Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land (19 page)

But later crews of workers attempted to do just that, of course. They built a stone church in three parts: a central nave to honor Jesus, with a chapel on either side, one for Moses and one for Elijah. We're told that there's a stunning central mosaic, and each prophet has his own mural depicting a mountaintop moment.

“There's a trapdoor in the floor of the nave,” says Stephen, “and underneath that door is the bedrock of the mountain. People leave prayers there. You get fifteen minutes.”

The central mosaic is indeed gorgeous, sparkling in gold. It shows Jesus in shining raiment, flanked by the prophets, with the disciples looking awestruck. I take this in, then step into the side chapels. I catalog each mural rather than experience it, the way you do when you've been in too many museums but know you may never return to this one. You want to be able to say, “I saw that.” Moses' mural shows him receiving the Tablets of
the Law on Mount Sinai. Elijah's mural shows him on top of Mount Carmel, managing the cosmic duel between the God of the Israelites, Yahweh, and the Canaanite god Baal.

I notice the other pilgrims investigating the chapels, but I don't want to take the time. I'm mainly interested in the bedrock. I hurry to the open trapdoor and peek inside. Scraps of paper litter the rock. I glimpse words in many languages, very few in English. Still, some words jump out at me, and I comprehend their meaning: “illumine,” “capacity,” “adore.” I want to join this company of pilgrims and entrust my words to this rock. I take a seat in the nave and write a prayer in my journal:

Yahweh, Transform me. The moments of glory are all around. May I have the eyes and heart to see them, then let them go, trusting they will come again. Open me.

I write it out again and tear the scrap of paper from the binding. I kneel and reach through the trapdoor to place the torn paper on the rock. My fingertips graze the slips of paper laid by other pilgrims, then touch the bedrock itself, rock that is smooth and cold, rock that Jesus stepped on, rock that witnessed Christ's glory when heaven opened. The contact, for a moment, is like brushing up against a presence both ephemeral and eternal, something beyond time.

So I stumble to a pew, instinctively realizing that in order to hold onto this glory I must make room. I must leave something behind. I must let go of the baggage I carry around with me, the wounds, the resentments, the grudges. The only way I know how to do that is to pray, so I pray for forgiveness, for myself and for those who have wronged me. I repeat:
Open me, open me, open . . .

Someone is tapping my shoulder. We pilgrims must leave. I notice that Ashley is sitting on the floor, her face tear-streaked. I wonder what's going on for her, but don't ask. This pilgrim journey is hard to process, let alone share. We all need space.

The group of us walks back toward the spot where the taxis will pick us up. We pass brown-robed Franciscan friars who live
on this mountaintop. Some are reading beneath flowering trees, haloed by pink and white. One monk plays a recorder and one a small harp; another stares into the middle distance. We call out “Shalom!” Each monk looks up and returns our greeting with a rapturous smile.

What do these monks know that we don't? Although we might wish we could reside on a mountaintop of glory, wouldn't we miss our lives, our actual lives down on the ground? Someday we will all live on a mountaintop, so to speak, in that juncture between heaven and earth, in the kingdom of God. But for now we must settle for the briefest encounter with the holy, a brushing cheek to cheek. I remember worshiping beside the grandmother in Reine, her wrinkled cheek against mine; swimming in the Sea of Galilee, the velvet water against my skin; praying beside the Jewish mother and her baby at the Western Wall, our cheeks against the ancient stone.

JoAnne and Kyle are chatting as we walk along. Kyle says, “The Transfiguration accounts are really similar in the different Gospels. I was comparing them last night.”

“It's the timing that changes, isn't it?” JoAnne asks.

“They all use the word ‘bleach,' don't they?” I add. “But did they have bleach back then?”

“I think they used urine,” JoAnne says.

“Matthew doesn't say ‘bleach,' ” Kyle says.

“Maybe Matthew thought of a better word,” I say. “Maybe Mark had already written it down, verbatim, so Peter got stuck with his bad choice of words.”

“Peter and his words!” JoAnne exclaims. “Hey, let's build some booths!”

“That's what proves the dialogue is authentic,” Kyle says. “Otherwise, you could think that Peter made the whole story up just to make himself look good.”

“But he doesn't look good,” JoAnne counters. “And I'm glad. You gotta love a disciple who says the wrong thing.”

“I feel for him,” I say. “Even more so after today. So he wanted to hang onto the moment of glory. Wouldn't you have?”

“Of course. Look at the documentary,” says JoAnne. “What's Brian trying to capture with — ”

She stops in her tracks, staring overhead into some low-hanging tree branches. “Aren't those peppercorns?”

Kyle reaches up and breaks off a twig and hands it to her. The sprig has a cluster of little pink balls, some plump and some withered. JoAnne inhales deeply, then smiles broadly at me and Kyle. “Now this is what will remind me of glory.”

As we arrive where the taxis will pick us up, I remember something. “About those murals — did you get a good look at Moses? It proves something I've always wondered about.”

“What's that?” Kyle asks.

I let a delicious moment pass before replying. “Did you notice? Moses really does look like Charlton Heston.”

The Mount of Olives

CHAPTER 18

Weep

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

M
ATTHEW 23:37

T
HE TEN DAYS
of our pilgrimage began with an introduction to Jerusalem, then roughly followed the chronology of Jesus' life as we traveled from Bethlehem to Galilee. Now we're back in Jerusalem to journey the final lap of Jesus' story.

Today we will explore the Mount of Olives, just outside the walls of Jerusalem. We begin in the courtyard of the chapel at Bethphage, where Jesus began his journey by donkey on Palm Sunday. Even though it's very early, the sun is already bright. We're all slouched under hats and sunglasses as if we could protect ourselves against the sun's rays. The air is intensely dry. Stephen begins to talk about Jesus' dual nature, human and divine. I'm tired of squinting while he lectures, but I'm ready to look anew at old questions.

Stephen says that each Gospel writer used a particular lens for Jesus, a way of answering Jesus' foundational question:
Who do you say that I am?
Stephen uses his sternest voice: “As we travel this Holy Week path, we must keep this question in the front of our minds. It is the essential question to the Palm Sunday story — and to every story this week. Who did the crowds think Jesus was? When we say ‘Messiah,' what does that mean? A teacher to
set them loose from religious law? A healer to cure their diseases? A liberator to free them from Roman rule?”

Someone reads aloud Mark's version of the Palm Sunday story (Mark 11:1-10). It is brief and familiar. The jubilant crowd waves palm branches as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. They shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!” The simple story rings with innocent joy. Because of that, church leaders often delegate it to the children. Many times I have led little ones waving palm branches while the congregation sings “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.”

I say to Ashley, “Have you led palm processionals?”

“Oh, brother,” she answers. “How do you stop the kids from hitting each other with the branches?”

“I know it!”

“I guess it's human nature to turn holy things into weapons,” she says. “But still.”

Stephen is saying something about the chapel. “There's a fence around a stone that the Crusaders revered as the stone Jesus used to mount the donkey. Remember that riding a donkey is a sign of peace. Conquering war heroes rode horses.”

The architecture of the chapel is simple enough: a rectangle constructed of stone. What's complicated are the interior frescoes, all life-sized. High on the front wall, Jesus rides a brown donkey while the people lay down colorful cloaks and green palm branches with contagious energy. On the other three walls, the figures waving palm branches are in less dramatic, sepia tones. I study individuals as though I'm people-watching in downtown D.C., noting this woman's expression, that man's head garb, this child's uncovered toes, that baby in a bundle. In one place in the fresco there's an opening that seems intentional, and I realize that this is where I can insert myself. I'm grateful to the artist. I want to slip into the adoring crowd. My pilgrim heart is full of devotion for this Jesus of Nazareth, the one I've been chasing for days. The one who's been chasing me for years.

“Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna!”

We fill the pews to sing a few verses of “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” I don't have to worry about children fiddling with their palm branches inappropriately. Instead, with my eyes on Jesus, I can become one of the children — wrapped in a second innocence. I sit down to write a prayer:

Dear Lord, I come to you as a child. I dedicate myself to you, even though I know what lies ahead, as those children did not. I will be tested. But I adore you and never mean to stop. Amen.

When the hymn is done, people wander off to examine the frescoes. Charlie, Jessica, and another pilgrim begin to sing “The Lord's Prayer,” and I join them. We loop our arms across each other's shoulders, our heads together in a tight square. The acoustics are perfect; the sound rebounds just enough to gain depth. The words of the song — “Our Father” — are something we can each sing with complete abandon. Some other hymn, some other praise song, might reveal our theological differences, our various answers to Jesus' question:
Who do you say that I am?
But for this moment, as our voices blend and ascend from within the walls of this sanctuary, our prayer is as unified and fragrant as incense.

The group gathers and walks up the long, sloping path of the Mount of Olives. There are two churches between this chapel at Bethphage and the Garden of Gethsemane, both rather recently built. The first is a small chapel called Dominus Flevit, and the second is the much larger Church of All Nations.

We gather outside Dominus Flevit (Latin for “the Lord wept”). Stephen has someone read Matthew 23:37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Jesus spoke these emotional words while
standing in this spot overlooking Jerusalem, knowing that his death was inevitable. The chapel was built here to honor those poignant words, words that drip with sorrow. Jesus knew that the powers that occupied Jerusalem did not welcome him, either the Roman political power represented by Herod or the Jewish religious power represented by the Sanhedrin.

“Some interpret these words of Jesus as judgment,” Stephen says. “You must decide that for yourself. What I can tell you for sure is that this chapel was built in the shape of a teardrop.”

Then Stephen talks about tears. He reminds us that Scripture explicitly says that Jesus wept before he raised Lazarus from the dead. There is no parallel verse in Scripture saying that Jesus laughed, although we assume he did. When he wept, Jesus broke the cultural taboo against weeping.

“What freedom this gives us — what permission to cry!” Stephen leans forward. “Tears are central to the human story. Everybody is born crying. This life is a ‘vale of tears,' and when we die, others weep for us.”

I look at my feet as he talks. My own cheeks are once again wet with tears. You'd hardly think that could happen in the dry air of this Holy Land, but I've had wet cheeks every day of this pilgrimage. At first I thought my tears were evidence of my unworthiness, but now I've come to see them differently. They evidence my passion as I wrestle with the Spirit, attempting to let myself be broken open.

As the days of this pilgrimage pass, I'm identifying with Jacob, the grandson of Abraham who wrestled with an angel at a place called Peniel (Gen. 32:24-32). Jacob had had a falling-out with his brother Esau and was now on the cusp of reunion; he was terrified it wouldn't go well. As Jacob spent the night alone, a stranger showed up at his camp, and the two men wrestled all night long. Not knowing who the stranger was, Jacob demanded a blessing from him. The man did so, but not before wrenching Jacob's hip out of its socket. I suppose Jacob walked with a limp for a long time, a reminder of the tussle.