21 MARCH, 2019 

It is very dark in our room in the inn at Bethlehem. Jen is fast asleep and has left me to do some catch-up. We have enjoyed a pleasant evening meal with the folk from our quite small tour party of ten, mainly from Australia, with three Canadians and a Brit. Tonight we discovered that all of the four couples have been married for between 45 and 47 years. Not a bad strike rate of longevity. We had a traditional Palestinian meal which was superb, though I hesitate to describe it. We started with bread and the most outstanding dips. The local wines were excellent as well, so we felt quite convivial for our taxi ride back to our rooms in the inn. Of course, the taxi ride was another matter, as we chased through the most narrow of streets at a ridiculous speed, dodging cars and cats and any pedestrian brave enough to be on the streets. I say “chased” as it had the feeling of being a participant in a James Bond film, and I half-expected gun shots to be zinging around the car, ricocheting off the narrow-walled lanes of our journey. Luckily our vehicle was a slightly underpowered Skoda and it felt the load on some of the uphill sections – but the driver certainly made up for this lack of speed in the downhill sections.

Bethlehem is full of character-laced streets – narrow, winding, steep, with merchants offering their goods as they probably have in similar fashion for a couple of thousand years. I tried to imagine Mary struggling up these narrow and steep streets and lanes, looking for a place to rest and deliver her baby.

Well this is the end of a very powerful day that began in Jerusalem.  We began with a drive up to the Mount of Olives, a steep street filled with hawkers offering everything from a camel ride to postcards. From the vantage point, there are sweeping views over Jerusalem, with the Old City front and centre with the Kedron Valley and countless numbers of graves of the Jewish Cemetery all pointing hopefully towards the where old Temple would have been, expectant of the Day of Judgement.

From there it was a short drive to the Garden of Gesthemane, with its ancient olive grove, dating to well before the time of Jesus. It was an odd feeling being able to touch the limbs of a tree that Jesus could well have lent against to pray. Naturally the tourists are not allowed to get too close to the trees, but one tree is within reach and has been smoothed to a beautiful shine with the hands of millions of pilgrims reaching out to touch the branch.

From the earliest times and throughout history, the churches have felt compelled to construct churches and shrines, and to rebuild them when they have been destroyed by folk of other faiths. I guess it is an understandable thing to construct a shrine, but I do feel that the bells and incense, the marble and stone somehow diminish the simple beauty of these sites. And the churches all compete for their slice of the action: Catholics, Armenians, Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Copts.

We stepped forward a couple of thousand years for a visit to the Holocaust Museum.

I will not attempt to describe the museum, because I think you have a very good idea of what is covered. Needless to say, it was a revelation of so much more than I ever imagined or knew from readings, of looking at history, and even looking at movies of the horrendous events that surrounded the Second World War and of the determined efforts to exterminate a people.

My immediate response on exiting the museum, was of what I can only describe as “breath-less”. Breath here is meant as pneuma (Greek) or ruach (Hebrew) for “spirit.” To say that one is “drained” does not capture the sense of emotional loss from witnessing (through the museum) cold and calculated and efficient inhumanity. The architect of the museum has helpfully provided a space to breathe in fresh air and take in a beautiful vista to recuperate the soul and give one a sense of moving beyond the horrors into a more hope-filled future, and life. Perhaps summed up in another Greek word… Metanoia.

After this very full morning, we headed for Bethlehem, only a short drive from Jerusalem, and back into the complex and confusing Palestinian Territories. Our rooms are pleasant and have the feel of  rooms that might have been available for wealthy travellers, possible companions of Joseph and Mary. The bathroom and electricity might have been later additions. And the wifi.

Here in Bethlehem, we visited the Shepherds’ Fields on the green slopes of a Palestinian hillside. There is a grotto which has been used to illustrate the sort of cave where Mary and Joseph might have found shelter. The pilgrims here act as if it is the actual birth place of Jesus, kissing stones, singing hymns, praying and crossing themselves. Again we found it much more restful and meaningful to sit on an outside bench and survey the green slopes.

Our tour finished with a visit to the Church of the Nativity, which tradition has it, has within its walls the actual birthplace of Jesus.

This is a genuine place of pilgrimage and there was a long queue to enter the building and then to step down the 14 steps to the grotto underneath the altar of the church. The sweaty, pressing crowd, holding cameras aloft, taking selfies, chatting endlessly did not do much for me as preparation for visiting the holy place.

The site has two significant memorials – the first is a silver star on a stone slab where purportedly, Mary delivered the baby Jesus. A metre or so away is a dark corner of the cave, protected by curtains and a “gate”, is the place where the manger was, a bed for the baby. The more earnest of the pilgrims were prone on the cave floor touching and kissing the stone where the baby was born.

This is an immensely important site, but again, for me, the way these things are put together and managed takes away something. However others in our group were deeply moved, even those who do not profess an active faith.

Still, we are enormously glad we have made this visit to Israel, to seen the places so familiar, to imagine the events of 2,000 years ago taking place, imagining that the same sights, sounds and smells that we experience might have also been part of Jesus’ experience.

The observant among you will note that I have skipped quite a bit – our travels from Zambia, arriving in Israel, and our tours of Jerusalem and beyond. That is a task for another day – not forgotten, just delayed.We have an early start in the morning as we head for Nazareth and then the Sea of Galilee.