Sunday in Jerusalem

Today I did something that I have not done in years: I didn’t go to church on a Sunday morning. Well, technically, that isn’t true. Actually, I went to several churches and did not get finished until after noon. I decided for worship this morning that I wanted to walk, read, and pray my way down the Via Dolorosa.







I got a devotional book at the hotel gift shop that has extensive thoughts and quotes from Pope John Paul II when he was here in 2000. I used that, my Bible, and a brochure that has a map and explains all 14 Stations of the Cross. If you are not familiar with that tradition, it traces the steps of Jesus from his condemnation at Pilate’s house to the tomb, following the winding path through the streets of Jerusalem marking where he fell, where he was beaten, where he was stripped of his clothes, put on the cross and laid in the tomb. Curiously the last four stations he travels after he is dead.



I began at Pilate’s house where Jesus was displayed in the courtyard and condemned to death. Then on to the Chapel of Flagellation where Jesus was beaten and saw the place in the stone pavement where the Roman guards had scratched a game board for which they gambled for his clothing. I saw the first place he fell, there is a chapel there. I saw the place where they made Simon the Cyrene carry his cross, and the chapel where they laid it down and nailed him to it. This last is the first station inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is a large and complex structure that has chapels and buildings added on to buildings, some owned by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Coptic churches. As you can imagine it is a zoo in there. Between the tourists (I had to stop several times along the way and let one group or another pass, like letting a golfer play through, but it was OK, because I often stopped at a coffee shop and read or wrote in my journal while they passed) and the morning services, the place was quite hectic. What is normally a 30 minute walk took me over 4 hours.


But I was rewarded by a visit to the Holy Sepulcher itself, the tomb where Jesus was supposedly buried. This is me stepping out of the grave!


And a lovely lunch of schwarma afterwards at a sidewalk café.

Well, now its off to pack, then dinner, and we leave at 1:30 in the morning for the USA. Tomorrow will be a long day, as we fly backwards over 8 time zones, so I will be in August 17th for 32 hours! Hopefully I will have a few notes to wrap this thing up in a day or two. See you all soon!