Tuesday of Holy Week

The Risen With Christ Course started the day at Pater Noster, the church originally built over a grotto where it is believed Jesus taught his apocalyptic discourses during the first Holy Week.  Today it mostly commemorates the teaching of the Lord's Prayer.  The conversation about Jesus's teaching about the end times, and the relation those lessons have to preaching and teaching in the 21st century was very rich.  Then we walked down the Mount of Olives, retracing much of the route we took on Sunday, to the Church of all Nations (also known as the Church of the Agony) and the Garden of Gethsemane.  The combination of the garden and church and the passage out of Luke about Jesus's prayer in the garden was sobering, to say the least.  We finished the day with a lecture anticipating the Ceremony of Holy Fire on Saturday--something very new to me as a western Christian.

Monday of Holy Week

The Raising of Lazarus

Lazarus's empty tomb

 For Monday of Holy Week we read the Gospel narratives of Holy Week--comparing and contrasting.  What an experience to be doing so with so knowledgeable group of lay and clergy as those who have come to be part of Holy Week here this year.  In the afternoon we traveled to Bethany, the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, to reprise the stories of Jesus's the two times Jesus was anointed there in the week or so before his crucifixion, and of course to visit Lazarus's tomb and the church which commemorates the way Jesus raised him from death.  As we gathered on the SGC rooftop to reflect on the day, we could see the full moon rise--marking the beginning of Passover.  One of our pilgrims brought this nugget:  Eastern and Western Holy Weeks coincide every three years, Passover occurs during Western Holy Week once every 17 years.  It must be awhile before all three will happen like this again.

Palm Sunday 2014--In Jerusalem!

Today was a day of liturgies.  The first was a small Liturgy of the Palms and Palm/Passion Sunday in the Cathedral of Saint George's Saint Michael's chapel.  The second was a much larger service which formed up in the Saint George's College parking lot for the Liturgy of the Palms, and a grand procession into the Cathedral for Holy Eucharist.

The third was the ecumenical procession from the Church in Bethphage down the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron Valley and up through the Lion's Gate and into the city of Jerusalem.  An early estimate forecast a crowd of about 30,000.  I don't know how many people were in the procession, but the 2+ mile walk took a little over 2 hours to accomplish.  We had people of every nation walking with us, and many were using portable amplification systems to share their music and songs.

There were guitars and drums and trumpets, and music of every kind and in all kinds of languages.  And, of course, there was dancing in the street.  It was enough to put one in mind of Pentecost!  How joyous!  How wonderful to be here where it all happened! What a great way to begin our participation in Holy Week!

Muslim-Christian Interfaith Dialogue--Part 2

 As we continued our week together, the Christians in the group were invited to enter the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Harem es Sharrif--a rare privilege considering today's political situation.

The Al Aqsa Mosque is a place of prayer, and five times a day the call to prayer begins with the singing of a phrase in Arabic that means "God is grater than".   Our Muslim lecturer told us that in English the thought is incomplete, but in Arabic it means that God is greater than whatever you are doing, and that it is time to pray.  On Fridays at noon there are about 10,000 who come to the Al Aqsa to pray.  During Ramadan there are upwards of 200,000 who attend Friday noon day prayers there, over flowing onto the entire Harem.


Next we visited the Dome of the Rock, a shrine commemorating Muslim remembrance of a night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem by the prophet Mohammed.  For Muslims its the place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Ismael.  The interior is now under restoration, but the depth of its decoration makes the Al Aqsa look plain by comparison.  The rock under the dome is held by Jews to be the Foundation Stone, from which all creation began, and the place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Issac.  It might also be the place where the Holy of Holys of the Jewish temples stood. For Christians it marks the location of the temple where Jesus over turned the tables of the buyers and sellers, and had his final (or initial) conflict with the Jewish temple elders.


This last photo is of part of a quote from the Koran's version of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary that she would have a son.

Muslim-Christian Interfaith Dialogue

This week Saint George's College has been hosting 14 Christian and Muslim religious leaders for a conference aimed at creating greater understanding between the two faith traditions.  13 of the 14 are from the UK, and 6 are Muslim.  Bishop Richard Cheetham has called the group together and is leading the development of the dialogue.  We've heard from Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders and scholars as we have visited sites holy to the three faith traditions.  The heart of the dialogue has been focused on the Muslim-Christian interface within the Abrahamic traditions.  Yesterday we visited the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth--on the feast of the annunciation!  There we read the account of the annunciation as found in Luke's Gospel.  Last night we sort of got down the the "nitty-gritty" as we heard a reading from the Koran about the birth of Jesus.   The heart of the story is similar enough for Christians to recognize it, but the last few verses turn the story a little side-wise as they become a intentional correction to the Christian understanding that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.  This started the conversation!

I'm very happy to say that the conversation was completely respectful on both sides, and that the group seems to genuinely have a great deal of affection and respect for everyone who has been brave enough to come here to this focal point of so much religious strife--Jerusalem.  I think the honesty and openness of this conference is a very hopeful sign of what can be done to promote understanding and peace in our world.

Palestine of Jesus Course 3 Complete, a Little Break

We completed our third Palestine of Jesus Course last week to a new phenomena for us--rain.  Since we arrived in Jerusalem back in January there has been almost no rain in Israel, and last week it rained almost every day.  I don't know how much rain fell, but the fig tree outside our window has sprouted new leaves and the grass in the garden under it seems to have grown inches.  I think mother nature is saying thank you.

We took a short break this weekend to visit Tel Aviv.  The contrast between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv is dramatic in almost every aspect.  Jerusalem is in the mountains, the climate is very dry, and religion seems to dominate life.  Tel Aviv is on the Mediterranean Sea, the air is always humid, and having fun seems to dominate life.  We stayed in a hotel near the beach, and saw lots of folks walking their dogs, roller-blading, jogging, playing "beach tennis," and riding their bikes.  We even ate in a non-kosher restaurant that had a cheese burger!

While there we visited one of the world's oldest sea ports in Jaffa, and saw the place tradition holds to be the house of Simon the Tanner of Acts fame.  We might regard Simon's house as the place where Peter received God's message that the Good News of Christ was also for the gentiles, but our walking-tour guide saw it as the place where Christianity broke with Judaism.

It felt really good to get back to Saint George's College today, and to dive back into preparations for the Christian-Muslem Interfaith Dialogue Course that starts later this week.

Grocery Shopping in East Jerusalem

We are between courses at Saint George's, and that means the dining room is closed.  Judy and I have been preparing meals in our little kitchen, and that means grocery shopping.  The nearest market belongs to Marwan, and we have been there enough that we can greet each other my name now.  "Salaam Marwan, kiefhalik?"  He kindly replies in English.  His marked is about 16' wide by 24' deep, and (fortunately) about 12 ' tall.  He doesn't sell vegetables, or fresh meat or bead, but he has just about everything else--the dry cereal is up high and he retrieves your election with a long pole with a nail in its end.  When we wanted something he didn't have in stock, he set it aside for us the next time he had it--when the change didn't work out exactly right, we owed him an extra 10 shekels the next time we were in.  What a wonderful experience.