Once Upon a Layover in Jerusalem
*Names have been changed to protect the sacred trusts of riverboat and airport acquaintance.
What had me wandering to Jerusalem?
My Summer holiday pans to Indonesia were called off when my company called me home to the US. Something about new Visa regulations in China… paperwork…. technicalities… blah blah blah. Anyway, I was summoned.
I took my travel stipend (which afforded round trip from China to New York), and I used it instead to book the least convenient, least comfortable, but CHEAPEST string of flights, adding weeks of travel and 4 “bonus cities” to my journey home. After a quick touch down in Shenzhen, my first long layover landed me in Tel Aviv, Israel.
A Multitude of Advisors:
The night before I travelled to Tel Aviv, two unexpected advisors boarded my small ship. They were residents of the city of Jerusalem.
Jokesters, scholars and theologians all at once, Liam and Talia were faithful Jews, keeping Kosher (or going hungry!) as they backpacked their way through China. As heirs of a rich faith heritage, they kept their lamps warmly and brightly lit.
Hearing that I would be flying blind into their country within the next hours, they were swift to offer guidance. They exhorted me, even with just ten hours on the ground, to break off the beaten path of Tel Aviv, and make my way to Jerusalem.
“Well, wait….” Liam stopped himself before getting too deep into his colossal vision for my ten hours, ”First tell me, what is it that you’re looking to find in Israel?”
“Just the usual”, I told them: “A fluffy carb to eat, a bench to sit on, and a passing stranger to sit with me, and discuss the deep things of life.”
Talia smiled, and Liam’s eyes twinkled in understanding. “Jerusalem is exactly that kind of place.”
So began my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. From my ship, I hopped a ferry to the opposite bank of the Yangtze, and there, boarded another ship heading upriver to Chongqing. From Chongqing, I flew to Shenzhen, where the waiting area at the gate bound for Tel Aviv became my living research library.
A pack of glamourous Israeli’s counseled me to choose the livelier vibes of the big city: “You must go to Tel Aviiiiv!! BEAUTIFUL people, Amazing parties! Don't go to Jerusalem, the traffic is impossible, you don’t have time.”
Carl, an Israeli traveling abroad to China on business, and Lin, his translator and guide were making jokes at the bag check when I laughed my way into their conversation. They set a course for me by train, to the Jaffa Gate and the Old City.
An Australian exPat to South Africa, called Toby joined our conversation in the slow moving security line, and we talked about all the roads we’ve traveled, living ever as strangers and pilgrims. We hashed over the recent drama between Huawei and Google, and lamented the disappearance of personal privacy in the age of Big Data. No matter where we wandered on this Earth, someone could always track our steps. There was no “going off the grid” anymore.
“Google already knows every time you sneeze” Toby complained. “In five years they'll know everything you do. No one will get away with anything.”
I shrugged, having resigned to that reality long ago. “But we are accountable for what we do. Whether it's God who sees our every move, or Google, what’s the difference?”
Carl laughed. “God will definitely see you in Israel.”
I smiled back. “I'm counting on it.”
Local Color: My favorite scenes from the streets
The high speed train from Ben Gurion Airport took me to Jerusalem so quickly that I had to be convinced to get off the train at the destination stop.
As escalator stairs lifted me out of the station to the street, I blinked as bright sunlight and the assuring notes of a familiar song kissed my cheeks. It was the melody, “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. I looked further and found its source: a man playing a piano in the square.
“All, I have needed , thy hand hath provided….”
I boarded a street car, with the help of an attendant who recognized my uncertain expression: the look of a foreigner. Inside the car, a great array of women were making their way across the city. Every head was adorned with silk, linen or light wool-- scarves of quiet, plain colors, or bright patterns, rich textures. Women young and old wore loose linen, and fine sandals, some showing off painted toes, but just as many, flaunting bare ones. Babies were toted in carriages. Plastic coffee cups, printed with Hebrew letters were cradled in hands. Lady soldiers of the Israeli Army sat poised and attentive, the beauty of their mascaraed eyes and rosy cheeks in striking contrast to the muted colors of their uniforms. I read strength and pride on every face.
A young man pointed me in the direction of the Old City, and I stepped off the tram and into the dry desert heat again. A few blocks down the hill, I crossed the threshold of the Jaffa Gate. A group of tourists ahead of me was taking photos of ancient buildings just before an alley leading to the Christian Quarter. I paused my steps, waiting to let them capture the undisturbed scene. Seeing what I was doing, their tour guide waved me ahead.
“Go. You are part of the scenery.”
Co-Laborers at Work:
Without a guide, without a map, I tore clumsily through the city, trying to cover as much ground as possible in a few hours. I set an alarm, and made a covenant with myself to turn back towards the airport the moment it rang.
At high noon, I found the fluffy carb I was looking for. Elongated loops of doughy bread, blanketed in sesame seeds nearly overflowed off of a vendor’s cart.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, hurrying over to the vendor, with the mad enthusiasm of a New Yorker away from home too long.
“Is this like a BAGEL?!”
In the best fake, dramatic outrage, he scoffed at me. “No, It’s not LIKE a bagel….”
It was a “Jerusalem bagel”, and grazing bites from its chewy, slightly sweet grain satisfied me from afternoon till evening. The vendor sent me on my way with a bag of Za’ater (a green spice powder made from thyme, oregano, marjoram, sumac, salt and sesame), and the cozy feeling of being “home”.
…..
A long, narrow street of merchants formed the obligatory passageway to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: I was called, and “Hello”d and “Miss”d at every shop.
After a couple blocks of borderline harassment, one vendor caught my frazzled eyes and said, almost apologetically,
“Is it our turn to show you our wares now?”
Another said, "I recognize you, we met last night!" And I said, "No, But I've just arrived today."
When I came back that way an hour later, I greeted him, “Hello, my friend.”, and he said, “Wait, I want to talk to you.”, but I pressed on saying, “I don’t have time.”
He said, “I have time, I will give you some time.”
Wanderers, Seekers and Worshippers:
When I came to the place marked “The Upper Room”, I imagined what it would have been like if I had been invited to the Last Supper, or to a meeting of the first Christian Church in the days that followed the Pentecost. I would show up just like this, as my disheveled, blown-in-by-the-wind self. I would be welcomed, alongside Joanna, Susanna, Salome, and Mary Magdalene. Come as you are, let’s break bread.
I walked up the stairs to that Upper Room, and tried the door. Locked. But minutes later, down in the courtyard, I saw a tour leader, key in hand, bringing his group in. I hung on their coattails, and tiptoed inside.
The visitors settled in as their guide offered commentary in Russian. I was happy to see girls resting on the concrete floor, a quiet moment in the cool, dim room. Perched on a windowsill on the far side of the room was a row of schoolboys, leaning on each other’s shoulders. I thought of the Apostle John, the beloved one, leaning on the Teacher’s arm at the dinner table, just that way. The room served us now as it had from the first, a place of sacred Hospitality.
Following another group of tourists into the famed church, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I heard this advice:
“When we go into this church, if someone in the crowd pushes you, push them back! And if you turn around and see that it’s a little old lady, push her harder!”
This is supposedly the place where Christ was crucified in ~31 AD, and three hundred years after that, someone with wealth and zeal decided they ought to build a massive church over the site on that holy hill. The church has been destroyed, rebuilt, expanded and endlessly squabbled over, and what stands today is considered to be the joint possession of a few divided Christian denominations.
The church was packed to the brim, and the crowds moved slowly, step by step past the heavily decorated altars and shrines. This was the place where the Savior had been prosecuted like a criminal, and debased like something less than human. This was the site of the most astonishing meekness: a King, willingly stripped of power, possessions, dignity... and then even the poor man’s clothes he wore. And now here in that same place was a building that man had made, and tried to varnish glory onto, bedazzling and glittering ever surface like a Barbie Dream House.
After a few minutes taking in the ascetic, I found the words for my confused emotions.
“It's sparklier than I imagined.” I mused to two wanderers next to me.
Our eyes spoke of irony for a moment, and then they replied in unison: “Yeah.”
We resumed our silent procession.
People were lined up to bow down and kiss the rock of Golgotha beneath the shimmering likeness of the Lord. But since I’ve never known my Jesus to be overly concerned with show and ceremony, I walked past them, into the next section of the church.
Stepping out of that glittery room, there was a dark hallway, lit by a few candles. People were on their knees on the stone floor. There wasn't a designated place for that— you might have even said that they were in the way- blocking the flow of traffic. But they found a space to bow down low. They sat down to pray, knelt down to pray. Their voices were silent, but the cries of their hearts nearly echoed. “We aren’t worthy, Yahweh. But we long to be in your presence.”
These pilgrims from faraway lands sought and adored their God in this bare place, surrounded by stone walls and candlelight. On a long bench in the corner of the hall sat a row of old, Italian women. They chanted prayer together in unison, and Italian voices filled that little room.
Continuing on, there were empty halls, places with no lights, no crowds. Wandering into another section, I saw seekers crouching down, nearly crawling into a small room, with an even smaller door.
And there was quiet for a moment, and then from within that crawl space, there were voices singing. They sang in their own language, though the cavern muffled the sound so that I couldn’t distinguish it. But God can. And they sang for no one else but Him. And as I wandered on, I heard visitors speaking in Russian, French, Hebrew, German, Italian, Arabic, and English, in its many accents.
And I prayed, “How true it is, Jesus, that you said, You would be raised up and draw all people to yourself. And so you still do. Let all who seek you, find you.”
Daily Bread:
I asked a woman at currency exchange to set my budget for the day. She was a frugal person, and she said 100 Shekels would probably do. I fought my every desire to take out 150, or 200, and obeyed her counsel.
100 shackles, or $29 USD purchased the following items for me:
High speed Train, round trip: 36 Shekels
Tram, round trip: 12 Shekels
1 Bagel and 1 falafel: 14 Shekels
Fridge Magnet (a gift for my coworker): 15 Shekels
Tuna sandwich from an airport vending machine: 18.5 Shekels
That left 4 Shekels unspent, which I reserved as a gift for a colleague’s coin-collecting friend.
Extravagant Hospitality Received:
Jerusalem was blanketed in a thick, dry heat on this late July day. I was thirsty, but could afford no water or drink if I was to keep to my ordained budget. On the trail of a string of signs, supposedly leading to a water fountain, I walked down 3 flights of stairs in a bazaar-like bus station, then took a rickety elevator to an underground parking garage. But where the signs ended, the water fountain stood in disrepair.
I traveled back up five levels and hit the streets once again, a beggar in the Holy City. I asked a man at a coffee shop to fill my water, and he told me he couldn’t, but pointed me to the faucets of the bathroom sink. I drank this water gladly.
Later, in a train station, a security guard saw me looking for a place to fill my cup again, and took pity on me. He brought me to the security office, across the train station, and filled my bottle for me from the cold water cooler.
There’s a Bible verse that I used to think was so overdramatic on the part of Jesus:
“And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” Matthew 10:42
But when that strong man took my pink cup in his big hands, and patiently filled it, a slow drip to the brim, he was like Rebecca at the well to me, and I knew what Jesus meant. A stranger noticed my thirst, noticed my need, and he made it his problem to meet it. It’s not a small thing.
And Bless the Lord who desires that we refresh each other in this way.
When I reported back by WeChat to Liam and Talia, all that I had found, they told me, “Not bad for a hit-and-run”.
And they told me, the next time that I find the occasion to visit Israel, I can call them up. Stay in their house. Celebrate Shabbat with them.
And Oh, how I hope to.
Reflections on a Hit-and-Run Pilgrimage :
Without a proper guide, without a map, and with barely a few hours on the ground, I know quite well that I didn’t “do Jerusalem” “right”.
I had no idea at any point of what I was looking at, or of the significance or the history or the legend. And when I came home later, and researched what can be known about each revered site, I realized that the place called the Upper Room, is in fact, a renovated version of the place “held by tradition” to have been the Upper Room.
From belated research, and given, without being a theologian, or archeologist, or anthropologist or historian, I have drawn the conclusion that it was more likely not that place. In the same way, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the lore surrounding its establishment seemed to me even more ill-fitting than the glittering gold and gemstones hewn in the church’s walls.
But all that said, the exact coordinates of where these paradigm-altering events took place has never been my concern.
And I look to the words of Jesus, concerning place, when a foreign woman, a seeker, asked him where she must worship, in order to worship “correctly”.
The woman said to Him,
“Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4:19-24
I knew God’s heart for the seekers of the world. They would never need to travel as far as Israel to meet with him.
And yet I praised his name for all the lamps that burned in Israel to light their way.
However strangely lit, however ornately decorated, or however simply…. And even (regrettably!) however many denominations still bicker like children over who should get to replenish the oil, or hold the lights highest.
The name of God- Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai- is held up here like nowhere else. Hallelujah. His love over Israel waves like a banner even now.
I left Jerusalem with one pang of regret hanging over me: I hadn’t stopped for the boy who asked me to stop and talk with him. The one who had offered to ‘give me time’.
I thought I didn’t have it, and I’d raced back to the airport in a frenzy…. only to sit and wait at the gate for 5 hours.
“Wait, I want to talk to you.“ …..
…... “I have time, I will give you some time.”
In that boy’s words, ringing in my ears, I heard the echo of the invitation of God.
I heard his mercy, and patience in keeping his arms outstretched wide, longing to gather his ever-wandering, ever frantically racing people in.
Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day.
God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost.
He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
2 Peter 3:8-9, (The Message version)
I’m sure I’ll see that boy’s pleading eyes in my memory, every time I come close to missing another chance to slow down, and lean in to what God’s inviting me to.
And Seeker, I hope you’ll know, those words are for you too.
Wait, I want to talk to you.
No need to travel to this mountain, or to Jerusalem. Just bring your humblest spirit, and your most honest plea. He will meet you where you are.
And he will make us— the wanderers from every beloved nation— into that kind of worshipper that he seeks. Thousands of languages, and billions of unique winding paths, being gently pulled towards the Father, finding The Way that is Jesus. Until at last, every seeker is found in his presence, worshipping joyfully in spirit and in truth.
So for all the erratic steps I took, trying to find my way around the Holy City, in a hit-and-run afternoon, if I could do it again, with a full week, or a full year,
I’d do it the same.
Not in search of God, for he is with me wherever I go. And not in search of time, because I’m convinced, there is enough.
But in search of bagels, and benches.
