Reflections from my trip to Jerusalem in May 2008 with Gardner-Webb Divinity School. Original published May 21, 2008
Did you know that during Jesus’ time the entire Mount of Olives was covered with olive groves? Further, it’s a range of mountains not a single mount. Who knew? Not me.
Today the Mount of Olives includes (at least) Hebrew University, a convent, Augusta Victoria Hospital (started by the UN Relief Organization in 1949), a Crippled Children’s Hospital, a Nurses School and a girl’s school. When we passed the girls’ scho0l, we saw some girls about 13-15 years old dancing in the school yard. How lovely to see so much delight in the midst of such an anxiety-ridden region.
At the crest of the Mount, we visited Dominus Flavis, the Chapel of Tears. Tradition reports that it was from this site that Jesus looked down on Jerusalem and, thinking on the sin in the city and the pain he had experienced there, Jesus wept. The small chapel is shaped like a tear drop with small vase-shaped forms at each corner where the roof meets the outer walls. These vases symbolize vases that were used to catch the tears of mourners. The altar in the chapel overlooks Jerusalem; a glass window looks out on the city. From the pews in the chapel, you can see Jerusalem. Beautiful.
Next we visited the Garden of Gethsemene where olive trees grow that would have been there in Jesus’ time. They still bear fruit. “The olive tree never dies,” our guide says.
Later in the day, we visited the site of Caiphas’ house. We went below it to where Jesus would have been lowered to the dungeon. Striking is that his cell was the lowest cell. There were cells above it. His was the lowest.
I was walking at this point with Dr. Anthony Negbenebor, the dean of GWU’s Business school who has visited Jerusalem 17 times. He narrated for me. He said as we exited the dungeon area, “There would have been lots of people out here. They would have been making a lot of noise. And somewhere here, Peter would have been hiding. Until someone said to him, ‘Hey, you were with him weren’t you?’ And then Peter said, ‘No I do not know him.”
Then Anthony and I turned and walked up the sacred stairway.
These stairs, discovered several decades ago, would have been here 100 years before Christ. Scholars believe Christ would have walked on these steps at least five times. The walk is amazingly difficult, the steps uneven, rugged, and very steep. So Anthony and I walked them, slow and carefully, huffing and puffing, grateful to be following the footsteps of Christ–if only literally.
You see, as I walk these sacred pathways, I’m reminded that it is not walking where Jesus walked but living as Jesus lived that is the real challenge, the real blessing.