The Lights and the Garden of Jerusalem

Monday, June 20, 2011
by Debbie Harris

Heather guides Fran through the Festival of Lights

While you in Marietta are "traveling light" through the sermon series, we travelers were treated to the "Festival of Light" here in Jerusalem. After our concert and dinner Sunday night, Cal's friend, Reverend Heather Mueller, took us to the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem where we began a phenomenal trek around and in this ancient site.  Our first stop was Zedekiah's Cave, (see 2 Kings 24).  This cave extends under the wall and streets of Jerusalem.  We were treated to a spectacular light and music show utilizing approximately 40 African masks as the "singers."

Bennett, in Zedekiah's Cave

The Masks

Imagine, a throng of people from American tourists to Hasidic Jews, enjoying this light extravaganza on a cool evening.  Other highights of the Festival included a tree totally covered with tiny white lights that were powered by solar panels; a band singing, "Twist and Shout" while the crowd danced, and a kaleidoscope of lights projected on the side of a church that used small groups of the crowd as the prisms of color.

We walked down long streets of cobblestone from one side of the city to the other, passing by hundreds of small shops, or "souks." What an exciting end to our first day in Jerusalem!

Monday morning's excursion was to the Mount of Olives.  We saw The Sanctuary of the Dominus Flevit, which is supposedly on the site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Our tour guide, Raymond, explained that in 1351, the Pope appointed one order of monks, the Franciscans, to be the custodians of the Holy sites in Jerusalem. We walked down the narrow steep road to the area where Jesus came to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.  There is a small fence-enclosed area where about two dozen olive trees grow, and experts have determined that these trees were in this area when Christ came to pray.

There is a beautiful chapel here in which the rock believed to be where Jesus prayed and his sweat became blood as He prayed, "Not my Will...."  This beautiful chapel is very dark inside and much of the stained glass is purple, which helps to remind one of the deep sorrow Christ experienced there.

I was fortunate to strike up a conversation with the Franciscan father who oversees the garden of Gethsemane.  After thanking him for maintaining the site and explaining who our group was, he told us that we would be able to visit briefly in the enclosed Gethsemane garden.  As Dr. Speed explained to him, we are Pilgrims in this land of the Bible.