Holy land, part 2

This is part 2 of the story of my pre-Christmas holy land tour. Part 1 can be found here.

We parked on the south side of Jerusalem and took a quick look at some of the digs outside the gates. Upon entering, the guide explained to us that the western wall (commonly called the wailing wall) extends past the traditional ‘photo-op’ spot which is segregated. The southern end of it is not segregated, which he presented as an attempt to satisfy the modern culture’s desire for mixed prayer (for example, married couples). It’s accessible but certainly not as attractive as the main part near the tunnels.

Of course, we went to the main portion which is segregated (men on the left, women on the right). We were even able to briefly go inside the tunnel entrance to a spot where they cut a hole in the floor to expose the depths of the ancient western wall. Apparently, the higher elevations date back only a few hundred years, but the bottom stones outside and the parts of the wall below ground, shown through the hole in the floor are original (i.e. several thousand years old).

Because of the segregation, the women in our group couldn’t come to the part of the wall we went to. Those of us that didn’t have some kind of headgear on had to get coverings which were freely available. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very busy there that day, so we were able to get right up to the wall without massive crowds of other people around. I wonder if anyone ever cleans up the scraps of paper?

We rejoined our Y-challenged friends and plunged further into the depths of the city. One question that came to mind was who actually lives inside this city these days, anyway? It must be a kind of odd life to live there. Tourism is obviously the dominating industry, unless you consider religion an industry?!? And what would it be like to live in a place where you wander down the street, look over your shoulder, and see the street sign that says Via Dolorosa? That’s about how it happened to me.

The Via Dolorosa (way of suffering) is traditionally the route Jesus took to his crucifixion. It is marked by 9 of the 14 stations of the cross indicating the locations of various events during Christ’s walk to his Crucifixion. The movie The Passion of the Christ depicts, in rather graphic detail (still the highest-grossing R-rated movie in U.S. history, by quite a large margin) the route according to that tradition (Catholic, in essence). A compilation of events discussed in the four gospels would include many of the stations of the cross, though not all of them.

We didn’t go all the way back to station 1 (presumably for time reasons), but did make it to station 3, marking the first of the places where Jesus fell. It should be noted that the actual markers (walls, chapels, statues, signs, etc.) are in the traditional locations, but not the traditional elevations along the route. Most of what exists today is built on top of ancient Jerusalem.

We stopped at each of the stations along the way while our guide narrated the story. At the 9th station, a cross had been left, likely by reenactors. We managed to get a group photo there.

We moved on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the remaining stations are located. It is traditionally held as the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. It is currently shared by several sects of Christianity, including Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox. Ironically, the guardianship of the main door and the key to the door are entrusted to two different Muslim families. Inside is a monument of the tomb of Jesus. While the exact location of the real tomb is unknown, it serves as the marker of it. A piece of stone is inside, which is at the very least representative of the stone placed in front of the tomb.

Nearby, there is a more ‘real’ looking set of caves likely to appear much like the real tomb would have looked. We then backtracked and saw the site where Jesus’ body was prepared for burial after being taken down from the cross. I took this video in the place where Jesus was crucified. The ‘chapel’ is built on top of the hill.

We stopped at a shop for some of the stereotypical shopping and then headed back to the bus, sneaking a few views along the way…

To be continued…