The Holy Land - Part 2 (see first instalment below)

This was my first visit to Israel/Palestine. Cost had been one impediment previously. But almost more than that, I was hesitant for two reasons – one, that I might find the experience disappointing, and also (increasingly) a real concern about the political situation and the oppression of the Palestinian people.

The second concern remains, but Geoffrey ensured our visit incorporated as much contact as possible with Palestinians, especially local Christians. We spent two nights in a hotel in Jericho, and visited a school for the blind near Bethlehem and a boy’s home at Bethany. We also had first-hand experience of the separation wall, road checkpoints, and the frustration of being denied access to Palestinian territory by young Israeli border- guards.

To return to my initial concern: in the event I was not disappointed by any of the sites. I had expected to dislike the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, having read many negative comments, Yes, it was overcrowded, and the petty divisions among Christian denominations is shameful. And there is almost nothing remaining of the original church or its subsequent rebuilds before the 17^th century. And yet – it’s a place where Christian prayer and worship have been offered for nearly two millennia. Much love and devotion has been poured out by countless pilgrims. And there is something moving about the groups of Nigerian, Korean, Brazilian, American, French, British and other pilgrims filling the place. It’s a foretaste of that heavenly Jerusalem, where will gather “saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

And there were surprises. I had not expected Qumran to have such a numinous atmosphere; it’s a lonely place on the edge of the Dead Sea, leading into the Judean wilderness. But it’s not barren or threatening, but rather charged with the grandeur of God and resonant with the hope and expectation of the community that gathered there, away from the corruptions of urban life. And there were other places where the presence of God was almost tangible; like the ancient monastery, or rather laura (for hermits), of Mar Saba, also in the wilderness. Here lived and wrote the great St John of Damascus – author of ‘The Day of Resurrection! Earth tell it out abroad’, and the story of Barlaam and Joasaph (which I read in Greek in my first year at Sussex).

And time and again, although they may not have been ‘wow’ moments (I’m not very often subject to them anyway!), there were experiences of convergence and connection. The ruins of 1^st century Capernaum with its synagogue and homes echoed with Jesus teaching and healings: the man lowered through the roof, Jairus’ daughter and the woman with the haemorrhage. All around the Sea of Galilee we were reminded implicitly that the man whose death and resurrection we had focussed on in Jerusalem had here  spoken of and demonstrated the transforming reality of the Kingdom of God.

Places dimly remembered from Old Testament readings suddenly become ‘real’: Jericho, with its mighty walls; Samaria, where Ahab and Jezebel ruled; Beth Shan, where Saul and Jonathan’s bodies were hung on the city walls; Dan, where Jeroboam set up the golden calf to stop his people creeping back to Jerusalem.

And we must not forget those places that recur in both Testaments; like Jacob’s Well (in present day Nablus) – where the spirit of martyrdom has survived, following the brutal murder a few years ago of the Orthodox monk who looked after it, killed by an Israeli settler who resented the presence of non-Jew. And we met an actual Samaritan priest, part of a tiny community living on Mt Gerizim, who read only the Torah and offer sacrifice at Passover.

Heaven touches earth in so many places and at all times – but we need the particular and specific places and memories of history, to make that truth alive and challenging.