March 24 Maundy Thursday

From the Upper Room

John's Gospel is clear that the Last Supper was not on the first eve of Passover, but rather the evening before. As retired Pope Benedict XVI makes clear in Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 2, "Holy Week," Jesus modeled His Last Super on the Passover, but instituted something new in fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:31-34 ("Behold I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel.") See the work of Jewish historian at Boston College, Jonathan Klawans:

Regarding the place of the Lord's Supper, here is an except from my book, An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land for Tour Groups, Students, and Pilgrims:

The Cenacle (“Upper Room”) and the “Tomb of David”
Both these structures, which themselves are not ancient, sit above the foundation of a building dating back to Roman times, second century CE or earlier. Epiphanius of Salamis (315-403) says the “little church of God” stood here in 130 CE, which church, because of heavy Roman persecution of Christianity, could not have been built in the second century and so must date to the first, probably to the origins of the Christian community in Jerusalem. The first house church (domus ecclesia) of Jerusalem was “the room upstairs” of Acts 1:13 where the disciples gathered regularly with Mary the mother of Jesus after the Ascension, where they chose Matthias to replace Judas, and where we can assume they were gathered “all together in one place” on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1; attested by Cyril of Jerusalem, before 348). Acts 2:43-47 describes the life and growth of this nascent church which, this being the affluent part of Jerusalem at the time, evidently met in the house of a wealthy and generous early Christian, possibly even John Mark (Acts 12:12). It does not take much imagination to connect this room upstairs with the guest room, “a large room upstairs,” where Mark says Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper (14:14-15). In the fourth century it was known as “the Upper Church of the Apostles” and in the fifth as “Zion, Mother of all the Churches,” which is pictured prominently in the Madaba Map.
David was buried in the City of David (1 Kgs 2:10) where archaeologists have discovered what was probably the royal necropolis (see “City of David”). But Byzantine piety enjoyed venerating at the Church of Zion both David, the Israelite founder of Jerusalem, and St. James, the founder of the Jerusalem church. So traditions developed that David was buried here and James just inside the modern Zion Gate at the Armenian cathedral (same hill, the current wall is an artificial divide). You may reach “the Cenacle/David’s Tomb” by exiting Zion Gate or driving to the parking lot outside it. Walk toward the imposing Dormition Abby taking the left path at the Y. Walk straight through the passageway and keep to the left until the courtyard of the fourteenth-century Franciscan monastery to enter “David’s Tomb.” The cenotaph is Crusader but the niche behind it was probably a receptacle in the apse of the Byzantine Church of Mount Zion. Exit the passageway through which you entered to get back to the street and turn right though a doorway to enter the Cenacle. While remnants may be Crusader, the present reconstruction is fourteenth-century Gothic from the Franciscan monastery built in 1335. Most interesting is the pillar in the corner with the Christian symbol of a mother pelican who willingly sacrifices the flesh of her breast for her hungry chicks. Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Turks dispelled the Christians and turned the room into a mosque venerating “the Prophet David,” to which the mihrab in the direction of Mecca and the Arabic prohibiting public prayer are witnesses. The spot came under Israeli control in 1948 and is now open to all (the Cenacle closes at 1 on Fridays) but has become a center for yeshiva study. It is also one of the churches’ evening worship during the Week for Christian Unity during which the side chapel is opened for all nations to pray the Lord’s Prayer in their own languages, a moving modern experience of Pentecost.

March 20, Palm Sunday (Luke 19:28-40)

Franciscan Church at Bethpage

Bethphage (“House of the Unripe Fig”)
This is where the Palm Sunday walk begins and the probable general location where Jesus’ disciples procured the donkey (Mark 11:1-14). The fourth-century pilgrim Egeria mentions a church here and in the middle of the current nineteenth-century church stands a square podium from which the builders of a Crusader church pictured our Lord mounting said beast (they evidently had in mind European horses rather than Palestinian burros!). The beautiful paintings on the mounting stone are original. The wall murals are twentieth century. Especially intriguing is the one above the altar. Who is the shrouded figure? In my opinion it is Death, but art is art because it begs interpretation.
Intriguing historical questions, which cannot be answered with certainty, abound regarding the event we call “Palm Sunday.” Did “the cleansing of the Temple” take place at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as described in John’s Gospel? Has Mark (followed by Matthew and Luke) telescoped events into one “Holy Week” for literary or liturgical purposes? Did the event take place on more than one occasion? Was the historical setting actually Sukkot (the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles) when Jews parade with palm branches shouting “hosanna” culminating in the sevenfold Hoshana Rabbah, the “Great Hosanna” (“hosanna in the highest”?). More clear is the significance of the event. Ezekiel had prophesied that when the presence of God left the Temple it took up residence on the Mount of Olives (11:23) until it returns to the Temple from the Mount of Olives (43:2-5). Zechariah 14 foresees that on the eschatological Day of the Lord “his feet shall stand on” the two-hilled Mount of Olives which will be cleft in two (v 4). By the time of Jesus, any Jew could tell you that when the Messiah manifests himself and the Kingdom of God it will be on the Mount of Olives. Jesus knew very well what he was doing: by having his disciples borrow this animal and riding it over the Mount of Olives in fulfillment of the prophetic “Lo, your king comes to you...humble and riding on a donkey” (Zech 9:9) he was making a messianic statement. He also knew what it would elicit: adoration from the locals around Bethany and Bethphage, a perceived threat to the Jerusalem High Priestly establishment, and an accusation of sedition by the Roman government.

March 13, Fifth Sunday in Lent (RCL) John 12:1-8, Mary Anoints Jesus at Bethany

A two-room house in Bethany today, similar to the one in which Mary anointed Jesus

Bethany
Bethany, Jesus home away from home when he was in Jerusalem because there dwelt his buddies, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, is difficult to visit because of the current separation wall between Israel and the West Bank which artificially cuts off a natural suburb of the city. It can be reached with effort and the Tomb of Lazarus (John 11) has some claims to authenticity. St. Jerome records the existence of a church here in 390. The original entrance was turned into a mosque because the Muslims venerated the raising of Lazarus and at first permitted Christians to visit. When this became increasingly difficult, the Franciscans cut the current entrance to the tomb between 1566 and 1575, and created the current church and monastery in 1954. In the church courtyard, the mosaic is of the fourth-century church and the pillars of the fifth-century church. Toilets are to the far right. The original entrance to the tomb of Lazarus (visible inside) faces toward the mosque and church (east). The lovely modern church is an appropriate place to read Luke 10:38 ff., John 11, and John 12:1-8.

March 6, Fourth Sunday in Lent (RCL)

locals in Jericho today

Joshua 5:9-12 "the plains of Jericho"  Please see "First Sunday in Lent" below. Gilgal is a play on the Hebrew verb meaning "to roll." We aren't sure where it was, but we assume near Jericho.

Luke 15:1-2, 11b-32 "The Parable of the Prodigal Son" of course has no definitive location. What you may find interesting, however, is that the pig food was carob. Yes, what we today consider an upscale chocolate substitute was, in biblical times, the standard food for pigs! The carob tree, also called the locust tree, is plentiful in the Holy Land. John the Baptist most likely ate carob (from the locust tree), not the insect!

February 28: Third Sunday in Lent

RCL   Psalm 63:1-8  "A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah." (Compare Isaiah 55:1-9) 

En Gedi (National Park)

When David fled from Saul to hide here in the tenth century (1 Samuel 24) En Gedi was uninhabited, but in the seventh century Judean kings founded a town which lasted until the Babylonian Exile. While resettlement during the Persian period did not endure, the Hasmoneans (second century BCE) made the oasis a royal estate and administrative center. Sadly, Zealots from Masada invaded En Gedi to steal agricultural supplies during Passover in 68 CE and slaughtered over 700 women and children, but a vibrant Jewish community was reborn here during the third through sixth centuries CE until it was destroyed by Byzantine Christianity’s own brand of zealotry. Jews returned to En Gedi in 1949, settled in 1953, and the kibbutz was founded three years later.
The draw to this magnificent place is the same today as then: date farms atop the gorgeous view, the therapeutic waters of the Dead Sea, the low altitude with its mineral enriched atmosphere, the cultivation of aromatic plants, such as the ancient persimmon (balsam) for perfumes, and medicinal herbs. In Song of Songs 1:14 the lovers celebrate the henna blossoms of En Gedi, and Ezekiel 47 envisions the restorative waters flowing from the Temple Mount by way of the Kidron Valley into the Dead Sea to freshen its waters at En Gedi during the dawn of the Messianic Age. Marc Anthony in his passion for Cleopatra gave her this mystical site which is still called today “nature’s creation.”

Visit to the ancient synagogue is accessible to all. Discovered accidentally by the kibbutz in 1965, the site’s excavations begun in 1970 are ongoing. The bet kneset, as it is called in Hebrew, the spiritual and communal center of Jewish life, was begun in the third century CE atop the ruins of the Second Temple Jewish community that had lived here, and it and stood, through expansions and renovations, until the sixth century CE. Follow the National Park brochure route past a mikveh, basin, and into the synagogue which is oriented toward Jerusalem by the Holy Ark housing the Torah Scroll in the north wall. Just behind the Ark is a tiny geniza and just beside it the Seat of Moses and just in front of it the bimah from which the Torah was read. Stepped rows of seats are on the facing south wall. Columns form three aisles surrounding a central mosaic. This synagogue is more conservative than its Galilean counterparts in that it depicts no human or Greco-Roman mythological images but only leaves, birds, peacocks, grapes, menorahs, and geometric designs. Similarly, the Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions in the mosaic floor of the western aisle (described in detail in the park brochure) include the motif of the zodiac popular in Byzantine/Talmudic era synagogues but only by listing their names without their signs, along with biblical characters and blessings. Most interesting and unique is a “curse” or warning in the third panel: “...Anyone causing a controversy between a man and his friend, or whoever slanders his friend before the Gentiles, or whoever reveals the secret of the town to the Gentiles - He whose eyes range through the whole earth and Who sees hidden things, He will set his face on that man and on his seed and will uproot him from under the heavens. And all the people said: Amen and Amen Selah.” The mysterious secret was the key to the town’s economic welfare: the distilling of a rare and intoxicating perfume from the ancient persimmon (balsam) plant.

The entrance to Nakhal (Wadi) David is separate from that of the synagogue but also on the National Park ticket; be sure to acquire the very informative “En Gedi National Park” brochure and hiking guide upon entering. There is absolutely no smoking or eating in the park, and as always in Israel’s nature reserves respect the flora by looking but not picking and the fauna by being quiet (going early might avoid large groups of Israeli school kids). The first part of the walk up the wadi is wheelchair accessible and should be enjoyed by all; it goes up to the first waterfall. Then the hike begins, up, up, up many stairs cut into the rock but passing by several other gorgeous waterfalls produced by David’s Spring. The entire hike up to David’s Fall and back to where you started is a circular path that takes, with some rest stops and enjoying the scenery, about an hour and a half.

If you have more time and the athletic ability, on the return loop from David’s Fall, make a sharp right on the trail to the En Gedi Spring and walk up to the Chalcolithic (copper age) temple (c. 3000 BCE). Serving as a central shrine for desert peoples before there was a town here, it is amazingly typical of ancient Near Eastern temple design which extended into the biblical period: a courtyard around a central basin leading to a rectangular temple building with an altar, where ash and animal bones were found, centered against the rear wall. Even if you are not an archaeology buff, the view from here is amazing. Numerous other hikes of varying difficulties are outlined clearly in the nature reserve brochure, including nearby Wadi Arugot with its own entrance kiosk. Keep in mind sunset times and that entrance to the nature reserve may not be allowed if you arrive less than two hours before closing time.

Without a doubt the place to stay to get the most out of your experience of the Judean Wilderness is Kibbutz En Gedi Guest House adjacent to the National Park and within the nature reserve; tel. 08-6594222, see http://www.ein-gedi.co.il/en. En Gedi means “Spring of the Kid” and the indigenous mountain goat or ibex may greet you on your way to dinner or on the put-put golf course or beside the pool, while local conies or rock badgers scamper more along the remote paths outside the Guest House campus, which is replete with local and migrating birds and over 1,000 varieties of flora in one of the world’s finest botanical gardens. A tour of the garden is available which includes the history of the kibbutz and a commentary on the future of the kibbutz movement. I recommend that you block out a few nights during your study tour to stay here and make it your base for exploring the south of Israel (Negev). This is also the best place to experience and enjoy the healthy gifts of the Dead Sea, its minerals and blood-pressure-lowering altitude, through a swim, baths, and numerous massage options. Schedule at least one free day! (The Kibbutz Guest House does not accept group reservations for less than two nights.)