Walking to the Cross

There is a sweetness to our thoughts of  "the old rugged cross" which stood "on a green hill, far away". But come to Israel and walk the Via Dolorosa, find each of the XIV (fourteen) stations, mourn as the women of Jerusalem did, put your hand where His went as He fell, then go into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and see the white limestone rock where the cross truly stood - Golgotha is there - and your vision is changed. The cross becomes imminent, dangerous, sinister.

Crown of thorns weighs overhead

See the pain, the humiliation and sufferings represented by the massive crown of thorns etched into the ceiling of the Church of the Flagellations - highlighted only by the relief of stained glass flowers glimmering through the thorns, and you have the beginning of a sense of what He endured. No wonder tradition says Veronica wept. We weep too, as we walk the way of the cross.

It's a wondrous sight, watching local teenage boys, 17 years old or so, running along the Via Dolorosa, so familiar with the place that they're not hesitantly looking at maps and street signs, as we tend to be. When they get to the place where He is said to have paused to console the daughters of Jerusalem ("weep not for me ..."), the boys halt in their dash for an iota of a second, kiss their fingers, touch the stone cross in the wall, kiss their fingers again, touch their hearts, and run on. I love it!  The sense that these youth care, remember, and have visible reminders and actions to say "thank You, I love You." The wall is worn away by their touch; a stigmata-shaped hole pierces the stone through their kisses of the ages. It has always been so, kisses and piercing: and love triumphs over loss.

Check the size of the guns!

We nearly got lost along the Via Dolorosa. It's not the open street that perhaps it used to be in Jesus' time. Shops crowd on every side. Soldiers loiter with intent. Passersby jostle without looking. Children run and shriek with laughter, riding toy cars down bumpy stone ramps. Pilate's court now has a school playground on it. Yet maybe it's not that different. Jerusalem was a bustling place in His day too. There were soldiers and moneymakers and children.

Original flagstones - now underground

But as we walk, it's the worn stones underfoot that give a sense of the reality. Even though they couldn't be the original flagstones (at least not until you get to underground caverns, where you can even see markings of a 1st century "crown of thorns game" carved in the stone), yet these rocks and stones under our feet still cry out, calling us to Himself, praising Him, just as He said they would. And so we follow them, down the markers of the Via Dolorosa, to the cross.

Dome of the Church

When we arrive it's to the courtyard of a huge, domed building: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the site of both cross and tomb are located and reverered. It's believed by historians to be the real place of His burial ("sepulchre" means "tomb"). Early Christians worshipped there till AD 66, at His grave's quarry. To eradicate their faith Emperor Hadrian erected a pagan temple to Venus on that spot, in AD 135. Later, having done his research and confirmed that it was really the holy site, Christian Emperor Constantine tore Hadrian's temple down and built an enormous church over it in the 300's. Eusebius, eye-witness historian, tells us so. The Persians burned that church severely in the 600's but it was restored, along with "the true cross," by Greek Emperor Heraclius three decades later. Muslims conquered the land within 8 years, but amazingly, the early Islamic leaders, starting with Omar, protected the church for nearly 400 years until the turn of the century, in 1009, when "mad" caliph Fatim went to work and destroyed half of it. The recent (AD) history of the land is in the story of this church.

Looking up inside the great dome

Soaring architectural style

Forty years into the second millennium another Emperor Constantine partially restored the building, and in 1099 the Crusaders monks sang praise to God here when they captured Jerusalem from the Muslims.Their leader, Godfrey, who became first king of Jerusalem, proclaimed himself "Protector of the Sepulchre". Slow renovations to the church continued, with a big push by the Franciscans in the 1500's. This was offset by a debilitating fire in the 1800's, followed by an earthquake in 1927, and ongoing disagreement by the three major churches: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian, who had been given care of the church by the Crusaders long before. They remain the caretakers to this day. Add in the Syrian, Ethiopian and Coptic churches all laying a claim, and you've now got, in one building, an incredible "board of elders"! Try finding agreement there! (They can't even agree to move a ladder peaceably, so it's stood there, on a balcony, since the 1800's!) The church is an unusual mish-mash of religious styles as a result, and yet ... it stands.  

No conflict so great, no effort so prolonged would have endured the ages had the heart of the church only been a grave.... Some people, instead of calling it "Church of the Holy Sepulchre" call it "Resurrection Church"!  That makes all the difference. That is what C.S. Lewis would call a "deeper magic".

We went inside, and stood in line to get to Golgotha. The boys, who had been great sports on all the sightseeing trips, were getting restless, but we waited, with many others, till at last, there inside the church, below the glass at our feet, was the stone of the hill. Not green and grassy but white, limestone.

Candles light the arches

Kneeling at Golgotha

Above us, candles glowed and brass icons gleamed. Around us, people budged, tour groups talked. But when we got there, it was one by one that we approached the place. Narrow and low, we could only come kneeling. Down below an altar, at the foot of where the cross had stood, we knelt, privately. A brass plate under the altar covered Golgotha. In the middle of the brass was a hole. We reached down through the hole, and touched the rock. I, Protestant from birth, had not expected to feel the grace of submission to a place, but there it was. And as I stepped back and watched my two young men kneel, pressing their faces unasked to the brass and then putting their hands in to touch the rock, followed by their father, it was a unifying experience of faith and trust in the One who once hung, bleeding there for us.

One by one we got up and slowly made our way out, past the young Orthodox priest who sat tending the candles, who unexpectedly smiled up into our faces with great kindness. I walked, as in a dream, down the stairs towards the tomb. I walked too slowly. An old, black-garbed woman poked me in the back and brushed past me in a great hurry. Immediately I felt a stab of irritation, and realized how much in need of salvation I am.

Golgotha below, Altar left, Jesus above