Palm Sunday and Bethany

Well, I'm wretchedly behind because this week has been absolutely frantic in the best possible way. I've had full days every day, except perhaps today but that's another story.

In the meantime, I'll try to at least get Sunday and Monday in.

Holy Week commenced with the Palm Sunday mass at St. George's Cathedral. Everyone met out in the parking lot and we had a full procession with incense and palms and everything. The cathedral was decked out with palm branches, and quite tastefully. Bishop Suheil offered the homily in both English and Arabic, as the service was held jointly with the English and Arabic congregations. That, of course, has come to be the rule for the whole week, and it's quite wonderful.

After lunch we hopped bus and were driven to the Bethphage, on the east side of the Mount of Olives. It was in the vicinity of this town and the neighboring town of Bethany (neighboring, but inaccessibly on the other side of the security wall) that Jesus began the very first Palm Sunday procession.

I can't even begin to describe the hordes of pilgrims. Go on Facebook and watch the five videos I took. It was absolutely amazing. Each group comes with their own songs and joins in an incomprehensible but utterly joyous cacophony of music. Monks and nuns of all religious orders, with (in Ben's words) "wimples of every description," and most wonderfully, people of every tribe, tongue, and nation. The vast majority were Catholic, and it showed: Africans, Asians, Arabs, French, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and unending groups of Latin Americans. It was a true spectacular.

From Bethphage we walked up to the top of the Mount of Olives and then down past Dominus Flevit and the Church of All Nations (the Basilica of the Agony, at Gethsemane. Then we began up the middle of the road (traffic had of course been rerouted and there were police and helicopters aplenty) for the final ascent. In the first century, the procession would have gone up through the Shushan Gate and up to the temple mount. Indeed, it's a curious moment in the gospels, because a person proclaimed as Messiah would be expected to turn right upon entering the gate and whip up the mob against the symbol of present Roman power: the Antonia Fortress. However, Jesus isn't riding a horse, the symbol of a warrior king prepared for battle. He's riding a donkey; forget old sermons that suggest this is about humility. No, a king on a donkey is a king with peaceful intent, and he's telling the Romans that he comes in peace.

Even more curiously, instead of turning to the right after entering the gate and going after the Antonia, Luke's account paints the picture (even if the other gospels present a different sequence) of Jesus immediately turning left and going after the moneychangers in the Royal Portico! Rather than going after the Antonia in order to vindicate the national hopes of the Jewish people, he attacks the temple itself, completely, as always, turning expectations upside down.

Well, we can't go through the Shushan Gate because the Arab Muslims blocked it up centuries ago for whatever reason. However, St. Stephen's Gate is near the spot, and just inside it is the Church of St. Anne. So thousands upon thousands of dancing, singing pilgrims squeezed their way through the gate:

At St. Anne's the church had set up a live band to play rock versions of traditional folk music from around the world. A dance party inevitably ensued. For a while I stood on the sidelines to watch, but I was pulled into the conga line by a group of elderly Filipino nuns. This, of course, was all going on on the front lawn of St. Anne's Convent. I think had I danced for about half an hour when I left just as the Arab Catholic Scouts marched in to snare drums and bagpipes.

After a restful evening I got up the next day to complete this Palm Sunday experience by going to the other side of the security barrier to Bethany. Bethany would be quite walkable from St. George's if it weren't for the wall, but since there isn't a checkpoint one must go on a bus on the Jerusalem-Masada-Eilat highway, which then turns off on the other side. It's a shame, but fortunately the Arab staff here at the college live in Bethany and were able to tell me exactly which Arab bus to hop on.

The reason to go to Bethany is to see the Church of St. Lazarus and the adjacent tomb. Whether or not it's the real tomb, it is a first century tomb; you can tell because the entrance, the mourner's vestibule, and the burial chamber are constructed in a straight line, as they are at the Holy Sepulchre and elsewhere (though not at the 8th century BC 'Garden Tomb'). In any case, there's not much to see, but it's one of those fun shrines that's shared between Muslims and Christians. The current street-side entrance was cut out by the Franciscans in the early modern period; the original entrance is now inside a mosque which was built up around it.

The church was a particular goal for me, since it is the last of the Antonio Barluzzi churches I wanted to get to. Hopefully later in the week I'll do a post on the man and his churches, which really shape the experience of so many pilgrims and whose architectural vision of sacred space profoundly determines the character of Christian life in this land. Not to mention, like all of his works, the church is beautiful.

After seeing the church and going into the tomb, I went to walk up the steps out again to the street when I heard a British accent lecturing about the site. It was Stephen, the dean of St. George's, giving a presentation to the members of the current course, Risen With Christ: Eastern Holy Week! When he saw who it was walking up out of the chamber, he joked, "And here is Lazarus, risen from the dead!"

Running into them turned out great, since not only did they give me a ride back, but I celebrated Mass with them in a small medieval chapel near the church and got to go into the nearby Greek monastery (to which I had been denied access as a lone person earlier). The entire group only got five minutes, anyway, but it was lovely to be able to see the interior of their chapel, venerate the icons, and, of course, take a photo.

Well, it's after midnight and I'm getting up and out by 6am in order to do the Via Dolorosa with the joint Anglican-Lutheran group. Yes, I'll be kicking off Good Friday bright and early. Just wait to you hear my schedule for the rest of the weekend...