is in the Armenien Quarter, and it is primarily the young seminarians who compose the choir for their vesper service which is spectacularly  beautiful, musically and visually.  They do this service every day.  However, it is especially elaborate on Sundays and Holy Days.  Yesterday was both.  Sunday and the Feast of Saint Matthew.  I was prepared for the best.  I arrived at 2:40 pm just to make sure I would have a good seat for the daily 3:00 pm service.  Others began to gather with me in anticipation of the doors opening shortly before the service.  Three o'clock came and went and there was no activity.  About 3:15 a particularly assertive German nun declared that she was going to find out what was up.  She returned a short time later with the report that she was told that it was Armenien Independence Day and there was no service.  As unlikely an explanation as that seems, to call for some clarification.  But, I've been around  Jerusalem long enough to know that there is no alternative to simple acceptance of whatever one is told because there will be no other!  Everyone immediately dispersed, probably because they had also learned that no other information would ever be available.   So, off it was to the next thing.

Wandering back toward the Damascus Gate, I decided to see what was happening in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Much to my surprise, it was not terribly packed.  I decided to take advantage of the situation and see if I could make contact with the two holiest (and most popular) shrines in the church.  Golgotha's line was only about fifteen feet long, and after some Russian pilgrims who thought that they would monopolize the place for a devotional service, were sent packing by a tough Orthodox nun, the line moved pretty quickly, and I got my turn to touch the stone on which the cross stood, as pilgrims have done for centuries.  Almost the same scenario played out at the Holy Sepulcher.  Fairly short line, along only one side, and a tough Orthodox monk who made sure that no one took advantage and tried to stay in the tomb for more that thirty seconds.  For me, it was enough.  I doubt that I will feel compelled to wait in line for either site again this trip.

Today's plan was to visit the City of David archeological digs in the area below the southern wall and into the Kidron Valley.  They are actually looking for evidence of the City of David, which they are sure has to be in that place.  But, it is an area that has been destroyed and built over many, many times.  So far they've found only Canaanite ruins as a few artifacts from Hezekiah's time, late 8th century, B.C.  However, the main attraction is Hezekiah's tunnel, which the king ordered to be built to increase the city's security against the Assyrians.  It diverted water from the Gihon Spring, outside the walls, to the Pool of Siloam, inside the walls by cutting through bedrock for half a mile.  I walked through Hezekiah's tunnel, today.  There is no light except flashlights, and the passage is very narrow and low in several places, and the Gihon Spring is still putting out a prodigious amount of water, so mostly the water is knee deep and up to mid-thy level occasionally, and did I mention that it is spring water, but the excitement of making it through a twenty-eight year old, biblically identified construction site is still pretty exciting.  Talk about touching history.  The way to the City of David is through the Dung Gate, which might help to explain why it's taken so long for any serious archeology to be undertaken there!

Tonight we had our first class meeting.  This is going to be an interesting social experience.  We have at least ten people from New Zealand, most of the Maori, three from the Pacific Islands: Figi, Togo, etc. a couple of Canadians a smattering of Americans and about half a dozen English.  We see how all this plays out!

I'm including some pictures to illustrate my adventures.  I'm going to try to label them, but just in case they are: entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the Anointing Stone, the crucifixion shrine and the edicule housing the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the entrance and exit to the Hezekiah tunnel, and the remains of the Siloam pool, and the Dung Gate of Jerusalem.

 

         Church of the Holy Scepulcher

The Anointing Stone - Station 13 - Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Calvary Shrine - Stations 12 - Church of the Holy Sepulcher

 

The Edicule of the Tomb - Station 14 - Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Entrance to the Gihon Spring

Exit from Hezekiah's tunnel

Pool of Siloam??

The Dung Gate - Old City of Jerusalem

Everything old is new again

My first full day back in Jerusalem almost perfectly duplicated my first day on my last visit.  I even managed to corral the same "old city guide," Sherry Smith (the Dean's wife) to join me as I "guided" some real first-timers for their first immersion into the Holy City.  It was wonderful!  Sherry is an amazing source for cultural and historic information, and I could filll in some of the practical dos and don'ts of navigating the old city maze and avoiding confusion and panic.  Everything was as I remembered it but so much more real than it was the first time I experienced it. Most of the "gee whiz" factor was gone, and I could  just absorb and enjoy.  What a mysterious (in the sense of Holy Mystery) place Jerusalem is.

I arrived at Saint George's twenty-six hours after I entered the Quad-cities Airport, but I arrived in very good shape, this time, although really exhausted.  I still can't manage to sleep on a plane, though I try, valiently.  I think I might have managed and hour and a half of sleep in fifteen minute intervals.  These little fits of sleep are never planned, and I almost missed a breakfast because of one.  Thank God for the lovely German couple sitting with me, who took my breakfast tray to hold for my awakening.  I still have a lot of room to grow before I claim the title of world traveller.  But, I'm getting so much better.

Aside from the actual 13 hours on the plane, there was a lot of lay-over time.  I told Bill (travel agent extraordinar) that a long, non-stop flight nearly destryed me last trip.  Could he look for something that would alow me walking-around time along the way.  My flight on Lufthansa stopped in Frankfurt, Germany, with a three hour delay to change planes (and walk around).  Well! Little did i know that walking around in Franfurt is not a choice.  It is a necessity!  The tranfer from the main terminal to the obscure concourse from which all flights to Israel leave is a journey in itself.  It takes one completely out of the secure area, through what seems like miles of  twisting corridors and stairways which seem to have no direction or purpose.  Eventually you board a monorail train to concourse C.  Then one walks for more miles, up and down stairs, through long hallways where there are many people sleeping on cots. (Really!) When one is about to give up hope, there is a sign for gate C13, where the secuity routine has to be completed all over again before admittance.  The Tel Aviv gate (C13, I never forget it) is very comfortable, and I was glad that I still had an hour to recouperate and drink my $6.00 bottle of water.  I always expect a long walk at O'Hare.  In Frankfurt it took me by surprise.  But I did get my walking-around time as requested.  Thank you, Bill!

My arrival at Tel Aviv went as expected until I went to the ATM for an initial infusion of shekels and the machine kept trying to deal with me in Russian, unsuccessfully, I might add.  After several tries, I persuaded it that we could progress only in English.  My sherut (public taxi service) ride was unthreatening and uneventful.   Perhaps it was because it was daylight or becaued it was not completely new.  Riding from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem made me ask myself, once again, why anyone would fight, and for centuries, over this rock-strewn desert of scrub trees and sand.  But fight they do and I'm afraid that fight they will, until no one is left to fight.  What a tragedy!  I had a litte confrontation with the sherut driver who tried to drop me off at the Albright Institute instead of Saint George's.  I prevailed!  The main security guard and the cook (more about him later) greeted me like an old friend, and I've manage to catch-up on some news of other staffers who are no longer here.  It's good to be back.

I'm going to try to attach three pictures: The pile of books I attemped to get read before I came (I still have two to go--I finished one on the plane; the friendly sherut stand at the Tel Aviv Airport; and the welcoming gates of Saint Georges's College in the Cathedral Close.  I hope I have better luck than I did with Toby!

Vale till next time!

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