He Has Risen!

Easter In Jerusalem

Happy Easter! He has risen indeed!

This morning I got up and payed the hostel clerk another 45 sheckels to stay another night, and then I walked outside to see what Easter was like in Jerusalem. It seemed mostly business as usual, in the beginning. People were buying and selling in the markets, tourists were taking pictures of absolutely everything and clogging up the streets, and the sun was hot and bright. But as I found my way further into the city I noticed the children dressed up like it was halloween. One little girl was dressed like a princess and another little boy like spiderman. People began singing and dancing in the streets, singing hyms and worship songs in all languages and all creeds. In the Jewish quarter men carried flags baring the star of David, and drank and sang songs at the top of their voice and paraded through the city. In the Moslem quarter people were gathered near the mosques and on their knees worshiping. Over the loudspeakers rang joyous voices praising Allah. And in the Christian quarter, masses huddled into the churches and The Holy Sepulchre. The whole city was singing.

I walked my way around the city for a bit, and made my way over to Mount Zion. I hiked up to the top of it where I walked in to the Tomb of King David, and the site of the Last Supper. At least they said it was the site of the Last Supper, I kinda had my doubts because Jesus and his deciples were poor and lived like common men, so I would think it strange that the last supper was held in a beautiful church-like banquet hall on the second story of a building over the tomb of King David. But I took it in and treated it like it was the place of the Last Supper. I followed the stairs down to Dormition Abbey, and further down to the crypt below it where a sarcophegus of a woman laid in the center and many people were gathered around it praying. The only inscriptions written on it were in Hebrew so I asked a priest who was down there who that was. I couldn't understand anything he said to me but the name "Mary." Now yesterday I saw the tomb of The Virgin Mary, so I suppose this must have been Mary Magdalene. However, I was under the impression that we still didn't know where Mary Magdalene's body was. Whatever the case, it was a beautiful tomb, and was decorated with a colorful arch with painted tiles above depicting particular women of the bible. The only one I could really recognize though was Eve, and I think one of them was Esther. I walked from there, and took shelter from the heat behind a 2 and a half thousand year old wall in a garden at the top of Mount Zion. I sat there for a while in solitude, just thinking and enjoying the day, and the view over Jerusalem. After some time I began to get hungry to I walked around the old city wall to the Moslem quarter at Damascus Gate and found that Falafel stand I love, bought a falafel, and walked back to the Christian quarter and my hostel at Zappa Gate. I was exhausted from walking and the whole bustle of the city, so I sat in at my hotel and took a nap. Later in the evening I decided to go out to the Holy Sepulchre when were less people there and I walked into Jesus' tomb and was happy to find that he was not there. So inside the tomb I knelt down and prayed for my best friend Jordan, and his fiance Alex, and I prayed for god to bless them and their marraige. Marriages, I assume requre a lot or patience, and wisdom and passion, so I prayed for that as well. Praying in a place like that is a different experience than praying anywhere else. You really feel like God can hear you, and you feel his presence in the history of these objects because you know that he was once there! Jesus's body laid in the tomb I was standing in, and an astownding miracle took place there, in many places in this city, in fact. It's just something I've never felt before until now. To be able to put a face to the stories, and feel the things that Jesus felt, and smell the smells he smelt, it's like nothing I can describe in words.

After that, I walked back to the Moslem quarter and found some dinner. I always go to the Moslem quarter for food, because it's usually cheaper, and better there. It's further away from where all the vacationing tourists hang out. The people who go to the Moslem end of town are usually backpackers like me, pilgrims, and locals. When I got back to my hostel, the first thing I did was take a shower. Another unique atribute of the middle east is that during the day, the dust just finds its way into every crevise and every pore of your body, so by the end of the day you just feel totally saturated. My hostel only gives hot water from 5-10am and 5-10pm and there's only one bathroom between 2 dormrooms of 8 beds each. So showering in the morning is out of the question. I've learned to take my showers at night. So in the day I just accumulate sweat from the pounding heat and dust and dirt from the desert wind. I can see why washing in Biblical times was such a big deal.

Tomorrow I'll go explore some more, things will, no doubt start to get cheaper here at the holiday comes to a close. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to get to the Dome of the Rock, maybe I'll catch a taxi to Bethlehem. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. Mine was great, and certainly memorable. Have a good night, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
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