Holy Days in the Holy Land

It is Easter weekend, a roller coaster of holy days marking Christ's last days in Jerusalem, including his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. These are arguably the most holy days in the life of the church, and they are typically marked and celebrated with a variety of services, gatherings, and rituals.

This year for Easter weekend, I am in Israel. Living in Jerusalem proper. Able to participate in traditions and events with the local Christian population here, including a Palm Sunday walk down from the Mount of Olives, a Maundy Thursday procession up past the Garden of Gethsemane, and a Good Friday pilgrimage along the Via Dolorosa, or Way of the Cross, marking the 14 stations of Christ's journey to his crucifixion.

Many friends and family members from back home have expressed excitement at this opportunity I have to be present in such an important place during such an important holiday season. And, similar to being in Bethlehem at Christmas time, I am both humbled and appreciative of my ability to be here and experience these things that people travel from all over the world to see and do.

But, similar to being in Bethlehem at Christmas time, there's another side to it...

The events of Holy Week in Israel/Palestine are impressive. Thousands of Christians, both local Palestinians and ones from all corners of the world, gather together to sing songs, praise God, and reflect on Christ's suffering, death, and eventual resurrection.

It's big, it's exciting, it's unique - you can feel the wonder of it in the air; people waving palm branches, singing out in different languages as we all walk together along the same path into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives that Jesus traveled down so long ago. With similar shouts and choruses of "Hosannah" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

View of the crowd as we snaked our way down the Mount of Olives

People were here from all different countries and backgrounds

But being here for 10 days, on a Christian pilgrimage, with people from your church who you know, with pastors who you care about, visiting holy sites and reflecting on scripture passages as a community, is a very different experience than being here for 10 months. You see different things, feel different things, return back home with a different perspective.

Ironically enough, this almost-year spent living in the holy land has been the most spiritually-dry year of my entire life. Perhaps now I can better relate to Jesus, wandering in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights before officially starting his ministry on the ground. I feel as if I, too, have been wandering. Unsuccessfully looking for streams of water in the dry beds of religious extremism, Israeli settlement expansion, and violence done by both sides. Faith is hard when you are able to witness, first hand, persecution. Even harder when you don't have a community of believers around you to help you remain strong.

But, even with that being said, it doesn't mean that I do not find God in the events happening all around me. It just means that I have to work a bit harder to...and that, instead of finding God within all of the waving palm branches and strumming guitars and grand processions, I find God in the unholiness. In the brokenness. In the messiness. In the imperfections and just plain reality all around.

Thursday night I attended a Maundy Thursday service, in which 8 languages were used. It was a Lutheran service, with scripture read in English, Arabic, and German. It was impressive. It was an experience. But it wasn't my tradition. It wasn't my church. It wasn't my way of worshiping.

Which is all fine. We can still be a part of and appreciate things that are unfamiliar to us. But I tend to feel more like an observer than a participant at these things - watching as others get spiritually filled while my cup remains empty.

After this service we walked up towards the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene. It is a procession, with a large number of people, and we sing familiar hymns along the way.

But it isn't the number of people that stick out to me. It isn't the route that we take, through the old city of Jerusalem, past holy sites and churches, past areas where it is possible that Jesus, at some point, passed through. These are the reasons that people recite to me, of why I should feel God's presence in this moment. The reason why this night should feel holy and sacred:

Walking past the Garden of Gethsemane...
On the night in which Jesus prayed there with his disciples...
In Jerusalem, the holiest of holies...

Yet these are not the things that stick out to me.
These are not the memories that I hold most dear.

Along the way, a young girl of about 4 or 5 years old is walking a few people ahead of me. The streets and sidewalks of the old city are cobblestone and slippery, with uneven steps. The lighting is dim, since it is now well after sun down.

The little girl is walking quickly. She places her small foot on a step, and it doesn't gain traction. She slips and falls, hard, on her bottom. Her parents are a few feet ahead of her, they don't even see her go down. Immediately she begins to cry, partly in shock and partly in pain. Before her parents have a chance to turn around, a stranger, also in the procession, runs to her aid, and picks her up off the ground. He quiets her sobs, telling her she's ok now, that everything is alright.
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I laugh with a girl walking next to me, as we desperately try to identify which line of "Amazing Grace" the group is singing. The crowd is large, and the streets narrow, so the line of people stretches out quite far. We strain to hear what words the people ahead of us are on. At one point we find ourselves in the middle of two different groups, singing two different songs, and have to make the decision of which to join in on. We giggle. The choruses come in waves, with people holding notes for varying lengths of time. It's cacophonous, but in the best way.
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When we reach the church, the end destination, everyone is handed a long stem candle and bulletin for the worship service that will be conducted. One person begins lighting candles, and then those people light others, and so one and so forth. Mine is one of the first ones lit, and so I move towards the people standing in the back, offering them the light.

I light one man's candle and he thanks me. I turn to walk away, and there is a gust of wind. My candle is blown out. I turn back to the man whose candle I had just lit, and now he is the one offering me the light, which I gratefully accept. This happens several more times, people lighting candles, the wind extinguishing them, people relighting them from flames that they helped create.

These are the memories that I hold on to. The brief moments in which reality slips in - the brief moments in which, I believe, God slips in also. It's hard for me to find God in the pomp and circumstance. In the stones that may or may not be holy, in the sites that may or may not have historical and biblical significance.

But I can find God in the stranger who rushes to pick up a fallen child as if she were his own. I can find God in the hilarious, discordant, messy voices that are made even more beautiful by their dis-unity. I can find God in the sense of calm and peace I feel, even when the wind blows my candle out, because I know there will always be someone close by to light it again.

For me, it isn't so much about this "place" being holy, but about the people and circumstances and just plain life that are inevitably unholy, and about believing in a God who chooses to work through us and them and it, anyway. About believing in a God who took on this brokenness and messiness willingly, in order to show us a better way forward.