Eating Like the Romans did

So, sorry this is a little late. I know I said I'd get this out like a week or a week and a half ago or something. I'm sure you all know how school can get as finals week approaches. I'm having to find time to go to Bethlehem, write papers, study for finals, and get packed to go home. It's crazy, but I'm really enjoying it and these last few weeks have been good ones.

So! After much anticipation, the Triclinium Meal.

The Triclinium Meal is a Roman style meal in which the tables are arranged in a “U” shape so that entertainment can be done in the middle, while people eat, and the servers can easily bring food via the center. The tables are low to the ground and, instead of chairs, everyone reclines on pillows. So, everyone lays down, leaning on their left elbow, leaving your right hand free to eat. Also, fun fact, if you were really Roman, then you ate till you were full, forced yourself to throw up under the table, and continued eating. That's what I call feasting like a boss. So, during the time of Jesus, this is how people had feasts. Someone would rent out a building for, say, passover, and eat this way. The host would sit in the second chair on the right side of the “U”, with his most beloved guest in front of him, and the host in the third seat.

This is exactly what we see in the Bible for the last supper. Jesus “reclined at table, and the apostles with Him” (Luke 22:14). He was the host. His most beloved disciple, John, reclined with his head on the chest of Jesus, and Jesus reclined with His head on the chest of Judas, the guest. Across the table from them, was Peter, in the last seat, who had remembered that those who place themselves last are first. He would have been right in view of Jesus, across the way. Think about the setting of this here. Just previously to this, while the upper room was being prepared, Judas agreed to betray Jesus. And here he is, at dinner, with Jesus' head resting on his chest. He's laying on his chest as He announces to His disciples that one of them will betray Him. John, on his chest, leans back and asks who it is (John 13:25). He tells them that whomever he dips bread with, will be the betrayer. Then he dips a piece of bread, and gives it to Judas. Jesus turns to Him and says, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:28). I can only imagine what Judas is thinking at this point and how fast his heart is beating, which Jesus can quite obviously hear. Judas gets up to leave, which would almost be seen as rude, and Jesus assures the disciples that it was alright. Shortly after, Jesus looks across the way to Peter and predicts his denial. That night, they leave to go back to Bethany, over the Mount of Olives, it's late at night and on the way he asks them if they can stop by the garden to pray. This wouldn't have been unusual. It's something Jesus did with them countless times. And while He's praying and exhorting the disciples to pray with Him, Judas appears with the people to arrest Him and Judas kisses Him. Peter then strikes the servant of the high priest with his sword, and cuts off his ear. What's interesting about this part, is that, with John being in the first seat at the dinner, it was his job to protect Jesus. That first seat is reserved for the favored guest and the person who is also supposed to protect the host. But John doesn't strike the man. Peter, so earnest to be favored by Jesus strikes the man. Also, in Jewish thought, the Messiah was supposed to physically fight the Romans and restore Israel to its people. I'm sure that Peter saw the guards coming to take Jesus, and thought that this was their time to begin the rebellion. Jesus, however, corrects Him, says His peace, and goes with them. From here on out, one by one, all the disciples leave Jesus except for John. All the men who said they would never leave Him, all of His friends, do leave Him. Judas is then paid his 30 pieces of silver, which you would hope is a lot of money, but it is the same amount of money to be paid to someone when one person's ox accidentally gores another person's servant. It was a small wage to be paid for the death of our Savior. So the guards first brought him to Caiaphas, the high priest. The trouble about being the high priest, or any person of position in Jerusalem, during this time is that you had to appease the Jewish people and Rome. And Rome's policy, was to keep the people happy. Caiaphas couldn't condemn Him by law, without the Sanhedrin. But everyone was gone for passover. So he sent Him to Pilot, when the morning came. Standing before Pilot, Jesus is almost quiet about His accusations and does not try to defend Himself. He lets the people do what they're going to do. Pilot, who was not very loved by his people, needed to appease them in this crucial moment. If they were going to crucify Him, they had to do it before sunrise, before shabbat began. It would have been strange to convict and punish a man within 24 hours, so Pilot asked the people what they wanted. And they wanted Him dead. So Jesus was beaten within an inch of His life, and, with open gashes on His back, is forced to carry His cross to His death. He is nailed on the cross, eye level with His condemners, so that they may look in His eyes while mocking Him, and His only family around is His mother and John. He looks at John and says, “This is your mother”, and looks at His mother and says, “This is your son”. Replacing to her the son which she is now losing. And as the passover lamb is being sacrificed in the temple, so our Savior Jesus is being sacrificed for us. So He died for us, with few friends around to love Him, all of them having scattered. Some of His disciples, such as Nicodemus, were probably powerful enough to have delayed or stopped His death but didn't. I can only imagine what the disciples felt later on as they recorded the events of His death, finally having understood why He had to die.

This is the story that the president of our school told us, while we were laying down and eating, at our own Triclinium meal. The whole room was dead silent. I've never heard the story told in such a way. In such a calm and chilling way and I'll certainly never think of Good Friday the same way again.

Here are a few pictures to give you a general idea of a Triclinium meal.  Of course, we have a lot of people, so people were sitting on the inside of the "U", when that isn't technically right.

Holiday Spirit

So, I have a confession to make. I'm a Christian, but Easter is not a spiritual experience for me; I prefer the Old Testament over the New; to be honest, I hardly differentiate between Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. I understand Jesus and His sacrifice, but Jesus and I aren't “buddies”, if you know what I mean. It's been really hard to feel that way and be in Jerusalem for Holy Week where thousands of people are flocking just to glimpse his tomb and pour themselves over the stone where he was wrapped in shrouds. I don't think I've ever felt so spiritually inadequate in my life. Well... except for that one time I went to a charismatic church, but I don't think that counts.

Palm Sunday was eye opening for me. I felt as if it finally made sense to me and came together for me. That being said, Good Friday and Easter were quite a flop for me. It has not come together and produced this amazingly joyous sensation in my soul. Maybe I'm a cold person; maybe I'm too logical; maybe I'm a bad Christian. Here's an outline this weekend for you:

First of all, let me start by saying that I don't necessarily have a large group of friends here at my school. I'm not sure if it's my social anxiety or extreme realism that's pushed people away, but the kiddies aren't exactly lining up at my door to spend time with me. So, Friday night, after our Triclinium meal (which I'll explain later), I guess a majority of the students went out to the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane and then walked through the city following in the steps of Jesus the night before his crucifixion. All while reading the gospel, while they walked. Of course, I had no idea that was going on. I would have liked to have gone. Despite my aversion to the New Testament, I feel a great need to be closer to Jesus and I think that walk would have been good for me. So, fail number one.

The next day I realized I probably hadn't read the gospels since my New Testament Survey class in my first year of Bible college. So, I spent most of the day reading through Mark, since it's the shortest of the gospels. I actually had a really enjoyable day. That night, I went to church with a friend of mine that works at the school I volunteer at (after all, I do have a few friends). It was good, but not what I expected. We sang some very good worship songs that really forced me to focus on Jesus and His death and resurrection. The sermon wasn't really what I expected. Not bad, just... different. It was about Jesus being brought before the High Priest and Pilot and how he never tried to justify Himself or defend Himself. Instead, He was quiet and let God work. Not really a direction I would have thought of those verses in during Easter. Nonetheless, a good sermon. I'm really bad at keeping my mouth shut and letting God work. I always want to defend myself and prove myself right.

Anyways, Easter Sunday morning several groups of people were waking up to go to a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is quite far away, not outside of walking distance but still a long walk, and isn't necessarily where Jesus was really buried. Basically, the Protestants saw the Holy Sepulcher and it wasn't what they pictured as the grave site and it was under the Orthodox church. So they decided that they wanted their own site in the Holy Land and the Garden Tomb is where they claim He was buried. Once again, I wasn't invited to this event until I made a big mess about wanting to go the Holy Sepulcher for a sunrise service since it is closer and where He was mostly likely really buried. Instead, I decided to go to the Holy Sepulcher around 10. I heard there was going to be a service there at that time, it was closer, and I would get to sleep in. All around, seemed like a great choice. I even invited people to go with me! Went to leave at 9:30 the next morning, and no one was there. Forever alone, so it seems. So, I had nice peaceful walk by myself to the church, only to come upon thousands of people there. I mean, the Holy Sepulcher is usually pretty packed, but this was worse than usual. They had the courtyard barricaded and divided in half so that the people on the right side of the door could be safely filed in and people would exit the church on the left side of the barricade. I walked in, walked around inside, saw the crowds, decided I would not wait 4 or 5 hours to see Jesus' tomb, and turned around to leave. However, they had decided to stick another barricade across in front of the door and connecting to the other one. This meant that anyone attempting to leave the church was pushed into a tiny box. Their plan was to open up the barricade splitting the courtyard into that little box so that there was an L shaped path leading into the church. Of course, they were going to make everyone exit the church on the same path. Which made no sense. They should have opened the box, let us leave that way and then filed in people there other way so that there wasn't mass chaos. Which they eventually did. Way to be problem solvers, Israeli tourist police. On my way out, I saw another JUC student standing behind the barricade. I guess they were waiting for a parade to go by. I was thinking that if I stayed with them and saw the parade, then maybe I would have at least done something festively Easter. Well, 30 minutes later of standing in the hot sun and being pushed by the crowds in the barricaded block, I was getting tired. The parade was late, I was hungry, and had little patience left. Right as the tour groups' mob mentality set in and they started to break apart the barricade to get in, I got the heck out of there. The best part was the group of Asian ladies singing “Hosanna in the Highest” while elbowing people out of the way. That's the Easter spirit ladies! On the way out, several Israeli Tourist policemen passed me with machine guns. Gotta bring in the back-up reinforcements when the Hosanna hitting starts up.

That basically sums up my Easter weekend. I don't know if it's the best Easter I've ever had, but certainly the most eventful. I'll try to do another update this week talking about the Triclinium meal. That was the best and most meaningful part of Holy Week for me.

Weekend Update: Palestine, Palm Sunday, and other things.

The longer I'm here, the shorter my weekends seem to feel. I find myself rushing to do everything I haven't done in the last seven months. You know, all those things that you tell yourself, “I have plenty of time to do that. I'll do it later.” Next thing you know, it's the end of your second semester and you haven't left your room in a month for fear of failing Hebrew.

My Friday was your very typical wake up, work on Hebrew, skype with some people, have shabbat dinner, and do more work. Or, it should have been. However, this Friday was daylight savings and all four of us in my dorm room slept in till 11. It was the first time I had slept-in in months. Of course, I then proceeded to do nothing productive for the rest of the day. It was nice to just relax for a day. I think there are two kinds of college students: those that work so much they have little time for much else and those that have mastered relaxing and socializing while still managing to pass classes. What's sad is that I'm in the first category, and my grades have little to show for it. I blame multiple choice tests. If everything were essays, my scholastic life would be a lot easier.

Moving on, I usually go to Beit Jala on Saturdays to work with the school still. Like I said in my last post, I've been staying all day to help grade papers and then go to church at night. Oddly enough, after all that sleep I had the day before, I was still exhausted. So were all the other teachers. We blamed daylight savings, though an hour change shouldn't have thrown us off that much. Some of the teachers were talking about taking the 9^th graders into Jerusalem to see Hunger Games. I already saw it opening weekend, but if I saw the movie then I could just go back to school after instead of hitching a ride back after church and getting to bed around 2 am. Perfect. Except that the boarders between Palestine and Jerusalem were closed for Palestinians. I guess, on Friday, there was some protest in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, so the Israeli government decided to close the boarders. Perhaps as some sort of punishment, or that's what I assume. The whole thing absolutely baffles me. First of all, Palestinians aren't even allowed into Jerusalem unless the have a special passport or are given “permission”. Most people don't get permission unless it's a holiday and the government grants them access, almost like a present. It seems very condescending to me. “Oh, you've been good recently, here, let me allow you the privilege of visiting our country.” I mean, why does Israel get to be so high and mighty? I understand that years ago, Palestinians suicide bombed parts of Israel. But does that give Israel the right to annex a part of their land to build a wall and control everything? Seems a little overkill to me. Anyways, point being, the 9^th graders got turned around at the border. All they wanted to do was see a movie. So, we ended up not seeing Hunger Games and I treated myself to buying stuff I've been wanting from the Old City.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. I always seem to forget about Palm Sunday. Easter is pretty difficult to remember too, because it always falls on a different day. But Palm Sunday always alludes me until I go to church and am handed a palm. I don't know that I ever understood why we celebrate Palm Sunday. I usually spend that church service attacking my parents with the palm branch. Here in Jerusalem, however, Palm Sunday consists of thousands of people gathering on the top of the Mount of Olives and walking down into Jerusalem and walking through it's gates while waving palm branches and singing. I'm not one to be a part of a crowd, though. I have an aversion to people and loud noises. So I gathered with a group that did the ramparts walk down to the gate, and that sat above the streets, on a wall, to watch the parade go by. I've been meaning to do the ramparts walk, anyways. It's a walk around the old city wall. It's a pretty popular thing to do and I felt like it was one of those things that I should try and experience while here. So, we grabbed some coffee and moseyed our way along the wall until we reached a suitable spot to sit down and watch the Triumphal march. A good hour or two later, bands started walking by and playing music. Behind them, wall to wall thousands of people walking down the street and singing “Hosanna” in all different languages. It was beautiful and joyous and unlike anything else I had ever experienced. This is what Palm Sunday is about. Christ walking into Jerusalem and people celebrating this occasion by worshiping Him. I'll surely never experience anything else like it.