Jerusalem Musings
Just in Time for “Thanksgiving,” Black Friday, Christmas, and the Inauguration of our President-Elect
Last Saturday, my husband and I returned home after our first trip to Palestine, AKA the Holy Land, in a trip organized by Sabeel.1 Unless you’re a frequent traveler to Palestine, your first thought is probably, “What?! Haven’t you heard that there’s a war going on?” Or something to that effect.
Although our tour included a stop at Sderot, about five miles from the nearest town in Gaza,2, 3 we spent the vast majority of our time in the West Bank, where we felt perfectly safe as tourists, as long as we refrained from taking photos at the ubiquitous checkpoints, didn’t upset the IDF soldiers in the guard towers, and gave up on helping with the olive harvest when the government reclassified the access roads as “military zones” in real time as we searched for a way to get to the trees.
The people were uniformly grateful that we had made the effort to come, and offered us friendship, lavish meals, and endless streams of coffee and tea. If you have the time, interest, and means to go there, please do! Their economy, largely based on tourism, has really dried up since the war began, and they are begging for visitors.
Besides meeting various people, churches, and organizations struggling against the Occupation, we visited the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was born, and the Church of the Resurrection, where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. But for me, the spiritual highlight was the Palm Sunday road from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. I will try to explain why I think it’s worth talking about the Palm Sunday road, in the waning days of November.
This picture is the view from the top of the Mount of Olives, looking west towards Jerusalem. You can barely see the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock, where the Temple used to be located, in the middle of the picture. The second one was taken partway down the hill. The Dome of the Rock is easier to see.
We continued downhill along the Palm Sunday road towards the valley.
37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ 39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ 40He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’ — Luke 19:37-39.
(Note: This means that all the shouting began while they were still pretty far away from the city, still high up on the Mount of Olives.)
About halfway down the hill, we paused at the Dominus Flevit Church, which means, “The Lord wept.” It marks the place where Jesus looked over the city and wept over it. The building was designed by the architect Antonio Bertoluzzi to look like a teardrop.
This photo shows our group, looking over the city.
41 As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.’ — Luke 19:41-44.
When we got to the bottom of the hill (that’s the Kidron Valley), we were directly across from the Golden Gate (also known as the Mercy Gate), which was built in the 6th Century.4 In Jesus’ day, the gate in that part of the wall was called the Shushan Gate (named for the Persian city, Susa, to the east).5 It’s closed now, but it’s the gate Jesus used to enter the city.
The Dome of the Rock is not visible in the picture of the Golden Gate, above, but you can confirm that it’s still there, poking above the wall to the left of the Golden Gate, in the picture below, taken from the Church of All Nations, where the Garden of Gethsemane is located.
The Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque and grounds, like the Temple before it, are right inside the Golden Gate. But since the Golden Gate has been closed for several centuries, we had to go in through the Dung Gate, to get to the Al Aqsa compound. So we had to walk around for awhile before being able to get to the Dome of the Rock. The Al-Aqsa courtyard, like the Temple before it, occupies a vast area.
Here’s a photo of the Al Aqsa grounds, seen from the south.6 The red arrow shows the Golden Gate, where the Shusan Gate was located.
Because the Palm Sunday readings never include the cleansing of the Temple, our Palm Sunday church services create the impression that after parading around through the city, Jesus just sent the crowd home.
But actually, since the Shushan Gate opened directly into the Temple courtyard, there was never a parade through Jerusalem. The parade was to Jerusalem, not through it. Jesus’ “triumphal entry into Jerusalem” was synonymous with the cleansing the Temple. Far from dismissing his supporters “after” the parade, the whole point of the parade was to mobilize the people to help drive out the sellers from the vast area of the Temple courtyard. The Son of God was smart enough to welcome the help of the crowd.7
45 Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; 46and he said, ‘It is written,“My house shall be a house of prayer”; but you have made it a den of robbers.’
47 Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; 48but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.
After driving them out, he (and his followers) occupied the Temple for several days. (It didn’t last long, but imagine their joy at reclaiming that space for the people, even briefly, from the Empire’s minions.)
Jesus was killed for his non-violent disruption of the Empire’s money machine. “Take up your cross” was not a pious metaphor; it was a practical warning about the fate that also awaited them.
There in the holiest of lands, I saw the places were Jesus was born, died, and rose again; I saw the wall that steals more land from the Palestinians every day, inch by inch8; I saw military checkpoints and guard towers with automatic weapons staffed by teenagers (or AI); I saw roads and tunnels “for Israelis only”; I saw once-thriving markets turned into ghost towns and garbage dumps; I saw the smoke rising up in the distance from Gaza.
I am home now, outraged and discouraged by the mass murder, land theft, occupation, apartheid, and erasure there, even as we head into our national holiday that celebrates a similar history here.
Now Jesus is calling those of us who call him our Savior, to struggle against our Empire, as he struggled against his. May God save us from complicity with its money machine, its war machine, its death machine. The early Christians gave themselves fully to God and one another; they shared their possessions; they gathered in catacombs; they used secret symbols to communicate their faith in their crucified and risen teacher, healer, organizer, disrupter, and Messiah.
As we prepare for the coming of the Prince of Peace, let’s remember his little hometown of Bethlehem, and the other people of Palestine who are crying out for justice, freedom, and a lasting peace.
Stop the genocide, arms embargo now! End the Occupation! Free Palestine!
See https://sabeel.org/
See Lisa Harper’s powerful description of it here:
Also see Matt Hoh’s description of the same place, here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-151843939
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_(Jerusalem).
https://madainproject.com/shushan_gate#google_vignette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jerusalem-2013(2)-Aerial-Temple_Mount-(south_exposure).jpg
The late Prof. Marcus Borg made this point in a lecture at Carleton College in 1977; it has just taken me this long to put this all together.
85% of the wall is built inside the Palestinian Territories, and serves as a tool of annexation.
Thank you, Nozomi. I appreciate your witness and testimony, both as to the impact of a visit Palestine, Jesus’ homeland, and the devastation being wrought there
Nozomi, thanks very much for your witness!