How to Experience the Holy Sepulchre

I know I'm almost two weeks out of Israel and into Turkey, but I have a few final reflections on Israel that I'd like to share.

I also know that my post on the Holy Sepulchre vs. the Garden Tomb says a lot more about the latter than about the former, and since the Sepulchre is the far more important place, it's worth offering a few words about it.

The Holy Sepulchre is a dark, cramped church that looks a little ramshackle. It's terribly hard to have the sort of Western spiritual experience- a sense of serenity and joy, closed eyes in silent prayer, individual feelings and thoughts- that we all expect in religious spaces. The Holy Sepulchre is just not that sort of place.

In order to overcome this, I have two recommendations.

The utter, vast, overwhelming majority of people experience the Holy Sepulchre first in the midst of flashing cameras, tour guides holding up umbrellas, lightsabers, or Pepsi cans on sticks, and hordes of tourists. That's simply what the church is like throughout the day.

And my first recommendation is to embrace the church as it is. The Holy Sepulchre is a great and terrible challenge to our western ideas about spirituality, whether the ideas of charismatic evangelical Protestants or traditionalist Roman Catholics.

To evangelicals, the church has to offer the catholicity of the church. Present within its walls (or in one case, upon its roof) are chapels and monasteries of Latins (Catholics), Greeks (Orthodox), and the Oriental Orthodox communions of the Armenians, Copts, Syriacs, and Ethiopians. These groups only get along because of the centuries-old Status Quo agreement, which determines the precise schedule when each can worship in certain areas, especially the common areas like the Edicule or Tomb itself. This, in addition to the broader view of the worldwide church that shakes us out of our largely evangelical American atmosphere, teaches us also to appreciate ritual. These rituals are deeply important to these people. They are hardly vain; they are the very heart of their lives, and they would die to defend their right to perform them. The habitual repetition of song and prayer are far more authentic than any spontaneous outburst of ecstatic spirituality.

To Catholics, or Lutherans, or Anglicans, the Eastern and Oriental churches of the Holy Sepulchre, and the way the Latins deal with them, challenges our polite, proper way of liturgy and spirituality. There's something chaotic about it that just doesn't fit our very orderly liturgies. Eastern liturgies are strictly patterned and performed, to be sure, but the laity has a different way of participating (and keeping silent, or not) than we do in the west.

This second point speaks to a deeper way of embracing the Holy Sepulchre as it is. For Christ did not go silently in solemn procession to the crucifixion, and was not risen back into a world that immediately transformed into the kingdom of God. Rather, Christ went to the cross about tourist-pilgrims there for the Passover, soldiers monitoring the crowd, sobbing women, leering men, and mocking crowds; and, despite the quietude of Easter morning, he was risen to and remains alive in the world we all live in now. The Holy Sepulchre stands as a monument not to a deep spiritual truth which we encounter silently in the solitude of a private encounter with God, but as a liturgical center where we repeat through Word and reenact through Sacrament the physical chaos of Good Friday and physical transformation of Easter.

So despite my recommendations below, I recommend waiting in the two hour line to get into the tomb in the middle of the day, to experience the church as Christ encountered the ground beneath it. Perhaps the great grace offered to us is that we might still find serenity and joy through ceaseless interior prayer in the midst of flashing cameras and tacky tourist guides all around us.

But of course, we want more than that, and here's what I recommend.

On a Sunday, the various chapels are open to worship. The Latins hold a Mass in front of the Edicule at 5:30am (check the Christian Information Center online for official times), in which the Edicule (the structure in the rotunda built up around the tomb) is used as the altar-space (properly, sanctuary, or holy of holies). This means that after the consecration of the Eucharist, the priests can emerge from the tomb for the presentation- the holding up of the body and blood of our Lord. There is the risen Lord, emerging from the tomb, really and truly!

Once this is over, head over to the Ethiopian chapel. Here the Ethiopians, probably the most serene group in the church, alone on the roof, are holding their three hour Sunday liturgy. It was extraordinary to listen to their worship. It was unmistakably, authentically liturgical; it was also unmistakably, authentically African. Let no one say that Africans have to worship like American evangelicals because 'stale, old liturgies of Europe' aren't suited for them. The Ethiopians have not only managed to blend the two, but have one of the oldest liturgies in the church. They haven't made the liturgy authentically African; the liturgy is authentically African in its earliest stages. The Nigerians who sing praise and worship songs that are more American than anything else could learn a thing or two from them.

Another day to visit the Sepulchre is Friday, without a doubt. The Latins (that is, the Catholics) hold a service at 6:30 in front of the edicule. This is also an excellent opportunity to go back into the tomb, since if you sit in the front row of the Mass, you're right in front of the line when they clear away their liturgical implements. The giant pilgrim and tourist groups have to form up behind you. A very Rick Steves recommendation, I know, but totally worth it.

Later in the day, on Fridays, the Franciscans hold a massive procession along the Via Dolorosa starting from the first station of the cross at 3pm. To get through it all, it takes about three hours, straight into the tomb. Don't worry, it's totally worth it. They read out the gospel readings in Latin, English, French, Italian, Arabic, and whatever other languages are well-represented by pilgrim groups joining them for the day.

A great plan, here, is to visit the Franciscans in the Holy Sepulchre the day before (on Thursday) to see if you can do a lock-in.

At 7:30pm each evening the Greeks, together with the Armenians, close the doors of the church for the night. If you're on the Franciscan list for a lock-in, you can get yourself locked in the church at this point. You're in there until 4am, or until 11pm if you've made sure the Greeks are opening the doors for a Russian group that comes to worship at the tomb at midnight.

If you want serenity and silence, this is your opportunity to be alone in the tomb of Christ. Maria and I did this, and we were really alone in there with maybe a half dozen other pilgrims and the random monk or nun cleaning the church. I recommend bringing a Bible and a rosary or chotki, because without repetitive, ritual prayer, you're going to run out of petitions fairly quickly. But to go around and pray the (Lutheran) rosary all the way through in each and every chapel of the church was an experience that will stick with me all my life.

And, best of all, you can go in the tomb, kneel before the corpus bench, and read straight through all the passion and resurrection accounts. Remember that the Russians take over the tomb at midnight, but until then, it's all yours.

If you go with an unwieldy, giant tour group, you probably won't get this chance. This is one of many reasons I recommend going with St. George's, since they allow you to stay in the dorms for several days after the end of a course. And during these days, I recommend taking these hours to see a whole different side to the Holy Sepulchre than you get during the day. Take photos during the one, but pray the hours away for the other.

That, anyway, is my recommendation on how to experience the Holy Sepulchre.