Day 3, Jerusalem!

We met with the Patriarch walking distance from the Franciscan “Casa Nova” where we are staying. He was very nice and spoke to us at length about the difficulties for the Christians living in the Holy Land. He then offered his prayers of us and Benediction. Our next stop was the Mount of Olives. Yes, “that,” Mount of Olives. We walked alongside a 1st century Christian cememtery and reflected on the four tears Christ shed for Jerusalem’s ultimate rejection of him as Messiah and Savior. We moved from there to the Garden of Gethsemane. Again, yeah, “that one.” It’s so totally radical to be speaking of these places not in abstract terms from the daily readingsm, but from the horizon of standing amid the olive trees some 2,000 years old. The Mount of Olives was a seminal moment for me as it was the first place we went in which I knew Jesus walked. Yes, “THE,” Jesus.
As powerful and full as my faith is, it may come as a shock to many of you that this has been a shock to me. I got on a plane three days ago with every intention of deepening my faith by putting my own eyes on these holy places and walking the ground itself. But it seems unreal to me even now to have done it. And even though I have now been to the Mount of Olives and to the actual Garden of Gethsemane, I still find it hard to get my mind around how to cope with this information. It’s not so much the historical significance our guide Samil is offering us, but rather what to do with my heart and the way it turns inside me as we discover Christ around every corner.

Inside the Church that is on that site it is very dark, on purpose. Most of the stained glass is violet in color, matching up very nicely with our current Lenten season. In the center of the sanctuary and at the foot of the altar is a huge piece of rock whicvh has been revered for centuries by millions of pilgrims as being from the garden where Christ wept, crippled with fear about hsi own death, all while his disciples slept through the night. Standing up to read the gospel from that votive Mass was difficult for me, reading once again the account of Jesus, abandoned in the garden by his supposed friends.

The image I most remember from today is the huge olive tree trunks in the Garden which is all fenced in now. They are massive and black and have been gnarled through 8,000 seasons and their 5’ round stumps show massive scars and evidence of damage through the centuries. But from some of the holes where great boughs once hung are now new growth branches, sprouting from deep within each stump. We are those new growth branches, seeking the light of Christ and to be fed by our Father in Heaven, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Each of us are part of yet another generation of disciples, trying to learn the Lord, trying to include Him in all we do each day, trying to make something real burn in our hearts from the old trunks of Tradition and the Holy Scriptures. It is good to be here in this place.