A visit from Mom

What a JOY to see my Mom last week. I took a bus to Ma'agan on the southern end of the Sea of Galilee last week Wednesday night. After a joyful reunion, I joined the Radford tour heading back to Jerusalem Thursday and through Bethlehem and a few Jerusalem spots on Friday.

It was interesting to have the "tourist" experience. After 2 months here I still feel mostly like a tourist. I know how to manage the bus system, to negotiate a deal with the taxi driver, and to put on the face that keeps the city shop owners from pleading with me to buy their chinese wares. Yet most places I visit are still new. Nevertheless, our time with our Israelie tour guide, Gideon Shor, was very different that from my weekly field studies with Dr. Wright. It was fascinating to see him explain things, avoiding certain facts for lack of time and adding more insights to understandings that have been growing in my mind over the last weeks.

A highlight of my time with Mom was on Friday morning. We met near the old city and walked to a coffee shop, grabbing coffee just in time to watch the sunrise and the buzzing activity of the Western Wall. After that we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I explained my fascination and love for this "Holy Ground" where political, cultural, and religious controversy meet. From the ladder above the door (that hasn't been moved for years because no one know who has the right to move it) to the Muslim key holder (who unlocks the door to an Orthodox and Catholic premises where people from many faiths make pilgrimage) there is a foundation of tradition intertwined like a beautiful jumbled mess.

We took our time through the place where tradition marks the location of the cross, the place of the preparation of Jesus' body for burial, the different foundations of this millennium-old church, and the empty Sepulcher which marks the resurrection. We stopped there to read the story and I "randomly" chose Johns narrative. It was clearly no accident as I was choked up reading "Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother." I had not before seen the way that John focuses on Mary, the mother of our Lord. I believe tears were in both of our eyes as I finished,

"But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing."