Even more persuasive, he says, is this: "The Jerusalem community...held liturgical celebrations at the site until A.D. 66."
Fr. James Martin, S.J., visited the site, amazed and overjoyed. In front of the Tomb of Christ, dozens of hanging lanterns were burning brightly. On the exterior walls of the shrine, shelves held lit candles. He could hear, issuing from behind the Tomb, the chanting of Coptic monks.
To the right of the main door, under a stone arch, is a stairway to a second floor; these steps lead up to the summit of Golgotha, around which the Church is also built. Fr. Martin, climbing these steps, was moved to tears. He says, in "Jesus A Pilgrimage:"
"At the top of the stairs two small but ornate chapels commemorated the Crucifixion. They are built directly on top of Golgotha....Under an elaborate altar festooned with icons and illuminated by lamps, pilgrims lined up and knelt. What were they venerating? Perhaps an icon or a fragment of the "True Cross.'
But they seemed to be reaching down into a cavity.
"' What are they touching?' I whispered to another pilgrim.
"'Golgotha,' he said quickly.
"As I moved closer, I noticed, to my amazement, a hole cut in the marble floor. When my turn came, I crouched under the altar, with several pilgrims jostling me, and I gingerly stretched out my hand through the opening, wondering how far I would have to reach. My hand touched the cold rock. Immediately, I withdrew it out of shock."
Meditating on Fr. Martin's experience, it occurs to me that when we come up against the cold, unyielding rock of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' Passion and Death, our first overwhelming instinct is to withdraw in shock. We don't want to hear about it. We don't want to think about it. This true story of torture, agony, and a barbaric death is altogether too much for us - as it was for Jesus' closest friends, who ran away, abandoning him because they too were in shock, unprepared for the horror. Yet, if we don't fix our soul's gaze upon Jesus' final hours, we fail to plunge into the depths of God's love for us.
Jesus is the most famous victim of capital punishment. The early Christians were so used to the Roman authorities executing prisoners at public sites to deter other insurrectionists, that the Gospel writers only feel the need to give us the bald facts. John says "So, they took Jesus, and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew, is called 'Golgotha.'" Mark adds "And they crucified him, and divided his garments among them, casting lots to decide which each should take."
Day to day life in Jerusalem.
Casual brutality.
Yet Jesus' Passion did not simply last for the night-time mockeries of trials before the Jewish authorities; the trial before the weak Roman Pontius Pilate; the mocking, torturing, and flogging by Roman soldiers; the carrying of the cross' cross beam with help from Simon of Cyrene because Jesus was too weakened by loss of blood and exhaustion to carry it himself; the humiliation of being stripped of his clothes; and finally the six hours hanging, forcing his tortured body over and over to push himself up on his nailed feet, and cramped legs, fighting to breathe, on the cross (Mark notes that Jesus was crucified at nine am, darkness came over the land at noon, and Jesus died at 3 pm.)
Jesus' Passion, his suffering, actually lasted for the three or so years of his ministry, concurrent with the joys he experienced. He experienced the joy of his friends, and the joy of his preaching, teaching, and healing, being the Good Shepherd caring for the huge crowds who were sheep lost without a shepherd. But, throughout his ministry he endured contempt, from the people in his own hometown who could not accept that he was anything but the carpenter's son, and from the scribes and Pharisees, who dogged his footsteps and continually interrogated him, trying to trip him up.
On the cross he suffers not only physically but emotionally: the pain of abandonment by his friends, the pain of betrayal by Judas, the pain of the crowd's mocking, the pain of watching his mother suffer because of his suffering, the pain of watching his fruitful ministry ending. And, finally, because of the exhaustion, the extreme physical and psychological pain, he feels abandoned by his Father because spiritually he cannot sense his Father's Presence. He has faith that his Father is there for him, but spiritually he endures the dark night of the soul of not receiving his Father's comfort.
"My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?"
Yet, Jesus does not waver. He dies saying "It is finished....Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit." Yet, he also dies with a loud cry, in a final burst of agony. He has given his complete self to His Father for us.
Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in his article "Bringing New Life," ("America" magazine) helps us to understand Jesus' sacrifice more fully. He says
"The death of Jesus, how he died in love, forgiving his executioners, forgiving all the ignorance and malice that brought about his death while he remained faithful to truth and love in the face of their opposites, is a prism that refracts God's interior; it breaks open God's heart and tears away the veil that prevents us from seeing inside God's heart....And what we see there, like the colors in a physical rainbow is spectacularly beautiful....The death of Jesus reveals how we are washed clean by Jesus' blood.... Jesus' death washes us clean by revealing the heart of a God whose love is faithful enough to not let us die, to open our graves, and empty our cemeteries, even when in ignorance and malice we go on killing God and each other. The death of Jesus reveals a God who sheds his own blood to cover up all the blood we are shedding in our ignorance, jealousy, and sin."
In Jesus, the Good Shepherd is also the Lamb of the Passover. And we are washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb. We are cleansed by both the blood and water that flowed forth from his side. In the flow of that blood and water, we are given new birth.
Rolheiser also notes that every time someone we know "dies with the same trust, forgiveness, and graciousness that Jesus exhibited at his death," we feel cleansed, renewed, filled with new life. He says "The most joy-filled occasions that I have been present to over the last decade have been a number of funerals of both men and women, who, in the way they died, figuratively set off a flow of blood and water from their caskets."
I agree with Fr. Rolheiser. The good people whom I have loved and who have died with dignity and grace, have set me an example of lives and deaths filled with love and trust - and they have liberated me, freed me, inspired me, to live a more courageous, open, loving life. Their deaths, like Christ's, have set off a fountain of mercy flowing into the lives of all who have known them.
In meditating with deep love on the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, we feel so thankful, so humbled, so cleansed and freed by the blood and water shed by the Lamb of God. We also learn the model of how we are to live and die so that our presence in this world also gives cleansing, liberating life to others!
Dear Friends, tomorrow I leave on an eight day family vacation, and will not be writing blog posts until I return. Family come first! But know that I pray for all of you every day!