In many ways my trip to the Holy Land was the simplest of
the three pilgrimages I’ve been on: 2002, Celtic Northumbria and Scotland,
2007, Into the West of Ireland, and 2015, Holy Land. The means were
straightforward: sign up for a package tour with Bishops Beisner and Rickel. We
gathered by the door of Tel Aviv airport where we met our guides and driver. It
was a very Christian trip – Episcopalian/Anglican, even liberal non-Evangelical
Anglican, to be more specific. There were ecumenical and interfaith encounters
certainly. And what we see encompassed all three Abrahamic faiths as well as
prehistoric ruins. We largely bypassed what was not on our focus; which was:
(1) footsteps of Jesus, (2) current Palestinian predicament, and (3) riding in
a bus together.
Of these the first is the reason I went. We began where we
could begin.
Mount Tabor, transfiguration
Tabgha, multiplication; Nazareth, annunciation; Capernaum, Magdala: Galilee
Jericho
Jordan River, baptism
Bethlehem, nativity
Jerusalem, crucifixion
Settlements, a Palestinian hill town
Jaffa, airport
At Capernaum I got a sense from the ruins of the synagogue
(post 1st Century C.E.) that lie on top of the building Jesus would
have known, that it was not a very big place: 300m along the lakeshore – of
course that lakeshore, along which Jesus
came to call his first disciples…
And so from a building not much bigger than a small church
(St. Andrew’s Tucson, e.g.) Jesus and his friends crossed the street to a small
house where he healed Peter’s mother-in-law. And the whole town crowded round
the door that evening, hoping for more healing – which they got. But in the
morning he gathered his team and moved on, announcing in word and deed that the
reign of God was beginning. And they moved about that region so the news
spread.
Eventually it was time to go up to Jerusalem so they took
the Jericho road. And on the way he healed beggars and warned them, and all who
would follow him, that it was necessary for him to go – and take his message and
its consequences all the way.
This meant appearing at the center of Jewish religion at the
tensest, busiest time as all converged on the Temple – where the great feast
would be inaugurated. But he would not live to see it – if John’s timing is right.
From the triumphal entry on a colt, a political drama
enacting the arrival of God’s anointed – in pointed opposition to Herod and
Rome – to his teaching in the Temple, he continues his mission, announcing the
arrival of God’s kingdom: now not in a small synagogue but on a big open plaza
with the Temple machinery plonk in the middle of it, the possibility of
thousands gathering who could hear and see him – and then he does this! [The
Cleansing of the Temple] – which may have set the match to the tinder. He drives
out the cattle and overthrows the business dealings because that is what the
Messiah does when he arrives. So they plot to kill him – or have him removed,
as an administrative inconvenience.
Grabbed in the dark outside of town at his encampment among
olive trees, he is dragged – lets himself be dragged – to the house of Caiaphas
then across town to stand before Pilate. On the common pavement the soldiers
mock him, play games with him on their traditional game board (see where they
kept score) and load the crosspiece on his back of the engine of his own
execution. They march him through the marketplace, indifferent or gawking
people brushing past him and they go take him outside the walls, up a little
precipice, pound in the upright, and kill him. Rome is done with him – except
for the laughter, the relieved chatter, the embarrassed or amused spectator.
His body can rot there for all they care – or be case on a dung heap. Rome has
no tears to shed.
But a pious Jew (like Tobit) takes the body and gives it proper
burial, in a new tomb. It would stay there until the flesh is consumed and the
bones collected and put in an ossuary (see examples in Israel Museum including
Caiaphas’ and a Jesus son of Joseph) if all went as expected.
Just why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem? What did he hope to
accomplish?
Luke 4:18-19
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
Mark 1:14-15
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and
saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent,
and believe in the good news.’
Did he achieve his purpose? After all?
You can go there – to a place archaeologists say is “very
probably” the tomb, and lay your head on the stone – the marble slab where the
body lay. Eyes closed. All is dark. Time stops. Then breath returns.
Is the world the same? Or different?
