Okay, I’m greedy. There are thousands of shades of meaning in the words-rich English language, yet one of my favorite parts of encountering other cultures is the supply of more unique words. Like this Yiddish word: Nu? (Or more properly, Nuuuuu?) It’s such a toe-tapping, personality-oozing reminder that Yes, I am waiting for an answer. So go on: explain, already. Tell me more!
So now I’ve brought it up, and left you hanging:
What is it really like in Israel?
I could probably spend years in the telling. (And in a way, I already have, anytime I’ve tagged a blog post with “Life in the Land.”) But that’s not the only question I’m answering when I write. I’m also answering, “What is it really like to know Jesus? (Here or anywhere in the wide and fascinating world). What a delightful impossibility this answer is — and well worth chasing after, even though I’ll never, ever be able to tell it all.
I’m between Easters here (there’s another one coming in May), so pardon me if I’m not done yet with the Resurrection. Here’s what it means, here in the Land:
It means lots of layers and lots of choices in the days leading up to Resurrection Day. Shall I attend a Jewish Seder? (Yes.) How about one focused on singing, hosted by world-traveling musicians? (Why, yes!) And one that remembers Jesus’ Last Supper, on Holy Thursday itself. (Yes again!) And I wonder: When Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me,” could He have meant the entire meal? At least for sometimes?
Perhaps.
It means a yeast-less week. Before there was Lent, there was Passover, with the bread of affliction: flat, dry, pierced, and striped. A meal by meal reminder that redemption is costly — and that it came!
It means my every-year longing to walk to Emmaus has revived again. Imagine hiking, while your heart is burning within you that “Hey! Jesus is here!” Oh yes, He is here every day, but sometimes a person wants to go on pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is awfully practical: packing up a bag, putting on some shoes…and studying out which of the candidates might be the right Emmaus, anyway. It also means a little more healing for that twisted ankle. Maybe next Easter? (Now less than a month away).
On the night before Easter, it means that the time-lag between home and here (which keeps me waiting half of every day for family to wake, and puts me to sleep halfway through their day) turns a simple afternoon call from the States into a wee-hours’ blessing: somehow, I am awake, and the first sibling to hear my sister say, “I’m engaged!”
After a few hours of sleep, it meant grey light, birds singing outside my window, a groggy head, and yet a joy-piled-on-joy kind of morning. Next came a bus to the Old City, and sunshine slanting through Jaffa Gate onto polished stone. I walked past shuttered shops to the quietly-waking Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I went down and down stairs to the lowest chapel, where the ceiling shows the marks of the quarry there in Jesus’ time. And sang! Shyly, I sang “Up from the Grave He Arose!”
I wandered quietly. Up the stone stairs, worn curved by thousands of feet, to the top of Calvary, where I saw a few Jewish tourists and Christians pilgrims. Up in the sunshine on the roof, where I munched some matza and an Ethiopian monk smiled at me. Back down at the entrance, sitting on the bench by the ponderous wooden door, I met an elderly lady who trotted me into the heart of the church to show me “the tombs of the two thieves.” (They are, at least, from the right time in history). The room we entered to reach those tombs? Is usually dirty and bare. Today it had undergone a mini-resurrection of its own, and was decked with bright wall hangings and rugs, and filled with worshipers.
As the whole church soon would be — to the bursting. I left while the large square outside was still quiet; while TV cameras were still being set up. Really, at just the right time.
Back in the narrow streets, more shops had been unshuttered; a few more pilgrims were about. I was stopped in my tracks by two young uniformed men. “Can you explain to her in English what’s going on?” one said to the other (in Hebrew). He couldn’t, but I got the gist: You can continue in a few minutes, but right now something’s coming. Soon a whole cluster of folks had been dammed up there in the street: curious, standing on tiptoes, passing the explanation around.
Down from Jaffa Gate (and yes, I mean literally down, because Jerusalem is nothing but hills, even inside the walls) came a band with drums, and drums, and more drums. Catholic boy and girl scouts in an Easter parade. Beside me, a religious Jewish father told his children, “Look away. Don’t watch.” And it broke my heart, for so many reasons.
Do I understand what it’s like for the Jewish people, to know that the Easter season once meant preaching, and even pogroms against them? No. No, I don’t. But it grieves and humbles me.
Do they know that Jesus said “No!” when a disciple took up the sword in his name? That he willingly went to the cross? Do they know that He said (for all of us), “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they do!”
I could criticize those who called themselves Christians in the past, for exhibiting everything but the truth about the one they professed to follow. But do people (any people) see God as He is — in me? Can they see — through me — that when they hurt, He hurts too?
A few nights ago, I was praying one of those fist-pounding prayers that are born out of personal pain. The ones that say:
Lord! Do something! (I know I am so small, and You are so great, but…) Please, please move. For me! (And oh yes: for others too).
David Wells speaks of prayer as rebellion against the status quo: to be so convinced that God is able and willing to do good in the world that we humbly demand, “Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”
As I prayed, I imagined the will of God as a stake being driven into the ground, one whack of faith at a time: Bang! Bang! Bang! And then I realized I was actually seeing the nail being driven into Jesus’ hand. He had such unselfish, no-holds-barred determination to bring the will of His Father into the earth that He offered His own wrist and said: “Drive it in here.”
His willing suffering made an entry point for the Kingdom of God. (Perhaps ours does too). But one thing I know: He cares. Oh, how He cares! The crucifixion makes that clear.
And the Resurrection? Says He’s abundantly, unstoppably able to act on that love.
Reversing death to life?!
Yes. Anywhere in the whole wide world.
Elisabeth Adams 