Day 4 - Jerusalem (Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Western Wall)

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is revered as the holy city by half the human race.

• For Jews it is the city King David made the capital of his kingdom, and where the Temple stood, containing the Ark of the Covenant. 

• For Christians, it is where Christ died, was buried and rose again, and the birthplace of the Church. The Jewish and Christian Bibles mention Jerusalem several hundred times.

• For Muslims it is al-Quds (“the Holy”) because they believe Muhammad ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount during his Night Journey.

Set on the Judaean mountains of central Israel, the Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded on three sides by steep valleys: The Hinnom on the south and west, the Kidron on the east. Its history lies in layers meters deep.

Modern Jerusalem is not a large city by international standards (its population in 2007 was 747,000, of whom 35,400 lived in the Old City). In the time of Christ its population was between 20,000 and 50,000.

Its iconic symbol, the golden-roofed Dome of the Rock, stands on the Temple Mount, also identified as Mount Moriah, where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.















It is a city with an intriguing blend of sights, sounds and smells as the past and present continually rub shoulders. Church bells peal, muezzins call Muslims to prayer, and friars, rabbis and imams hasten by. Reminders of the heritage of three faiths are never far away — Jerusalem has 1200 synagogues, more than 150 churches (representing 17 denominations) and more than 70 mosques.

In Scripture:

Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac: Genesis 22:1-18
David makes Jerusalem his capital: 2 Samuel 5:4-10
Song of praise and prayer for Jerusalem: Psalm 122
Solomon builds the Temple: 1 Kings 5-6
Jesus enters Jerusalem: Matthew 21:1-11
Jesus is crucified, buried and rises again: Matthew 27:66—28:10; Mark 15:47—16:8; Luke 23:26—24:12; John 19:16—20:10
The coming of the Holy Spirit: Acts 2:1-4
The first Church Council at Jerusalem: Acts 15:1-29
The new Jerusalem: Revelation 21:1-4

The Jerusalem Cross


Popular interpretations of the Jerusalem Cross:

• The central cross stands for Christ and the four smaller crosses stand for the 4 evangelists John, Luke, Mark, and Matthew.
• The large cross represents Christ as the strength at the center of Christianity and the smaller crosses as the 4 corners of the earth to which the faith spread.
• The crosses represent the wounds that Christ suffered when He was crucified; the central cross for the wound on His side, and the 4 smaller crosses for the wounds on His hands and feet.
• The 5 crosses represent the five nations that figured in The Crusades: Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy.

Old City

At Jerusalem’s heart is the Old City, girded by a wall and divided into four “quarters” — named after the dominant ethnic or religious identity of its residents. 

• The Muslim Quarter, largest and most populous of the four, includes the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Other sites in the quarter include the Pools of Bethesda and part of the Via Dolorosa.

• The Jewish Quarter adjoins the Western Wall, the sole remnant of the Second Temple plaza, which is Judaism’s holiest place. This quarter is more modern, with sophisticated shopping plazas. Archaeological remains are on display in museums and parks.

• The Christian Quarter contains the rest of the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which enshrines the sites of Christ’s death, burial and Resurrection. Headquarters of several Christian denominations are among the 40 religious buildings in the quarter.

• The Armenian Quarter provides a reminder that Armenia was the first country to make Christianity the state religion (in 301). It contains the Armenian Orthodox Cathedral of St James and a museum in memory of the 1915-23 Armenian Holocaust.

The current wall is cut by eight gates, seven ancient and one modern.

Only in a place as old as Jerusalem is it possible to think of a sixteenth-century wall as “modern”. Suleiman, the Magnificent, a Turkish sultan, completed the modern Old City wall by 1541. He used the wall to define his Jerusalem, and it in turn defines the Old City of Jerusalem found within the 2.7 mile wall Suleiman built.

Zion gate. One of the eight gates in the Old City wall

 The pock marks in the brick surrounding the gate are bullet holes from past conflicts.

Western Wall

Judaism’s holiest place is the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Part of the retaining wall erected by Herod the Great in 20 BC to support the vast plaza on which he rebuilt the Temple, it is venerated as the sole remnant of the Temple.

The Western Wall is part of the retaining wall that made the thirty-six acre plaza possible (one of the largest mortarless plazas in the ancient world). When the Romans destroyed the temple in AD 70 in response to the First Jewish Revolt, they destroyed everything on the plaza except for the lower course of the retaining wall. 

In the exposed part of the Western Wall today, the seven lowest layers of stones are from Herod’s construction. Most of these stones weigh between two and eight tons.

The retaining wall is the one remaining element of the first-century temple complex. Given the legacy of these stones and their proximity to the temple (which was located where the Dome of the Rock now stands), Orthodox Jews come to worship here despite it merely being the retaining wall holding up the platform on which the temple sat because they believe the divine presence never left this wall. 

The prayer area in front of the wall is divided into separate sections for men and women.Above these are stones placed in later centuries, replacing those forced out when the Romans put down a Jewish revolt by sacking Jerusalem and destroying the Temple in AD 70.

Men and married women who approach the wall are expected to have their heads covered.

The wall is mortarless so each stone had to be hand chiseled to fit properly with the adjacent stone.


 Largest stone in the remaining portion of the retaining wall is 40 ft wide and weighs an estimated 600 tons.

Herrod was a master builder. Stones were “framed” to be aesthetically pleasing. A recessed border was chiseled around each stone to simulate the frame.

Some women reverently back away from the Wall at the close of their visit.

The wall is a focus of prayer — often petitions are written down and placed between the huge stones. The Jewish name for the wall is the Kotel.

The wall and the plaza in front of it form a permanent place of worship and a site of pilgrimage for Jews

It is also the place where Jews down the ages have expressed their grief over the destruction of the Temple, their anguish giving the wall another name — the Wailing Wall.

But the wall is also a place for celebrations, especially of Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs (coming-of-age ceremonies for Jewish sons and daughters).

 It is an outdoor synagogue where it is possible to see the modern Jewish community worshiping and reading from the Torah near the spot on which the Old Testament temple stood.

Crusader Church of Saint Anne

The Church of St Anne is the best-preserved Crusader church in Jerusalem. It marks the traditional site of the home of Jesus’ maternal grandparents, Anne and Joachim, and the birthplace of the Virgin Mary.

Located just north of the Temple Mount, the church stands in a courtyard with trees, shrubs and flowers. Its tranquility contrasts with the bustling streets and alleys of the Muslim Quarter.

St. Anne and her daughter, Mary

Mural inside the church

Chapel

A flight of stone steps descends from the south aisle to the crypt. This cave is the supposed remains of the house of Anne and Joachim, and the Virgin Mary’s birthplace.

Here, in a tiny chapel with a domed ceiling, an altar is dedicated to the birth of Mary.














The Church of St Anne is renowned for its remarkable acoustics and reverberating echoes. The voices of even a small choral group can sound like a large congregation in a vast cathedral.

Pools of Bethesda 

The Bethesda Pools are adjacent to the Saint Anne's Church. At these pools Jesus met and healed a man who had been unable to walk for thirty-eight years. The location of the Pools of Bethesda — actually a series of reservoirs and medicinal pools — is in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, north of the Temple Mount and about 50 metres inside St Stephen’s or Lions’ Gate. At that time, the gate was called the Sheep Gate, because this was where sheep were brought to the Temple for sacrifice.

The Bethesda Pools predate the church by eighteen hundred years. Pools were built to hold runoff water for municipal water needs. Worshipers on their way to the temple grounds also used these pools to wash their sacrificial animals.

 During the time of Jesus, this double-pool complex had five colonnaded porches to provide shade for those at the pool (John 5:22). John describes the pool as having five porticoes, in which lay many invalids — blind, lame and paralysed. In the 1900s, archaeologists at Bethesda unearthed two large water reservoirs separated by a broad rock dike. They were rectangular in shape, with four colonnaded porticos around the sides and one across the central dike.

Bethesda in Jerusalem has been identified as the scene of one of Jesus’ miracles. This was the healing of the paralysed man who had waited for 38 years for someone to help him into the pool “when the water is stirred” — an event believed to have curative powers.

The Gospel account says Jesus told the man, “Stand up, take your mat and walk”, and immediately he was made well (John 5:2-18).

Via Dolorosa

As our group started our journey on the Via Dolorosa, note the Israeli military presence in the background. Although this wasn't the norm per se, there did seem to be an increased police presence in areas where worshippers of different religions were more likely to interact. Since parts of the Via Dolorosa wind through the Muslim quarter, Christians and Muslims interact more and hence a heavier police presence.

The brown marker above the doorway marks
the various stations with Roman numerals

Every Friday afternoon hundreds of Christians join in a procession through the Old City of Jerusalem, stopping at 14 Stations of the Cross as they identify with the suffering of Jesus on his way to crucifixion.

Their route is called the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows). This is also the name of the principal street they follow, a narrow marketplace abustle with traders and shoppers, most likely similar to the scene on the first Good Friday.

It is unlikely that Jesus followed this route on his way to Calvary. Today’s Via Dolorosa originated in pious tradition rather than in certain fact, but it is hallowed by the footsteps of the faithful over centuries.

This station marker is above the white sign.

Narrow alleyways on the left were traversed along the Via Dolorosa as well as marketplaces depicted on the right.

While scholars disagree on the path Jesus took on Good Friday, processions in the 4th and 5th centuries from the Mount of Olives to Calvary followed more or less along the route taken by modern pilgrims (but there were no stops for Stations).

Today’s Via Dolorosa route was established in the 18th century, with the present 14 Stations, but some of the Stations were given their present location only in the 19th century. Nine of the 14 stations are based on Gospel references. The other five — Jesus’ three falls, his meeting with his Mother, and Veronica wiping his face — are traditional.

The current Via Dolorosa ends in the correct location, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Church of the Resurrection)

 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem covers what Christians believe is the site of the most important event in human history: The place where Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
But the pilgrim who looks for the hill of Calvary and a tomb cut out of rock in a garden nearby will be disappointed. Count us in that category.

At first sight, the church may bring on a sense of anticlimax. Looking across a hemmed-in square, there is the shabby façade of a dun-coloured, Romanesque basilica with grey domes and a cut-off belfry.

Inside, there is a bewildering conglomeration of 30-plus chapels and worship spaces. These are encrusted with the devotional ornamentation of several Christian rites.

 This sprawling Church of the Holy Sepulchre displays a mish-mash of architectural styles. It bears the scars of fires and earthquakes, deliberate destruction and reconstruction down the centuries. It is often gloomy and usually thronging with noisy visitors.

This is the pre-eminent shrine for Christians, who consider it the holiest place on earth. And it attracts pilgrims by the thousand, all drawn to pay homage to their Saviour, Jesus Christ. Yet it remains a living place of worship. Its ancient stones are steeped in prayer, hymns and liturgies. It bustles daily with fervent rounds of incensing and processions.

Six different Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Coptic, Syrian, and Ethiopian) have defined worship spaces in the building. The Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenian Orthodox currently share control of the church, but have been fighting for control of the church for centuries. Each denomination fears another group gaining control because they could restrict visitorship to worshippers of their denomination. 

The location of the church matches every expectation presented in the Bible and assumed by first-century culture. The church is just outside the first-century wall line of Jerusalem (John 19:20; Heb. 13:12). It was being used as a Jewish cemetery at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, and within the building you can visit tombs that follow first-century Jewish design (John 19:41-42). It is also near a public roadway that existed in Jerusalem-the kind of location favored by the Romans who wanted public executions to be observed by as many locals as possible.

From the first century to present day, there has always been a Christian presence in Jerusalem that pointed to this spot as the one that hosted Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Christian denominations don't agree on much, but they do agree on the location of this crucial event in Christianity.

We ascended a steep and curving flight of stairs which represent the ascending of the “hill” of Calvary (from the Latin) or Golgotha (from the Aramaic), both words meaning “place of the skull”. The stairs open on to a floor that is level with the top of the rocky outcrop on which Christ was crucified. It is about 4.5 metres above the ground floor.

The very ornate Greek Chapel of the Crucifixion is the Twelfth Station (Jesus dies on the cross). A silver disc beneath the Greek altar marks the place where it is believed the cross stood. The limestone rock of Calvary may be touched through a round hole in the disc.

After descending from the "hill of Calvary" back to the main floor of the church, you will see the Tomb of Jesus. This stone, ornate structure is known as the Edicule.

The Edicule was constructed within the church and replaces the sides and roof of the original tomb of Jesus that were destroyed early in the eleventh century. 

There's often a line of pilgrims waiting more than two hours to spend just a few moments inside the tomb structure. That was the case during our visit. The line wrapped around the church.

Stone of Unction or Anointing, the slab of reddish stone flanked by candlesticks and overhung by a row of eight lamps, is the traditional location for the preparation of Jesus’s body for burial.

 This ladder represents the discord among the Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenian Orthodox denominations. The rights of possession and church use are spelled out by a decree, called the Status Quo, originally imposed by the Ottoman Turks in 1757. It even gives two Muslim families the sole right to hold the key and open and close the church because the denominations could not agree on a Christian denomination for key ownership. So Christians don't hold the key to the holiest place in Christianity because of man made divisions among themselves. Therefore, the Muslim families have held the key to the church in a tradition that dates back to 1246. 

As expected, each religious community guards its rights jealously. The often-uneasy relationship laid down by the Status Quo is typified by a wooden ladder resting on a cornice above the main entrance and leaning against a window ledge. No one knows how or when the ladder got there, but it appears in an engraving of the church dated 1728, and it was mentioned in the 1757 edict by Sultan Abdul Hamid I that became the basis for the Status Quo. The ladder seen today has been  replaced at least once since the early 18th century, but the ladder, window and cornice are all in the possession of the Armenian Orthodox. And because the ladder was on the cornice when the Status Quo began in 1757, it must remain there.

Garden Tomb

A traditional location linked with the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. Its relatively quiet setting and peaceful garden provide a more relaxed environment for worship and reflection than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But the latter is the authentic location for these world changing events.

Just outside the city walls is the Garden Tomb, first identified in 1849. A rock formation resembles a skull (Golgotha) and the site accords with the biblical data of the area where Jesus was buried. The idea that the “Place of the Skull” was named because of a skull-like hill is a modern notion. Most early Christian commentators held that Golgotha was so named because it was a place of execution, where criminals’ skulls and bones lay scattered.

In 1883, the British general Charles Gordon claimed the site as the Protestant alternative to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The side of the hill has eroded features that resembled the eye sockets, nose, and mouth of a human skull and led Gordon to the conclusion that this was Golgotha, “the place of the Skull” (John 19:17). For Gordon, the hill was the place of Jesus’s crucifixion and the tomb at its base was the site of Jesus’s burial and resurrection.

The cave in the side of the ridge is a tomb, but the architecture of the tomb dates it to the era of the Old Testament (800-600 BC), Removing it as a candidate for the “new tomb” of Joseph of Arimathea where Jesus was buried.

While the evidence linking this site to the death and resurrection of Jesus is relatively late and tenuous, the Garden Tomb endures as a place for quiet meditation and worship. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the more likely setting for Jesus’s death and resurrection is so cluttered by church art, tradition, and people that many find it an unsatisfying location to reflect on the event in history that most profoundly changed human destiny. In the relative quiet of the aromatic garden, you can enjoy a peaceful atmosphere that invites worshipful reflection and prayer.

In contrast to the chaotic atmosphere associated with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we found the peaceful, serenity of the Garden Tomb to be a welcome respite for thoughtful contemplation and meditation.

Personally, the natural garden setting was preferable to the gaudy and tacky ornamentation prevalent in the altars and tombs of the most holy church. However, I believe the overwhelming historical evidence and centuries of tradition that validate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the place of the resurrection of Christ. I just wish that it was more like the garden's natural tomb setting.

Empty tomb