Identikit Jesus

I reached Nazareth today, which took a while. Although Nazareth is an Israeli Arab town bus connections with Israeli Jewish towns are poor. That did give me a couple of hours at a town called Afula though. The best thing about Afula? The bus station, because that's how you leave the town. To be honest, I think many of the locals would agree.

Nazareth, Nazareth, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Well, there's certainly many good things in Nazareth, including some fantastic restaurants and cafes, of which I intend to sample as many as possible. All in the interests of people watching and adsorbing the culture, you understand.

Spending time in Israel changes you. Despite the historically dubious nature of some of the sites and the commercialisation of many, you are aware that you are in a deeply historical place, the context for many great human stories. When I visited Israel the last time it provoked, challenged and changed my faith. As it should do, I guess.




One experience spoke to me more than any other though, and I'd like to write about that today. In Nazareth can be found the Basilica of the Annunciation, the place (sorry, one of the places) where Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to God's child. According to the guide book, "Architect Giovani Muzio was told to create something modern, multinational and mysterious.". Well, two out of three isn't so bad. The remains of ancient churches and buildings from the time of Jesus do their best to promote the mysterious but loose the fight in the face of many tons of prestressed concrete. Sadly, the Basilica did little for my faith.

What did challenge and provoke me however was the courtyard around the Basilica. It too is very modern, but it is decorated with pictures donated by different national Roman Catholic groups from around the world. I've copied in those from Romania, Korea and Thailand but there are many more. Each picture is of exactly the same subject; Mary and the infant Jesus. What was striking, and what stopped me in my tracks, was the styles of the pictures. Mary and Jesus are not depicted as Middle Eastern Jews nor as Anglo Saxons (which we, of course, know that they were), but as people of the culture that provided each picture. So there is a Welsh Mary and Jesus, a Japanese Mary and Jesus, an Egyptian Mary and Jesus, and so on.

God bless Cecil B deMile, but Jesus was not a white Northern European (nor was the Roman Centurion at the cross John Wayne, one of the worst miscasts of all time surely). But in another sense Jesus was not simply a Middle Eastern Jew either. Certainly he was genetically and culturally, but as God incarnate he was for all people in all places at all times. Which means that no culture can own Jesus, including my own. Neither, I would like to add, can any institution.

Some of the worst excesses of the Christian Church have come out of an attitude that we have the exclusive on God. We don't. God may be at work through his Church in an exclusive way, but that's different. Jesus may be God at work in an exclusive way, but that too is different. The Church sometimes behaves as if it is the only mediator between humanity and God when it isn't. That role belongs to another. To use a mathematical analogy: Christians, such as myself, have often behaved as if God is a subset of the Church, when we should behave as if the Church is a subset of all that God is.

So, what did my first visit to the Basilica of the Anunciation do for me? It showed me that my God was too small. My God is still too small I shouldn't doubt. That will probably be the case for the rest of my life. But maybe the task of the pilgrim journey is to allow our understanding of God to grow, to grow and take us where it will. That should be fun!



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...and a few more

The minefield where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist - Kasar El-Yahud.



Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In reality this is a complex of buildings with various parts owned by different traditions, Latin and Eastern. This bit is Greek Orthodox, which is why it is well maintained. The actual sepulchre where Christ was laced is held up with iron beams, courtesy of the Royal Navy.



In Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity is basically unchanged since Byzantine times. It retains the simple basilica design that all cathedrals were once built to, based on the architecture of a Roman law court.



The Basilica once had a grand main door, built by the Byzantines. By the time the Crusaders turned up life was more dangerous, so they built an arched door, low enough to prevent cavalry riding in. Later, when times were even more dangerous the monks built a low stone door that only one person can enter at a time, stooping. And I thought keeping the church going in the 21st century was difficult!


I have no idea who these people are but they evidently do. One of many processions you see daily in Jerusalem, just a bit posher than most.



It's sometimes tempting to write off the whole religious thing here as one great big tourist con: There are so many people, and so many people asking for money. But I guess that's no different from St Paul's or Westminster Abbey (actually, they charge a lot to get in, and the churches here don't). What I have noticed, having time to loiter and observe a little more closely, is the huge amount of pastoral care going on.



Pilgrim marks left over the years at the Holy Sepulchre. Banksy has also left his mark on the so called "Peace Wall", though I didn't get to see that.



The Garden of Gethsemane. There are some beautiful places around here to sit amongst olive trees and reflect. This isn't one of them. However, the grove here does contain trees over two-thousand years old. I wonder what they were witness to...



Finally, you can't escape them! This is Christchurch, the Anglican Church in the Old City, holding their spring fair. There's fish & chips, a raffle, tea and cakes and pictures of the Queen and bunting. I think the last bit was a bit tongue in cheek. The multi-national congregation holds services in Arabic, Hebrew, English and several other languages, and has early a huge amount of respect across the communities for their local involvement and service.


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Just a few holiday snaps

It's Sunday and I'll be joining the good folk at St George's for their morning serviced shortly. So todays blog is simply a selection of photos, now that I have figured out how to post more than one picture at a time.




The Roman aquaduct at Ceaserea carried water from the mountains to the city for many centuries. The yellow stone glows as the sun sets over the sea. This is where I worked twenty-six years ago.




The detritus of the many conflicts still litters the landscape, much now serving as memorials to those who fell capturing one dusty lump of rock or another. When I worked in Israel last time I fashioned my sampling equipment out of spare bits or rocket launcher left lying around.




Rock cut steps lead up the side of this steep wadi in the desert. Monks used to live in caves at the top.




The harsh salt landscape by the Dead Sea.




Camels! Had to get a shot with camels. These belong to local Bedouin who still roam the wilderness much as they have done for thousands of years. Modern minefields do cause them some difficulties.




Ibex, saved from extinction over recent decades. This is a young male with only short horns.




Rock Hyrax, otherwise known as Rock Badgers, otherwise called Conies. These cat sized creatures cannot regulate their body temperature, unlike most mammals, and so have to lounge in the sun to get going at the start of the day. In this country we call them teenagers.




More Hyrax, cos they're cute. These are two young. They tend to keep together in family groups of up to thirty. I saw nine at one time.
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In the beginnings

What's your creation story? Surely I mean, what is the creation story. But no, I don't. I believe we all have a creation story, Christian or not, people of faith or not. I believe Atheists have creations stories, and I'm not talking about evolution verses creationism here. Just for the record, and allowing for quibbling about a few details, I believe in evolution as the best scientific explanation as to how I happen to be here. But I still have a creation story, and I find it in the pages of the Bible.

The Bible begins with a creation story (Genesis 1:1 - 2:3). This is immediately followed by,.... a creation story (Genesis 2:4 - 3:24). We know these are two stories because the second backtracks on the first, has different elements and places common ones in a different order, and, uses a different Hebrew vocabulary. This in itself poses a problem for anyone who blandly states they believe in the Biblical creation story: they may well do, but which one.

The origins of these stories are lost in the midst of time, but they share much in common with other ancient creation stories in that they use the device of how the world was created to tell the story of why the world is as it is. What's important is that when the leaders of Israel were taken into exile in Babylon and started to formalise the recorded story of their people and their faith they chose to begin their retelling with these two stories. Their Babylonian captors had creation tales of their own, telling of war between gods and the creation of the world from the carcass of a dead god. In their tale humanity is created to be the mere slaves of the gods, and has no value beyond this. That may be a pretty dismal tale but it would have shaped how the everyday Babylonian lived their lives, how they understood themselves, and others, and how they took meaning from their daily grind. It's probably how most of us view things on a bad day.

Now, read the Jewish creation stories in contrast to the story of their hosts. Does it read differently? Here all that there is comes about through creativity and imagination, and not destruction and death. Humanity is the pinnacle of that creation and is invited by the creator to share in a stewardship role alongside the creator. The creator and the creation walk and share together. This world view is presented as how things are meant to be. But as we all know it's not like that, and so we have to encounter a story of a broken relationship and a parting of the ways. The remainder of the Bible simply spells out the implications of this parting and tells of the many attempts at reconciliation; a reconciliation that proves impossible until the creator intervenes personally.

So what is your creation story? We all have one. It's not the one you might feel inclined to lean towards on a particularly bad day, nor on an especially good day for that matter. It's how you would understand the way of the world and your place in it most of the time. Maybe, like the Babylonian story, it is closed. Or maybe, like the Judeo-Christian story it is open; it is aspirational yet recognises the flaws of our world, yet hold on for a better outcome. So what is your story, and to what does it owe it's inspiration, because that may be where you need to explore further.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe everything was created in seven actual days, but frankly that seems so small, so unimaginative, so feeble. Personally, I think God is much bigger than that. To take everything in the Bible as literal scientific fact takes no faith, simply a mechanical world view. I think everything in the Bible is true. I just don't know what a lot of it means.

ps. The photo at the top of this page is of the Dome of the Rock, One of Islam's holiest sites. This is where, according to different traditions, Mohammed ascended to heaven, Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac, the Holy of Holies in the old Jewish Temple stood, and, is the centre of the world where Adam and Eve were created. Considering the number of different holy sites in this country that demonstrates an incredible economy of scale to my mind. It is also where is will all end apparently! I think that just about covers it.
I like this image because of all those satellite dishes pointing to the heavens (or at least to a satellite offering a bewildering array of channels in a variety of languages, and comprising (from a short and confusing flick through some of the 1000+ TV stations available at the hostel) 45% religious nutters, 45% porn, and maybe 10% news and drama (in Polish)). Should this change my creation story? No, I think it merely confirms it...


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Growing pain

Luke 2:46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.


What do you imagine Jesus was like as a kid? If you remember back to your class, say towards the end of primary school or maybe the early days at your secondary school, what was that class like? Can you remember many names? Who were the characters, and why? There's the one who always got in trouble, and deserved it, and the one who always got in trouble and didn't. There was the one no-one liked, though for no objective reason. They were like the scape-goat, who carried the blames and anxieties of everyone else. There were the bright ones who wished they were one of the popular ones, and the popular ones who,.. well, who liked being popular, but maybe weren't bright enough to realise how fickle popularity can be. And there was you. Where did you fit? Did you fit?

So, if one of your classmates was going to grow up to be the saviour of the world, which one would it be? Or to put it another way; what was Jesus like as a kid?

Islam also has an important place for Jesus. In their story of his nativity they have him talking words of prophecy and wisdom even whilst in the crib! This echos a Moslem view of the Koran as complete and without variation; the complete package that cannot be changed; God made, not manmade. So their Jesus arrives in this world with all the wisdom and knowledge of the adult prophet. For me, that's probably the greatest difficulty Islam faces as it rubs up against modernity: Its theology of revelation has left it with precious little room for manoeuvre.

I have a sneaking suspicion that more than a handful of Christians have a rather Islamic understanding of Jesus. It's reflected in a lot of religious art and statuary. There's Jesus, physically a child yet displaying adult behaviour and understanding. Now, if the art depicts Jesus this way to suggest the man this child would grow into, his as yet unrealised potential, then I have no problem I guess. But if the art intends to deny to Jesus the ability to be a child and to be childish (nothing wrong with a child being childish, it's with adults that problems arise) then, for me at least, it undermines the validity of the incarnation. What I mean is that God doesn't become human just to twiddle his thumbs for thirty years and then die in a salvic blaze of glory, but becomes human to raise humanity to what it was supposed to be through the simple and ordinary act of being human.

(As a footnote: I have visited many chapels and shrines in my week in Jerusalem, each dedicated to a specific part of Jesus' story, some central, some rather more marginal in significance. I can't find anywhere that commemorates him going to the toilet or picking his nose, but I'm sure there would be a spot in the market for it. I'm just struggling to imagine the religious tat the nearby stalls would sell.)

I began this blog entry with a quotation from the Bible and a photo that provoked today's entry. I was wandering around the Wailing Wall last night just before Shabbat and saw this scene. A Rabbi takes time from his personal devotions to instruct the children in the traditions and meaning of their faith. The children are like children everywhere; one studies studiously, separate from his classmates, one gazes into the distance - distracted or contemplating, I know not which - one appears to be asleep. They could be my classmates from all those years ago. Which one could be Jesus?

When Joseph and Mary found Jesus with the teachers in the Temple it would have been a scene not too far different from this. A little group huddled together to learn. They find that he is impressing the teachers with his questions and understanding. We've often read this in a Koranic sense, that Jesus has adult, or even greater than adult, understanding. But all that the language of that scripture stretches to is that Jesus was impressive for a child his age, and the teachers, like teachers everywhere, we're responding positively to a bright child who wanted to learn. I wonder if Jesus ever sat in Torah class wishing he was less insightful are simply more popular?

As the story continues: Luke 2:52 And as Jesus grew up, he increased in wisdom and in favour with God and people.





Second footnote: Photography is my hobby, but it's also a way of seeing. Sure, most of my photos are no more than holiday snaps, but I do try at times to go a little further than that. A website I have found inspirational is www.luminous-landscape.com . It contains lots of helpful tips and nerdy stuff, but it's the home page I like best. It holds one picture and a quote. The picture changes every few days but the quote remains the same, and I would like to share it with you because I believe it contains a worthwhile world view: "Stare, it is the way to educate your eyes. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." Walker Evans.

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Jesus was born again

Jesus was born again. I know that for a fact because yesterday I visited Bethlehem and went to the Church of the Nativity where the place where he was born is clearly marked. I then went to the Church next door and visited the place where Jesus was born. Now, I shall admit my limitations and say that I don't know which one he was born in, if either. What I do know is that he was born, and through faith I believe that his birth changed our world for ever.

This morning I visited a church outside the old city here in Jerusalem where it is said Jesus ascended to heaven. I then visited a mosque where he also ascended (Remember, Jesus is regarded as an important prophet in Islam). There they do actually have some evidence to back up their claim. In the stone bedrock that provides the floor, are two footprints. Except there aren't, as centuries of pilgrims rubbing their hands over the stone (and nicking bits - pilgrims aren't supposed to do this, but have a really bad habit of taking souvenirs) has worn them away to one slight depression. I can only assume Jesus generated the force needed to cause these depressions in the rocks by attempting to ascend from the first spot, failing to achieve escape velocity (the speed a rocket needs to escape earths gravitational field), and landing with the considerable force needed to leave these marks before trying again,.... and landing at the site of the second Church of the Ascension,.... third time lucky! I'm not bothered by not knowing the precise spot of lift-off or even the exact nature of the event described by Luke. The story is significant for my faith in other ways, as it clearly was for Luke who used it to close his Gospel and open his Acts of the Apostles, the story of the beginnings of the Christian Church.

Right now I am sitting in the shade at the Garden Tomb, otherwise known as Gordon's Calvary, where General Gordon discovered a skull shaped hill and authentic tombs that closely matched the description given in the Bible. This isn't where Jesus died, neither is it where he was buried. For once we can be pretty certain that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is in the right spot.


So, does it all matter. Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure. He was a highly popular religious teacher who was described as a miracle worker, and who aroused the emnity of the religious professionals of his day. He was arrested and executed and buried. Soon after, in complete contrast to all of the other religious rabble rousers of his day (and there were a few), his disciples did not dissipate never to be heard of again, but claimed that he had come back to life. Despite persecutions they continued in their claims, and the rest is history. Actually, all that paragraph is history. The rest is actually faith.

There must be many places where Jesus walked, where he taught, where he demonstrated through action this "kingdom" he proclaimed. I might be standing on such a spot right now. Certainly, as a human being, there is a spot where he was born, where he died and where he was buried, and given the profusion of holy sites around here there is a good chance there is a shrine on each one of them. But they can't all be right, certainly not when there's more that one for a certain aspect of his life or ministry.

But none of this matters. Well actually that's not quite true. If being certain we know the precise point where such a thing associated with the life of Jesus actually took place matters to me, then yes it matters. It matters because I am completely missing the point. The point is not the actual place and whether it is in a church or a mosque or on top of a hillside. The point is that these shrines and holy places should be representational; that something like what we understood happened in a place such as this. This is actually the belief of many of the monks and nuns who work here. They're not bothered by historical precision, but rather by how their place plays its part in the pilgrim journey of those who visit. As one site put on a notice by the door; "If you come as a tourist we welcome you and pray you will leave as a pilgrim. If you come as a pilgrim we welcome you and pray for you on your journey to the cross."




Jesus instructed his disciples to travel light (Mark 6:8). So must we who follow him today. So yes, visit the holy sites. Take from them the lessons that can be learnt. And then move on. Believe me, faith weighs a good deal less that the religious tat on offer around here, and it's free.

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Be a brick, just not in the wall.

Which photo? So many to choose, but which one to use? Should it be the one of the stacks of riot shields stored ready at the entrance to the El Asqua Mosque in Jerusalem, or how about that close up of the shiny new razor wire protecting a Jewish family recently moved into a house in the Moslem Quarter. I would have used the photo of the bored eighteen year old who got us all off the bus from Bethlehem to check our passports and identity cards, but I didn't take that photo. The idea of being hauled away and searched didn't appeal. So I offer you a rather uncreative but "to the point" picture of the security wall separating Jewish and Palestinian communities in Palestine.

The appearance of this wall, and it's effect on the daily lives of thousands of people has been one of the greatest changes in the time since my last visit to Israel. When I last came here the difference in standard of living between Jewish and Palestinian communities was noticeable, but was not too great. Now the difference is vast and readily apparent. It is like the difference between two adjacent gardens; one with verdant growth and lush lawns, where careful nurture and investment has paid off; the other, over the fence, neglected and weed grown, it's owner no longer having the ability to care for it.

Palestinians will correctly point out the many injustices of its creation: the olive groves that have been destroyed, the workers cut off from their work, the humiliation of their women and their elderly at the hands of adolescent lads with assault rifles. The Jews will, also correctly, point to the significant reduction in violence since its creation.

I don't have an answer to the Israel/Palestine problem, and if I did it would take a book and not a blog to even summarise, but I believe that as with all similar situations, it begins with a story, or possibly stories: Maybe it begins with the story of Ishmael and Isaac (Genesis 17) a story where the ancestral line of Jew and Arab divide and God's blessing goes only with one (which one depends on whose story you read). Maybe in includes the challenge presented to Mohammed by minor local kingdoms converting to Judaism in the faced of his new nascent philosophy, or his later destruction of a Jewish community that had tried to resist him. Maybe we should also recall the artless politicking of the Crusader period, or the only slightly less shoddy diplomacy that established the British Mandate following the Ottoman collapse. And, of course, we can't ignore the holocaust and the rise of Arab nationalism. Added to that are the many terrorist/legitimate-responses of the past few years. There are many stories that go to make up the current situation, and they will not be easily untangled.

I reluctantly conclude that a dividing barrier is maybe the right thing for now. As in Northern Ireland communities in conflict sometimes need to be kept apart so that they can experience the results of a lack of conflict. That is peace keeping. But it is not peace making. Peace making is far harder. That, I suspect, will require the Jews to get over their sense of guilt about their powerlessness around the holocaust and the Palestinians to lower the shield of pride which prevents compromise. Maybe someone should book the entire nation in for a series of meeting with Relate, the marriage guidance people.

We are enjoined to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122). That will only come through peace for all her people, Jew, Palestinian, and all who come to wonder at her story and who see her in her pain. Remember how Jesus summed up the Law? "Love the Lord your God", and "love your neighbour as yourself", Luke 10:27. An attempted solution that ignores these rules cannot hope to succeed.


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