The Sites of Holy Week in Jerusalem

In February GÜNTHER SIMMERMACHER made a private visit to the Holy Land. In the fourth of a series of six articles, he follows the sites of Holy Week in Jerusalem.

What a scene it must have been when Jesus and his entourage of disciples and supporters descended the Mount of Olives to the cheers of his new-found fans. And what a baffling sight it must have been as Jesus made his triumphal entry astride not a thoroughbred stallion but a humble donkey.

The Palm Sunday story begins really on the other side of the Mount of Olives, at Bethany. A few days earlier, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, in front of many witnesses. While Jesus withdrew for a while to the village of Ephraim, word of this incredible event must have spread quickly, and with it great excitement. Raising people from the dead is headline news in any age.

It probably was above all this act of rebellion against the corrupt and exploitative temple authorities that led to his prosecution

Both Ephraim and Bethany still exist. The former is now called Taybeh, and is the region’s last 100% Christian village. Bethany — which like Taybeh is in the occupied West Bank — is now called al-Eizariya, Arabic for “the place of Lazarus”.

Jesus knew the place by its Aramaic name, Beth Anya. Scholars are still arguing over its meaning. But it is from the events there, the hometown of Martha and Mary, that Jesus’ celebrity reached such heights as to attract the cheering crowds as he made his way down the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem.

Jesus knew the Mount of Olives well. Amid its olive groves and graveyards, there were caves where he would shelter with the disciples. In one of them, near the top, he reputedly taught the disciples the Lord’s Prayer. The Paternoster church recalls this by way of featuring the Our Father on ceramic plaques in many different languages and dialects, including six of South Africa’s official languages.

Further down he wept for the future destruction of Jerusalem as he looked across the Kidron Valley on the temple (Mt 23:37-39, Lk 19:41-44). Jerusalem indeed went up in Roman flames four decades later. The tear-shaped church of Dominus Flevit (The Lord Wept) marks the Lord’s distress over the city’s disastrous future.

At the foot of the mount is the Garden of Gethsemane — but let’s return there later, for at present Jesus is still entering Jerusalem to great cheers.

Tradition says that he entered the Holy City from the east through what we now call the Golden Gate, which has been walled up since medieval times. Jews believe that the Messiah will emerge from there to raise the dead buried in the vast graveyards on the Mount of Olives. Like the sun rises in the East, so will the Messiah.

According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple after his entry into Jerusalem (John places the incident earlier in his ministry). It probably was above all this act of rebellion against the corrupt and exploitative temple authorities that led to his prosecution, more so than his challenge to Jewish doctrines—such as healing people on the Sabbath — or even his claim to be the Son of God or a king.

The way to Gethsemane

The timeline of Jesus’ arrest, trial and execution always strikes me as very tight. The late Holy Land scholar Fr Bargil Pixner OSB suggested that Jesus’ family had background in the Essene community  — whom we know from their Dead Sea Scrolls — who had their Passover seder starting on Tuesday nights. This explanation would give us some time to accommodate the events leading up to Jesus’ death.

The Last Supper was held on Mount Zion. Tradition places it at the Cenacle (or Upper Room), now a Crusader structure that later was turned into a mosque. Some archaeological finds suggest that this might indeed be the place where Jesus instituted the Eucharist and from where Judas slunk off to meet up with Caiaphas and pals.

On their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus and his disciples would have walked on a flight of steps which still exists today, next to the church of St Peter in Gallicantu. These steps date to the first century BC, and they were the only way one would have taken from Mount Zion to Gethsemane. These indisputably are steps on which Jesus, Peter, John and the rest walked.

The scenes in the Garden of Gethsemane are thick with anticipation of the worst. In the company of eleven tired disciples, Jesus is alone. Amid the olive trees, he sits on a rock as in prayer he begs to be spared his suffering, weeping and sweating blood (a real medical condition called hematidrosis).

That rock, or the one reputed to be, is the centrepiece in the striking church of All Nations, designed by the peerless Antonio Barluzzi. The church is kept deliberately dark, to recall the night. The Rock of the Agony is at the altar, around it a low crown of thorns in iron.

While Jesus was praying, the disciples were sleeping, probably in a grotto about a hundred metres away. It is likely that Jesus himself used that cave as shelter. Now it is a chapel, with the cave’s ceiling preserved.

Jesus in the dungeon

Jesus is arrested and led back to what is now called Mount Zion, back up those steps that still exist today, to the high priests’ palace. Standing in the dungeon and imaging Jesus’ torment — the fear and isolation! — is unnerving.

Today the church of St Peter in Gallicantu marks the place. Some scholars argue that it can’t be the right spot, for the high priest would have lived high up on the mount. And Caiaphas probably did. But archaeologists have found items and tools that suggest that this was the administrative headquarters of the high priest and Sanhedrin.

In the crypt is what is reputed to be the cell in which Jesus was held — likely an unfinished cistern or mikvah (ritual bath), but used as a dungeon.

Standing in the dungeon and imaging Jesus’ torment — the fear and isolation! — is unnerving. More so when one spots, in the right lighting, what appears to be the image of Jesus’ face in a crevice in the cell’s wall.

The way to Golgotha

In the morning Jesus is brought to Pontius Pilate. He is convicted and sentenced, tortured, and then begins his excruciating walk to Golgotha.

Pilgrims recall that journey on the Via Dolorosa, the Stations of the Cross. They begin at the location where the Romans’ Antonia Fortress once stood (first visiting the remains of the Pools of Bethesda and the traditional birthplace of Mary at the 900-year-old Crusader church of St Anne).

Scholars believe that Pilate would have held court not at the fortress, in the city’s east, but at Herod’s Palace at today’s Jaffa Gate in the north-west. But the geography is not important—the destination is.

The church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over Golgotha soon after Christianity was legalised in the early 4th century. Various historical and archaeological insights leave no room for reasonable doubt that this is the place of the crucifixion and resurrection.

Here one touches the rock on which the cross stood — the very spot on which Our Lord let go with the words, “It is accomplished” — and here one may enter the tomb from which he rose again.

This place doesn’t merely symbolise the death and resurrection of Our Lord. This is the place! For Christians, there can be no holier spot on earth.

Where the women stood

Calvary and the tomb from which Christ rose — located in the now beautifully restored edicule — command our attention. As does the Stone of Unction, which marks the place where Jesus’ dead body was prepared for burial (though the stone itself is only two centuries old). It is the chapel of the Three Marys, representing the diverse women standing vigil at Calvary in the hours leading to Jesus’ death

But very few people notice an insignificant-looking canopy in the entrance hall of the church, a few metres from both the Stone of Unction and the tomb. It is not ancient, nor is it a masterpiece of design, and it’s easy to miss as one walks to the anastasis, the part of the church where the tomb is. Nobody really talks about it at all.

It is the chapel of the Three Marys, representing the diverse women standing vigil at Calvary in the hours leading to Jesus’ death, who then took him from the cross and prepared him for the rushed internment in the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea.

The gospels can’t decide on the identity of the women in that small group. The chapel’s eponymous trio of Marys is based on John’s account: Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene (only the latter is also named by Matthew and Mark, both of whom cite only two Marys; Luke doesn’t even bother with names).

The location of the chapel suggests that the women stood at a distance at the foot of the hill of Golgotha (or Calvary), looking up, as we do now in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In a church where the focus is, obviously, on the crucified and risen Lord, the chapel of the Three Marys is a salutary reminder that Jesus was not alone when he died.

And it pays tribute to the courage of women when Jesus’ male friends had run off (only John places himself at the cross). The Church has a way of diminishing the heroism of women, and the important role they played in the ministry of Christ and in his movement. The chapel of the Three Marys helps tell the Good Friday story — but, intended or not, it also pays due tribute to the central place of women in the Nazarene’s movement.

And at dawn after the Sabbath, Mary of Magdala returned to that place. Approaching the rock-cut tomb she found that the stone had been rolled away…

Next week: The Crusades

Previous articles in the series:

The Faith of Palestine’s Christians

To Stand Where Jesus Once Stood

Fixing up our Holiest Churches