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.