January 2 Mount Zion and Bethlehem’s Cave
The picture here is from January 1 morning, looking over the Sea of Galilee. This was the view from my room.
We boarded the bus at 8:00 and headed to the east side of Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olives. There we visited Pater Noster Church. Pater Noster is Latin for “Our Father” and there are over 130 large plaques each with the Our Father written in a different language. Many of the languages are ones I have not heard of, such as Mpoo. They are from every continent and Oceania as well.
There was an old church in the area, the foundations of which has been rediscovered. If I understand it correctly, this was one of three churches built by St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. It referred primarily to the Ascension. It is near Bethany, which is where the gospel says Jesus led the disciples to after his 40 days after the resurrection. There is another place called the Mosque of the Ascension nearby. I think that was a Christian site at one time as well – Christians continue to be welcomed there. It has a small silo shaped building with a stone in it. The stone has a divot in there, which with some imagination looks like a footprint, giving rise to the notion that Jesus “pushed off” toward heaven from there.
There were immense crowds there even at this early time in the morning. It would be crowded everywhere that day.
Our next stop was St Peter Gallicantu. You French speakers may recognize this as meaning “rooster crow” or “cock crow.” This very likely was the House of Caiaphus, the high priest (or recent high priest, still holding the real power) at the time of the crucifixion. Jesus was taken there after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. The church itself is rather modern, almost completely tiled with mosaics. The lower church portrays the betrayal by Peter, his sorrow, and his ultimate reconciliation with Jesus as found in John 21. The real interesting part of this church is the still lower part. There is a dungeon and a pit. Various things in this place show it was used to hold prisoners, and perhaps even punish or torture them there. The pit is very dark, and makes one recall the psalm about being lowered into a pit. It was a powerful experience to be there for many of the pilgrims.
Outside the church are what are known as the Holy Stairs. These are stairs that comprise the main route from Mount Zion (where the Last Supper was held) down to the Kidron Valley and would then lead up to the Mount of Olives. They go pack to a time just before Christ, and were in use at the time of Jesus. Almost certainly he walked on them. It is one of those few places where you can say that Jesus actually passed through these few cubic feet of space. It was there that we literally walked in the footsteps of Jesus.
We went a very short distance away to the Cenacle (Last Supper place). We had Mass in the small chapel there, and then visited the “Upper Room.” This was built by the Crusaders, c. 1100 A.D. to memorialize the Last Supper which was held somewhere on Mount Zion. It is a spacious area that was a church, became a mosque, and now belongs to everyone. Masses are not held there. The upper room, of course, was also the site of the Pentecost, so very important things happened there. (It should be noted there are alternative sites for the Pentecost – the Syrian Orthodox have an interesting place a short distance away for that as well.
After this we walked downstairs to visit the tomb of King David. There is a legend with some theological meaning which I can’t quite put together right now, that the last supper was held over the tomb of David.
Our next stop was at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We decided to go there immediately rather than having lunch, thinking there wouldn’t be that many people there during lunch. But there were! It is just that there were even more later. The wait to get into the cave was more than an hour, but once we were in there, it was not crowded beyond the altar and manger area. This cave is narrow, only about ten or eleven feet wide, and perhaps 30 or more feet long. It is about 10 feet high. There is a 14-pointed star under the altar to denote the spot where Jesus was born. Why 14? Read the genealogy in Matthew 1.
While we stood in line, everyone noted the different style of decoration the Greek Orthodox use – many candles, icons, etc. The Greek Orthodox Christmas is on January 7, and they have been busy cleaning for it. The Armenians were having a prayer time as we stood in line, all sung, and all completely lost on me. It was an impressive display, but I didn’t understand it at all.
It was after 3:00 by the time we were done. We went to a nice clean restaurant and had an inexpensive meal of falafels (the national sandwich) or shwarma (like a gyro sandwich). Some less venturous or with unstable stomachs simply chose French fries.
You come to appreciate clean restrooms in this country.
Our final stop was another shopping venture. You pretty much see the same things everywhere, but this place also had some antique icons. But since they were all about $2,000 and up, no one was biting.
We used a bit of a subterfuge (is that we are calling lies now?) to get thorough security faster. The checkpoint had a long line and they were going through things carefully – everyone had to open their trunks, etc. The driver hiked up the hill to tell the guards we were going to the airport, so they let us pass about 10 cars ahead of us. We got back to our hotel around 5:30 and most of us simply rested, ate dinner and went to bed. WQe were going to the airport, but just not that day.
A bottle of wine was shared, along with various collections of fruit.
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