Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the most hotly contested pieces of real estate in the world.  This is the site of the Second Temple of Israel, which was demolished by the Romans in 70ad, and later it became the third holiest site of Islam.  This geological table-top comprises thirty-seven acres in the center of Jerusalem.  The Mount became occupied by Islam in 638 and the Dome of the Rock was completed in 691 by Abd el-Malik, ruler of Damascus (who was himself a Jew), for Jews as their “last house of prayer.”

The “Dome” was not initially built as a mosque and has never served that purpose.  Rather, it is a Muslim shrine for pilgrims to Jerusalem.  It was built over a sacred stone – for Muslims, it is the site of Mohammed’s ascension on his “Night Journey” to heaven; for Jews, the rock is where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac.

Part of the timeless pedigree of the dome is that it was built with impeccable mathematical precision and proportion; each outer wall of the octagon building is 67 feet long. The dome’s diameter is exactly 67 feet.  The dome’s height is exactly 67 feet.  In fact, the dome was built in a style like other Christian Byzantine churches throughout the Mediterranean world of the first millennium.

While the glistening dome is the most dominant feature from a distance – it was initially comprised of gold, then later copper, and later still aluminum covered with gold leaf – drawing closer one becomes preoccupied with the incredible artistry of mosaics covering much of the exterior and interior.  And, finally, the archetypal pillars that support the dome are of classic Islamic antiquity.  The Dome of the Rock is stunning in its grandeur and arresting in its exquisite details.

Getting to it is not always easy, however.  Due to security angst, the Israeli government has winnowed access to the Temple Mount to just a few heavily guarded points of entry.  I had to stand in a long line under a snaking cyclone fence-lined asphalt pathway topped with a corrugated steel roof.  The security check point was thorough; I had to show my passport, answer some routine questions, and open my camera bag for examination.  Finally, I was permitted to proceed and climb the stone staircase up to the Temple Mount.  Even then it was a gingerly walk to the Dome of the Rock.

As it is a shrine of Islam, one must remove shoes upon entering, which is somehow, even for Westerners, a natural gesture not just of respect for the host religion, but out of sheer humility under the aesthetic weight of such beauty and artistry.

 

 

After several days in Jerusalem, where the appearance of automatic rifles slung over the shoulders of soldiers was common place – in a grocery store I turned at the end of an aisle to be suddenly face to face with an Uzi held upright in the arms of a drab-faced uniform – I visited a remote little village nestled on the “green line” between Israel and the West Bank. Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam (Hebrew and Arabic, respectively, for “Oasis of Peace”, from Isaiah 32:18) is an olive branch holding forth in the eye of the storm of competing visions of nationhood and religious a-prioris.  It is a village founded in 1970 jointly by Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel who choose to live together in peace.  In 1979 the village started the School for Peace to educate their young and to offer on-going workshops and training programs for youth and adults from not only Israel, but from all over the world, who desire to work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples.

 

Situated near Latrun on the road from the coast up to Jerusalem, the area was a site of some of the most ferocious fighting in the 1947 war.  The area is still littered with the corpses of various tanks and personnel carriers, corroding in place for over six decades. Now in the virtual shadow of these relics of carnage, men and women, boys and girls, who are Arab and Jewish by birth, have decided to live in a community created to challenge the vicious cycle of perpetuating mistrust, inequality and hate.  The population of the village itself has never been very large, usually under 200 residents.  But, the trail that has led thousands there as pilgrims and peace-seekers is now indelibly intertwined in their souls.  In the darkness there is a small light; in the great loaf there is a measure of leaven; in the harmonic voices of children there is the seed of hope.

 

 

 

For all its vaunted metaphoric majesty, the actual Jordan River of geography is neither wide nor deep, nor is it particularly powerful (except during spring run-off) due to human siphoning of the river’s volume for domestic and agricultural use. The name, Jordan, means “flowing downward” or “the descender.”  The Arabic name, esh-Sheri’a, means the “watering place.”

The Jordan River is Israel’s only large flowing body of water. It begins in the north at Banias in the foothills of Mount Hermon and flows south through Lake Huleh (now drained), the Sea of Galilee, and the tropical Jordan valley, terminating at the Dead Sea.  It flows along a great crack in the earth’s surface where two tectonic plates meet.  Jordan descends 689 feet from Lake Huleh to the Sea of Galilee, which is 700 feet below sea level, and then drops another 610 feet from Galilee to the Dead Sea.

The straight-line length of the river measures just over seventy miles. When all the serpentine curves are taken into account, however, its overall actual length measures about two hundred miles. The width of the Jordan varies, nowhere wider than one hundred feet, while its depth measures from just three to ten feet. The volume of water brought to the Dead Sea by the Jordan is calculated to be, on average, 883 cubic feet per second.  And then what happens to all of that water?  It largely evaporates, dissipating into the arid atmosphere of the Dead Sea trench.

Uncomfortably for literalists, the most compelling notions of scripture are metaphoric, and the Jordan River is foremost among these literary symbols.  When you see the actual river, the significance of the story about Joshua and the Israelites crossing through it loses some of its glitter. Given other awesome geological features of Israel/Palestine that are dauntingly impressive (like the Golan heights across the Sea of Galillee, Mt. Herman, the Mediterranean coast and the barren Judean wilderness) the actual Jordan River is puny in comparison.  But its physical features are not why it is important.  It is significant because of what it represents: a crossing from one phase to another.

We all have Jordans in our lives, and most of them are, like the river, inconsequential barriers in the broad sweep of things.  The world will keep muddling along whether we cross them or not.  But these intersections of destiny are powerful reminders because they represent profound changes in our lives.  Our Jordan may be moving beyond a tragedy, or moving toward a dream.  It may be seizing an opportunity and pouring everything we have into it.  Whatever the worldly threshold may be, our next Jordan will require of us the same virtues required of Joshua and the ancient Israelites: courage, conviction, and that essential, often elusive, quality – hope.

This holy ground is populated by olive trees that were already here when Jesus walked among them pondering his final hours.  Perhaps it was under some of these that the disciples lolled while their master labored in prayer.   Today these ancient sentinels stand, now squat and decrepit, over two thousand years old and still shooting forth branches with living leaves reaching for the sun.  Imagine the lifetimes that have passed beneath these boughs.

The Garden of Gethsemane has hosted legions of Jewish peasants, Roman Centurions, endless generations of Palestinian shepherds, Ottoman Princes, European Crusaders, the arrival of avid Zionists, and the influx of ubiquitous tourists.

For vast centuries the garden was overgrown in a silent agrarian hibernation only to be interrupted from time to time by rotating eras of careful cultivation, further neglect, and episodic violent intrusion.  For all that has occurred on this hillside, called the Mount of Olives, from divine revelation to disgusting rape and torture, the ancient olive trees stand mute and unyielding of the triumphs and tragedies they have witnessed.

Some visitors come to this place for a once-in-a-lifetime experience to “walk where Jesus walked.”  But a Palestinian Christian I met encourages visitors to also walk with those who actually walk every day where Jesus walked.  His rejoinder reminds us that the so-called “holy” places are not special in and of themselves.  Whatever of note that took place there is over, and, while rightfully remembered, it is the past.  We do not live there anymore. Sentimentality does not serve the ends of justice, peace, mercy, and grace that Jesus represented when he prayed here two millennia ago.

Whatever value there is in being “moved” while standing in a “holy” spot is confirmed only in the intent of what we do next.  The ancient olive trees will be our witnesses.

Abraham risked all for a promise absurd

In Jesus, the Lamb, we see God face to face

Muhammad, the slave, for justice thirsted

Buddha sees deity as the Way within us.

 

Taoists and Buddists suffer to save face;

Jews of Europe in ovens have smoldered;

Mystics and Sufis have died for their faith;

Crusaders, Jihadists for theirs have murdered.

 

Is it not strange, in the name of God’s love

We so quickly forget God’s vast power?

We call down with ease God’s wrath from above

Without thought that this is God’s hour.

God of Peace and Blessing, the kind As-Salaam;

Elohim, God above gods, in refuge we find;

Lord, supreme being, august Bhagavan.

 

Al-Malik, Sovereign and King, all benign;

Adonai, master’s name we dare not to speak;

Hari, glowing, Absolute name that doth shine.

 

Shekhina, whose presence among us we seek;

Tremendous, Irresistible, strong Al-Jabbar;

Shiva, Creator/Destroyer, divine havoc wreaks.

 

El Shaddai, Almighty God of the mountains afar;

Preserver of the world, Govinda, doth keep well;

Al-Hakam, The Judge, great Arbitrator.

 

God come to earth, with us, Emmanuel;

High God of mystery, distant Vishnu;

Al-Lah, all Gracious and Most Merciful.

 

Religions of themselves proudly sing,

But truth belongs to every faith, and to none.

God is many things, and always no-thing;

Whatever God is, truth is; God is one.

Various times in scripture the phrase “up to Jerusalem” is employed to describe a journey or preparation for one.  The phrase has both a figurative and a literal meaning.

Jerusalem, being the holiest of sites in scripture, is always a place one goes “up” to.  In this metaphorical sense it is an honorific phrase meant to confer deference and respect for the seat of Israel’s most consecrated site, the temple.  Wherever one may be geographically, to approach the holy city is to go “up” into the presence of the holy.

Important as the honorific reference may be, however, the actual literal meaning of going “up to Jerusalem” has a significance as well.  There is a dramatic gradient change when travelling from almost anywhere in Israel to Jerusalem.  From Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast it is a long, gradual uphill eastward trek to Jerusalem. Perhaps the most spectacular approach to the ancient city is from the northeast on the road from Jericho.

Jerusalem is approximately twenty-five hundred feet above sea level; Jericho is about eight hundred twenty-five feet below sea level.  That is an elevation change of nearly 3400 feet in only 18 miles!  It is a rocky, winding, treacherous stretch of road that has changed little since the First Century. In fact, some of the ancient Roman road is still visible in places adjacent to the now paved highway that snakes its way “upward”.  Sometimes the serpentine way is banked by limestone cliffs and gigantic boulders made famous as the hiding place of robbers in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  While the story has its own eternal verity, the literal conditions on that particular road are unchanged twenty centuries later.  It is still a dangerous place to be.

The road winds upward along the rim of Wadi Qelt, site of the Monastery of St. George built in the Sixth Century.  Long segments of the road are precipitously perched along the edge of a canyon, with cliffs rising forebodingly above one side and a deep, sharp ravine below on the other.

To travel on this road in one’s journey on foot up to Jerusalem is an exhausting physical labor.  In olden times (that is, anytime prior to the automobile, which has been around for only about one century) going up to Jerusalem was a demanding, adrenaline pumping, lactic acid inciting, burning lung producing, aching muscle generating, spiritually emptying experience.  So, in this case, the merit of the metaphor, “going UP to Jerusalem,” is earned not only by the spiritual discipline of the ascent, but also by the physical sweat of the climb.

 

 

 

• None of us asked to be born.
• None of us was asked if we wanted to be born.
• None of us chose to be born.
• We have been given life without our consent, without desiring it, without deserving it.
• However, in this life we make our choices and take the consequences.
• Christ came that all might be “saved,” that we might be “in Christ.”
• So, like Christ, we come from God and are going to God.
• If God is a God of grace, then life is a gift.  God will receive us. Nothing we can do will change that. [In conventional either/or categories, If God is a God of judgment, then life is a curse.  God will condemn us. Nothing we can do will change that.  However, God IS a God of judgment, and the judgment IS grace.]
• Christ came into the world, not for condemnation, but for redemption.
• We did not ask for that either; nor do we deserve it; yet, we are given it.
• If God has given redemption in Christ, while we are still undeserving, who is to condemn us?
• If God has “saved” the world through the prevenient grace of Christ – before we knew it, or earned it, or  deserved it  – we are, then, God’s for eternity.
• Shall we then try to achieve salvation by our works, or devotion, or faith?  No, it has already been granted.
• Shall we lose our salvation through our deeds, faithlessness, or sin?  No, it has already been granted.
• If salvation is a given, why not yield to our own will and heap up wealth, hoard happiness, and live selfishly?
• Because our salvation is a gift without condition.  So, we receive it humbly and then live our lives out of that grace gratefully.
• Our faithfulness is predicated not upon fear of condemnation, but upon sheer thankfulness for the unmerited, undeserved, unfathomable love of God.
• In a world of greed, we are driven by gratitude because we are already free and “saved.”
• Finally, it is in this grace of gratitude that we are at last in communion with the God who saved us and gave us life.  Why live thus?  Because living in communion with God and one another is the best life there is.  That’s good enough, and that’s as good as it gets.

I’m not from here, just a pilgrim on tour, or a tourist on pilgrimage.

It’s all new, foreign, no matter how many times I’ve read the names in the canon

and seen the pix.

The dust is ubiquitous, the bougainvillea magnificent;

everything is exactly as it has never been.

I am alien to this land, but not to its stories – they own me.

If this were just another place there is no way I could relate.

But one thing alone seals my kinesthetic identity here:

I feel it on my palms, across my neck and down my back – sweat.

The remorseless sun grinning ceaselessly,

The thick humidity slathered between the folds of my clothing,

The wave of heat rising from between my toes –

This is as it has ever been;

Sweat unites me with Cain cowering in the searing presence of his own culpability.

Sweat unites me with Abraham poised, beneath the gleaming eye of heaven, with knife raised.

Sweat unites me with Jacob dashing cowardly and warily from Esau’s pursuit.

Sweat unites me with bare-chested David glaring lasciviously at his neighbor from a rooftop.

Sweat unites me with Elijah at the very moment in harried flight when he is arrested by conscience.

Sweat unites me with Hosea as everything he cherished collapses before his eyes.

Sweat unites me with Pilate, seeking shade, craving quiet, washing his hands.

Sweat unites me with cross-toting Jesus plodding through oppressively narrow streets

where no breeze of nature nor of Spirit can flourish.

Sweat unites me with John the Revelationer viewing the heat rippled plain of Armageddon,

wondering . . . . . Is this the day? Or, is the sweat in my eyes deceiving me?

My sweat is theirs; theirs mine.  The only difference is time

     One morning while seeking adventure in the ancient walled holy city of Jerusalem, I did what every tourist is warned not to: I struck out on my own.  With my nose half buried in a tour book seeking orientation and my eyes scanning the narrow street looking for points of reference along the Via Dolarosa, I was intercepted by a local street “entrepreneur.”  He was a mousy little man, younger than I, but blessed with far more survival wisdom.  Mirwan was probably not well educated, but he was savvy and street smart.  He apparently made his living by “offering his services,” which meant conducting a tour of the Via Dolarosa, or by conning whomever was available, which meant telling a sob story that would make even  a hardened politician weep.  Unsolicited, he imposed both upon me in sequential order.  “I show you where Jesus walked,” he said, and we were off.

Mirwan was a font of historical information and cultural lore.  His vocal timbre would swell with strained emotion to emphasize the enormity of Christ’s burden as he carried his cross “right here where you stand.”  He intoned reverence as we came to the very spot where Jesus fell the first time, and the second time, and the third time.  Then, with passing impatience, almost irritated to have to mention it, he shifted into a clipped observation, “This where Simon of Cyrene was commanded to carry cross for him.”  Such an inconvenience it was – not for Simon; for Mirwan.  He probably sensed that I knew the story well enough that he dare not leave out this detail, but it was clear that Mirwan tolerated Simon of Cyrene only with a certain disdain.  Even this consummate street guide could not conceal all traces of his specific ethnic identity and conditional world view.

As we approached the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mirwan’s voice became hushed and urgent.  “This the place of your savior’s crucifixion,” he gushed.  I could not help but note the designation of Christ as “your” savior, not “the,” or “our.”  Even so, Mirwan explained with notable detail what I would see when we entered the church.  Then, in discreet fashion, Mirwan guided me through the inner sanctum where Golgotha stood with an opulent church now built over it.  With gestures and nods, declining to intrude on the climax of the experience he had arranged for me, Mirwan masterfully conducted me through the denouement.

When we exited the church and returned to the street Mirwan exclaimed, “I give you good tour, no?  Please pay me twenty NIS.”  NIS is “New Israeli Shekels,” or about ten dollars.  I figured something like this would come up sooner or later, but I thought the price was steep.  I said, “Mirwan, I appreciate the tour, but I never asked you to do it.”  I gave him 10 NIS.  He asked for five more.  I said no.  Then part two of his strategy kicked in.  Mirwan nearly pleaded with me for more money to support his dying mother and to feed his six babies.  “God will bless you if you do,” he said.  No, I said.  Apparently convinced that I could be milked no further, Mirwan concluded, “You send me more Americans for tour, ok?”  I said, maybe.  He led me back to where we had first met, we shook hands, and as I turned back to wave, Mirwan had already disappeared into the crowd.