The Rhythm of My Story: Jerusalem, Jerusalem -- The City of Stairs

The nice thing about traveling with a small group is that you can be flexible and your needs are accommodated. We decided not to head out too early this morning. This is our first full day in Jerusalem. We walked south and passed outside the Old City walls at the Zion Gate to enter the Abbey of Hagia Maria Sion. They believe this is the site where Mary, the mother of Jesus, died and where she went into heaven -- her assumption. (I finally understand that word.) The modem church on the site is a circular building. A staircase leads down to the crypt in honor of Mary. The place was beautiful and peaceful. There was a bronze artichoke outside the sanctuary. I looked up the meaning later. It is a symbol of tender-heartedness.

The Upper Room is only a few short steps from the church. The only thing that felt authenticate about the place was the fact that you had to climb stairs to get there. Of course it isn't the Upper Room. I knew that intellectually going in but it was just a big large room from the 12th century.

It helped that I knew that they have found evidence of James, the brother of Jesus, and an early Christan community under this spot...but the room held no sacredness for me. We left the room and climbed some stairs to a rooftop to get a view of the city and the Mount of Olives.

Across the street from the Upper Room is the Tomb of David. Men enter on one side and women on the other. Each side sees half the tomb. David must have been a giant.

From there we went down some steps to the remains of the Cardo, the main Street in ancient Jerusalem. We saw it in the mosaic in Madaba, Jordan. Israeli school children were on a field trip. I enjoyed the mural with the addition of a modern day child in the bottom right corner. We could also see part of Hezekiah's wall in the Cardo.

From there we entered an indoor museum, the Herodian Quarter. The remains of a wealthy home from the first century near the temple site are housed there. It is most likely the home of a priest because of the number of mikvehs. The conjecture is that it is the home of Caiaphas. Compared to other homes we have seen this place is opulent. It gave me a sense of how upper class the priests were in their context.

We saw a footwashing basin.

Outside we descended a long staircase near the Western Wall. As we were coming down I became aware that I needed to find a place to sit down and drink something cold. We found a little juice place that had enough seats for everyone. While I drank a slushy we watched two young Israeli men use claw-crane arcade games. One was trying to win cigarettes. I had never seen that before!

Once I was restored we walked back past the Western Wall so that we could go into the Jerusalem Archeological Park. As we walked south towards the Dung Gate we ran into three different Bat Mitzvah or Bar Mitzvah parades. It looked like you could hire a group to carry a canopy over your child's head while a band, consisting of a djembe and a saxophone, walked alongside playing music. A person with a huge bunch of balloons walked alongside ready to release them. It made me wish we had a way to celebrate our children coming of age.

Once inside the archeological park we entered the Davidson Center, which explained the excavation of the areas west and south of the temple mound. All around the south of the temple wall are mikvehs so that pilgrims coming to the temple could have become ritually clean before entering the temple.

We climbed the steps to Huldah's Gates. She was a prophet and the first person to interpret scripture. Bob said that the threshold rock would be from the first century and somewhere Jesus walked. I had to go stand on it.

We left the archeological park and back past the Western Wall in search of food. I had a shawarma with chicken. It was delicious. Then we headed north through the Damascus Gate to the Garden Tomb. Someone thought Jesus was buried here because the limestone cliff face looked like a skull. Bob pointed out that limestone wears away so it wouldn't have looked like a skull 2,000 years ago.

There is a tomb there but it doesn't have a rolling stone like Jesus' tomb had. The tomb they claim is Jesus' dates to the time of Isaiah, which is cool anyway.

From there we entered back into the city by way of Herod's Gate. We want to walk the Via Dolorosa. Stations 1 and 2 are on a Franciscan campus that houses two churches -- the Church of Condemnation and the Church of Flagellation. The Church of Condemnation memorializes Pilate sentencing Jesus to die and then washing his hands of his decision.