Happy Easter!  I have a new appreciation for Good Friday through Easter Sunday and the steps that Jesus literally took from Friday leading up to today.  After standing in the Garden of Gethsemane and trying to imagine what that night must have been like for Jesus (and his disciples), we went to the house of Caiaphas, where we saw the steps that Jesus walked up when he was taken to Caiaphas for questioning and then back down when he was taken to Pontius Pilot.

The courtyard of Caiaphas’ house is also where Peter denied Jesus three times as He was led away.  Pastor Amie taught us that Peter’s denial of Christ was not that he denied actually knowing who He was, but that Jesus had not turned out to be the conquering hero that Peter had anticipated. Below is a statue of Peter denying Jesus to a girl and a Roman solider in the background.  I was surprised at the proximity of Caiaphas’ house to the temple, as you can see the Temple Mount from the courtyard.

Caiaphas’ house is now The Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu (complete with a rooster on the roof). In the basement is the cell where Jesus was held for three hours before he was taken to Pilot.  There are now steps that lead down into the cell and lights on the wall, but at the time, the cell was literally a hole carved into the ground and prisoners were lowered into and pulled out of the cell by a harness.  Seeing the reality was much different than my mental picture of Him being kept in a more traditional holding cell. I now have a visual reference for the verses in the Bible (like Psalm 88:4) that mention “going down into the pit.” (This photo was taken by one of our friends on the trip, April Pointer).

We walked along the Via Dolorosa, which demarcates the various places Jesus stopped on his way to the cross after he was taken from Caiaphas’ house.  We walked from the end to the beginning, which is kind of like watching a VHS tape in rewind (if you’re old enough to remember VHS).  None of the stops along the way are far apart (some only a couple hundred feet), but the walk for Jesus was all uphill, after a beating, carrying a heavy cross.

We saw a replica of a cross when we stopped previously at the Nazareth Village.  The cross was gnarled and uneven – not the even, squared off cross you typically see in Easter movies or pageants.  I became aware of an added level of discomfort that Jesus must have had that I had not previously considered.  My photo of the cross did not come out very well since it was behind glass, but well enough that you may get the gist of what we saw.

Caroline, our guide, mentioned something that I have heard over and over, but for some reason it struck me new that day.  She reminded our group that Christ gave up his life at the cross.  In all my years, I have known that Christ went to the cross willingly, but I have mis-read the sequence of events, thinking that Jesus died and then his Spirit returned to the Father.  The day I stood in front of that cross, I realized that Jesus returned his spirit back to the Father by choice as He had completed the work for which He had come to Earth.  Only after that conscious choice, did his flesh succumb to death, not the other way around.  That was a huge paradigm shift for me.

Golgotha and the Garden Tomb were both much different than I had pictured in my mind’s eye.  I wasn’t quite sure why the hill was named “the place of the skull” but it is because there is what looks like a skull in the rocks on the side of the hill.  The nose used to be more pronounced, but the tip has fallen off over the years.

The Garden Tomb for me was the most impactful place of our whole trip.  I had expected the tomb to be much larger and laid out differently.  The door was very small, which explains why Mary had to bend down to see into the tomb (John 20:11, NIV).  The original door has been enlarged to make it easier for visitors to get in and out.  Even with the enlargement, I had to duck, (which is saying something since I am only 5’1).

In front of the tomb a track was carved out where the stone was rolled back and forth.  You step through the door into a visiting chamber and the bodies of the deceased were laid in niches on the right, each carved at a slight decline.

Jesus was not a tall man, as I’m not sure that JJ would have fit in the place where Jesus was laid (JJ is 5’10).  There is a low wall where the angel would have been sitting when he spoke to Mary (Mark 16:5, NIV).

The tomb is still empty.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes. (Matthew 28:6, NKJV)  Hosanna in the highest!