Now what do we do? – part 2

Plan of the Temple in Jerusalem

The voices of the priests rose above the chatter of the crowds “For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye, his favour for a lifetime. Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Over the next few days I went out to the market regularly to help buy provisions to feed those who were staying in the house, or who came around to talk. We heard from followers of Jesus that he had been seen at various times and in various places around the city. The authorities must have been hearing the stories as well, as they began to raid the houses of those they believed to be Jesus’ followers and they continued the search for his body. When the believers gathered together to eat, we broke bread and drank wine, just as Jesus had taught. We listened to his closest friends telling us the stories of Jesus, and we puzzled about what we should be doing next.

“To you, O Lord, I cried; to the Lord I made my supplication: ‘What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?” As the raids continued, and stories of the imprisonment of Jesus’ followers began to circulate, the closest and best known of Jesus disciples began to slip out of the city gates and head out to safety. The house I was staying in closed up, and I decided to go to the Temple. I wanted to be in a place where I could feel close to Jesus. I had not seen him preach in the Temple, nor had I entered after Palm Sunday to see him overturn the tables of the money changers, but his presence was somehow there, in the stones that spoke of Yahweh, in the incense rising daily towards the heavens, and in the smoke of the sacrifices offered for the sins of the people. I stayed in the Court of the Women and slept on a bench in the corner at night. I received food from the devout, and prayed constantly that Yahweh would show me what he wanted me to do. No one looked at an old widow woman praying, and the authorities left me alone.

My son walked from Emmaus to find me. He wanted me to return home with him. As he pleaded with me I heard in my mind again the words from the psalm “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; O Lord, be my helper.” I did not want to return with my son. I know that he loves me and wants me to be safe and well, but there is still something to be done in Jerusalem. I don’t know what, I don’t know when, and I don’t know where, I just know. I tried to tell him, but he didn’t understand. He was mollified that I was in the Temple, that I was being fed, that I was praying, that I was as safe as one can be in this day and age, and he eventually left, but only after I promised that if nothing happened in another week, I would return home to him and to my old life.

Tomorrow that week is over. Tomorrow will be forty days after Jesus’ Resurrection. Forty is a number which the disciples tell me meant a lot to Jesus. He spent forty days out in the wilderness preparing for his ministry. Perhaps tomorrow will be the day I am longing for, and this new life I have will cease to be a time of expectation, and will become a time for action, even for me in my old age. I hope that with the psalmist I will be able to say

“You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness; Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever.”

Now what do we do? – part 1

The Temple in Jerusalem

It is now thirty nine days since the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and some thirty nine days and twelve hours since he joined me and my companion on my road home from Jerusalem. He then shared bread and wine with us in my little house in Emmaus, and through his actions of blessing wine and breaking bread revealed himself to my companion, and then to me, the least of all people, as I had not met him before, during his ministry. Since then my life has been completely different. I think those of us who are believers in the Lord Jesus assumed that something, the rolling out of the rest of God’s plan would happen immediately, but that has not happened. Now I am sitting in the corner of the Court of the Women in the Temple in Jerusalem. The sun is shining on me, and the chanting of the priests punctuates and directs my thoughts. I can hear the chanting of the thirtieth psalm through the screen that separates us women from the men.

“I will exalt you, O Lord, because you have raised me up and have not let my foes triumph over me.” On the day of Resurrection all of us who saw the risen Lord, who knew him and had mourned for him were overjoyed. I walked all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the Disciples that I had met with Jesus. I don’t remember the journey back at all. I could have flown on eagles wings for all I know. I sat up most of the night telling and retelling my story to anyone who would listen, and I fell asleep, exhausted, in the house of one of the disciples, and slept like the dead.

The chant of the Priests broke through my reverie “Then you hid your face from me, and I was utterly dismayed.” When I woke up the next morning, I found that the mood in the house I was in had changed. The disciple, in whose house I had slept, had gone out to the market to buy food. In the market, he said, everyone was talking about the resurrection. Some people were saying that they believed that it was a trick played by the disciples, because no one could be raised from the dead. Except that some remembered being told the story of that friend of Jesus, who had been four days in the grave when Jesus had called him up out of it.

The authorities were said to be furious. The whisper in the market was that the two soldiers who had been on duty by the tomb, and who had been found asleep by the open door had been whipped for dereliction of duty. No one had believed their story that an angel had made them fall asleep. Soldiers had been sent out across the city looking for Jesus body. It had not been found yet.

He saved the world – part 2

Jesus on the cross

My footsteps took me to a friends house in the city. When she opened the door to me and saw my drowned state, she pulled me in, took my clothes from me and wrapped me up in a blanket before a fire. When she had forced me to eat and drink a little, she took me to her bed, and left me to sleep. A night passed, a day and another night, and I did not move from the bed. I did not move except to sit up and drink. At last as the sun came up over the horizon on the morning of the third day. I rose from my bed, and much to the relief of my friend, sat and ate and drank with her. I thanked her for her hospitality, and would have set off alone to walk home, but she called a mutual friend who had told her he would be going in the direction of my village and asked him to walk with me.

As we walked through the city, beginning to stir after the sabbath, we heard people talking and whipering excitedly to each other. ‘He is risen from the dead’ they said ‘He has been seen again’. ‘He is alive.’ ‘This must be God’s miracle for us’. ‘What do we do now though?’ asked one lone voice. And none of us had an answer. My companion and I slipped through the Water Gate and headed out. As we walked we talked. I told him of watching Jesus’ triumphal entry in Jerusalem. He told me of watching him walk the Via Dolorosa carrying his cross, and we tried to make sense of it all.

As we were walking we heard someone behind us, and after looking him over, we slowed our steps to let him join us. We carried on talking about Jesus,and much to our surprise our new companion seemed to have all the answers to our questions. We felt our hearts lift within us, and we walked with a lighter and quicker step than we had at the beginning of our walk.

When we reached my home, I invited both my companions in to eat and drink with me before they carried on with their journeys. Our companion of the road took my bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to us. The he took wine, blessed it and passed it to us to share. I could see a look of horror, then wonder come over the face of my friend. The cup of wine was held half way to his lips, when he exclaimed ‘ You are Jesus!’ The man smiled and acknowledged the greeting. As the two of us turned to look at each other to share this wonderful moment, Jesus must have taken the opportunity to slip away, for when we turned back, he was no longer in the room with us.

It did not seem right to stay seated or stay still. We ran out into the village and told everyone we met, that Jesus had broken bread and blessed wine, in my house, just now. When everyone had heard our news we turned towards Jerusalem again, and set off back to tell the people there what had happened. The road from Emmaus to Jerusalem had never seemed so short, or so easy to walk. As we walked we talked, and my companion told me all he knew about the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth, and we rejoiced in the many blessings God had given us this day through his death and resurrection.

He saved the world – part 1

Jesus on the cross

Having come into Jerusalem to watch Jesus make his triumphal entry; having shouted myself hoarse and given my cloak to be trodden on by Jesus’ donkey and all his followers, only for nothing to happen, I went back home with a heavy heart. There is so much wrong in our country, that I would like to see changed before I die. I want my grandchildren to grow up free from Roman rule and free from the crippling taxes our religious leaders of the Great Sanhedrin impose on us. I want my children and grandchildren to have enough food, and to be able to worship Yahweh in freedom.

Gossip travels fast in this country. Travellers passing through my village kept us up to date with the rumours about what Jesus was up to. They told us that when he had entered the Temple on the day of his triumphal entry, he had completely lost his temper with the money changers. He threw their money about and told them they were a lot of thieves. I could have told him that a long time ago! If I had gone into the Temple and done that, I would have been arrested, but Jesus was so popular that the High Priest dare not touch him. He seems to have spent the last few days in the temple teaching and preaching. I can just imagine the High Priest’s spies reporting back every word he says, while they try to work out whether he has said anything they can arrest him for.

On Friday morning the terrible news was brought to us by a cloth merchant leading a convoy of pack donkeys, that Jesus had been arrested during the night, taken before the Great Sanhedrin and condemned to death. He was even now being taken before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, to have the death sentence confirmed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Only a few days ago he was being acclaimed by the people, now our leaders have condemned him to death, and for what, I want to know. As soon as the merchant had left carrying his grim news with him, I gathered up some food, and set off to Jerusalem again.

The road seemed longer, and the climb up the hill into the city even steeper than it had been the last time I had come. The city looked different somehow. The sun shone from behind me onto the white stone walls, making them gleam, but over the city hung the darkest black clouds I had ever seen, yet it was not raining. It looked as if a spotlight was on the city and what was happening there, as if the whole attention of heaven was concentrated on just this one spot in the whole of creation.

When I reached the city, I stopped to take stock of what was going on. People were streaming about and muttering to each other like a hive full of angry bees. Some were heading, so it appeared, to Golgotha, the place of the skull, outside the city walls, where executions take place. Others were returning from Golgotha, having been to see what was happening, and were returning to the safety of their homes. Markets and shops were empty, long before the beginning of the Sabbath, and under all of the movement, the whispers, was fear, fear articulated by one man who whispered to me ‘If they can execute Jesus of Nazareth the most popular man in the country, who else will they do it to?’

I had come too far to want to avoid what was going on, on the hill of Golgotha, and at my age I didn’t really care any more about my own safety. I moved through the city from the Water Gate to the Judgement Gate and out onto Golgotha. Just as I passed through the gate there was a loud wail from the crowd assembled on the hillside, and a bolt of lightening streaked across the heavens separating the clouds and giving us a brief glimpse of the vastness of the blue heavens beyond. The sky closed, and a groan of thunder, louder than any I had ever heard, assaulted our ears. Then the clouds broke and rain like the tears of heaven fell on us soaking us in seconds. People dashed passed me running back into the city, fear etched on their faces, until it seemed that I was just about the only person there, looking at the three crosses stretched against the sky, two figures at the foot of the middle one.
A group of soldiers carrying a ladder approached the middle cross. I knew then that Jesus was dead, and with him all my hopes for my country, my people and my family. I watched as one of the soldiers took his spear and thrust it into Jesus side, then nod to his companions who put up the ladder and removed the nails holding the hands and feet. Then they lowered the body to the ground, and into the arms of his mother. I could no longer bear the sight; the heart rending weeping of the mother; the shattered silence of his best friend John, and the rain, the rain, the rain. I turned and slowly walked back into the city.

To save the world – part 2

Palm Sunday

Jerusalem is known as, ‘the city on the hill’, which means no matter which direction you approach it from, you have a climb up. Walking from where I live, I was aiming for the Dung Gate. If Jesus was coming from Bethany down the Mount of Olives, he would go to the Water Gate or more likely the Horse Gate. I had to walk quickly through the busy streets and markets and skirt around the Temple, to get to the Horse Gate in time. It is lucky that as a child I spent hours roaming the streets and know them like the back of my hand.

I had to stop for a minute and get my breath back as I neared the city. I sat quietly on one of the gravestones dotting the Kidron Valley. All the people buried on those hillsides believe that at the end of time, the gates of the city will miraculously open, and the dead in those graves will rise up and enter the new Jerusalem. Mind you it is only the rich who can afford to be buried there. I will have a long walk on that day, at least as long as today’s. I hope there will still be some room in the city for me when I arrive!

From my vantage point, sitting on the gravestone, I saw a large crowd moving down the side of the Mount of Olives. Expecting that it was Jesus, I then had to hurry, so that I didn’t miss his entry into the city. I got there in time, but the crowd was so large that I had difficulty in seeing what was going on. Jesus arrived riding on a donkey surrounded by his closest disciples and followed by laughing and singing crowds. I was expecting him to be on a big military horse followed by an army with weapons. I thought he would declare himself as the Messiah and we would have all flocked to his banner. We cheered him until the stones almost rang. We shouted ‘Alleluia to the Son of David’. Some of us threw our cloaks on the road for his donkey to walk on. Some of the young men in the crowd climbed up the palm trees lining the route and began pulling off the branches and throwing them down. It looked like a military triumph. The conquering hero returning from battle.

Jesus rode through the streets and up to the Temple, got off his donkey and went inside – and that was that. He smiled at those of us lining the route, he looked kind and gracious, but he didn’t say a word. He just left us standing outside the Temple, and wondering what to do next. As soon as he had gone inside, the Temple Guards began to gather in large numbers, and it looked as if they had orders to move us on. I didn’t want to get caught up in anything, so I just slipped back into the streets behind me, and made my way home. It doesn’t look as if he is any different to any of the other prophets we have had in recent years. I had heard that he was different, but I have not seen it yet.

To save the world – part 1

Palm Sunday

I heard that the prophet Jesus of Nazareth was making his way towards Jerusalem from Bethany. I knew he would go down the Mount of Olives into the Kidron Valley, then up the other side into the city. He had spent the previous night with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and told them when he arrived, that he was going to carry on into Jerusalem. The rumours reached us early this morning with a caravan of passing merchants.

I really wanted to see him, and hear him speak, but at my age, I could no longer run like the wind. I walk more like an ancient broken winded donkey. I hoped I would make it to Jerusalem in time. I hurried as fast as I could, but the hills on the way into the city seemed to get steeper every day. When I was a girl I could run up and down from the city wall to the Kidron valley several times a day, and not notice. Now if I want any running done, I get my grandson to do it. He doesn’t notice the hill. I used to live in Jerusalem with my parents when I was a girl, but when I married, my husband and I moved out to his village, an hour’s walk from the city. At first I missed all the bustle and the people, but life has got dangerous for ordinary Israelites, and most dangerous where most of the battles for power are being played out, in Jerusalem.

There are few alive now who can remember a time when there was not a conquering army in our land. Now it is the Romans, then it was the Greeks, before them it was the Persians, and before them our people were taken into exile in Babylonia. Everyone who wants to have power around the Mediterranean Sea must have unfettered access to this land, to travel north into Europe, and south down to the riches of Africa. So they come, and we fight, and we loose, and they stay. That is how it has been since time immemorial. When things get really bad our old men dream dreams of how it was, and encourage the young men to rise up and rebel. There is fighting, we loose and many get killed, and the rest of us pay a lot of tax. That is where we are now.

The greedy Romans force us to grow grain to send back to Rome, and take most of what we grow, giving us only a pitiful price for it, and leaving us barely enough to live on. Worse than that, our religious leaders have their heads full of self importance, and are trying to impress our Roman masters by building important buildings for us to worship in, and for them to look important in. And how do they get the money to do that – you guessed it, they tax us as well. Men, women and children are going hungry because the Temple Priests want to have bigger houses and more impressive shrines. This last year, the weather has been so bad that many of the crops have failed; still the Romans want grain and the Priests their taxes. People have pleaded with the tax collectors to leave them enough food to eat, but their hearts are hard, and so ordinary people are starving while Romans get fat on our grain and shrines get covered in precious jewels.

In these last few years there have been many men walking the land of Israel claiming that they are the Messiah, the chosen one, who will bring down the Romans and bring peace and prosperity in a free Israel. They have been long on words, but short on action, until now. Jesus of Nazareth has been travelling Israel for the last three years, teaching and preaching. His followers claim he is the Messiah, and it is true that he has been preaching a new kingdom, and showing that the power of God is with him, by healing the sick and performing miracles. Today it is rumoured, he will claim before everyone, that he is the Messiah, the chosen one of Israel, and I want to be there to see it.