It really is a big story

Jerusalem, 14 December 2010

Have just returned from walking the Stations of the Cross, breakfast and a brilliant tour of the Church of the Resurrection (aka the Holy Sepulcher).

We started at 6am and walked in silence down through Salah ah Din street behind the College's wooden cross – in the context of an East Jerusalem Moslem street if was to me a symbol of our wish to walk in peace and pilgrimage together even though in ages past it has been used as a symbol of conquest and oppression. It was also for me symbolic of the melting pot that is Jerusalem – the intermingling of faiths and cultures. The sun was just rising behind us and we filed down the street whilst the earliest of the traders were starting to unbolt the metal shutters of their shops.

It feels like so much has been crammed in that even now only a couple of hours later I can't remember it all – so here are the snapshots of the heart I tried to take alongside the prayers of the lens as well as trying to keep up with the group – all these things aren't necessarily possible to do simultaneously! The first station courtyard where the church remembers that Jesus was judged by Pilate – sparrows were the dominant sound in the courtyard, the quiet and distance as injustice is proclaimed. A sense as we walked through the streets that like the day it happened this was just another working day in Jerusalem, merchants opening shops, the slap of kids feet as they run towards school, and the garbage men usually hidden suddenly thrust onto the main stage of the drama. And the everyday sounds of Arabic pop playing in a car parked across from us as we moved between station three and four.

Remembering to turn around and look behind as well as in front gifted glimpses of sunlight throwing itself against the white and pink sandstone polarized by the deep shadows where light has not yet reached. And the contrast of the sense of smell as well as we weave between incense and cat's pee. Lending a helping hand to a school girl taking the rubbish out for grandma on her way to school. These streets have worn stones, made smooth by generations of feet running, gliding and stumbling over them – we are no different and the sight of members of our group taking it in turns for Johanna who has sprained her ankle to lean on - in the same way we take it in turns to be the cross bearer – the one singled out at the front – the one with the distance between us.

All this and in my head running scenarios for next Easters' services.

In our first days here, the Church of the Resurrection had turned me off with its throngs of pilgrims and tourist pushing and shoving and its crowds being barked at by arrogant priests hissing and yelling. But today she wooed me as we were led with depth and passion through her secrets – in the shape of the rocks around her and the gospel accounts. What will stay with me is the smell of the place – the intermingling of different incense and it wends its way through the high gilten domes. And the sound of my shoes soles squeaking as if I had to acknowledge my own presence in this story – not possible to be a silent witness here. With no queues we were able to ascend the time worn stairs to the chapel of Calvary's rocks – for many years before it was used as an execution place it was a quarry so within the church there are caverns that show the empty spaces and C1st CE rocks. Up the stairs is another view of the rock – it has a huge fault running through it – the rocky outcrop not suitable for quarrying but OK for crucifixion. The fault line running its full height from the glassed in walls below, to the shrine above where it is possible to kneel and reach one's hand in to touch the rock. And unlike yesterday today touching the rock was OK – grounding even – perhaps death is easier than suffering. There are words on some of the rocks in the church – love hearts with names, all kinds of script detailing visitors, crosses scraped into the rocks in family groups – the marks of devotion and presence.

Finally two things the empty tomb itself with its epicule or little house over the top – with barely a queue we were able to go inside the emptiness – its emptiness hidden now by candles and gilt and flowers – but the impression perhaps strengthened by the moments inside another cave tomb a little further back, we bent to go in and crouched low, centuries of candle burning have coated the walls black and waxy but can't remove the cold of a tomb or the eeriness of sitting in one. And losing the group Allison and I paused in the stripped back Franciscan space – quiet and simple and merely decorated across the lintel with bronze figures representing the stations, quite small and simple but exquisite.

Perhaps it's the theological vastness of the story that we remembered as we walked and prayed and touched that has meant that instead of a grand overarching emotion or sense of its meaning what I have is snippets and snapshots and sensations. A little is most certainly enough.