Years ago,
I was in Jerusalem around Palm Sunday and Easter. I will never forget the
atmosphere, the crowds of people following a man on a donkey, waving palm branches.
The nuns, usually so demure and quiet, dancing as in trance in the procession,
going up to Jerusalem. The singing and chanting, the glorious weather. The first
sensation I had when we alighted from the plane in the middle of the night, a
balmy night, was the intoxicating perfume of the orange blossom. It is a fragrance
embedded in my memory, which I will never forget. Although also then a divided
country, it vibrated with life, with enterprise. I had encounters with Jews and
Arabs (they were still called that, not Israeli’s and Palestinians),
enlightening ones and strange ones.
When walking
alone through the Jewish quarter with its neat and well-built houses, I was
invited in by an American woman. She told me that her husband was a Talmud scholar,
and that she was a housewife, as it should be according to her. She was young,
and wondered why I wasn’t married yet? Didn’t I have an older sister? She
should have provided me with a husband, should have looked for one. Why hadn’t
she? As neither she nor her husband had jobs, they were financially supported
by the Jewish community which supported all Talmud students. I was surprised,
as she was an American and I did not expect this attitude from her, a very
conservative Jewish attitude. Not that I objected to being a housewife as a
choice, but not taking a job when a husband can’t have one because he is
studying seemed unusual. I was offered something to eat and drink. She said
that is what was done to “strangers” in this period of the year, invite them into
your home, offer them hospitality and talk to them. I felt honoured, and was
glad I had left the group I travelled with. Those encounters do not happen to
groups of tourists. Her conviction, hospitality and innocence were moving.
Meeting men
was another matter. We stayed in a hotel run by Arabs. The owner asked me out,
which I refused. Then he showed me dirty pictures which were hidden under the
mirror in my room. I got rid of him, and do not know why he entered my room in
the first place. I vaguely remember a broken light bulb. I was shocked, being
rather innocent, and just couldn’t believe this had happened.
When I was
standing watching the joyful entrance into Jerusalem by this long trail of
believers, many dressed in white, I wondered how people could get into a
trance, losing themselves in a communal feeling of joy, expecting that great
things were about to happen. A man on a donkey, with jubilant followers. In
retrospect I can imagine Women Aglow taking part in this. I still feel an
outsider, can’t take part in group hysteria or excitement. For that was what it
almost seemed to me, hysteria. It may be my protestant upbringing, with a
sturdy Calvinist faith, two feet firmly grounded, trained not to show feelings
of ecstasy or joy in public. I am not fit for the Pentecostal life. But in a
way I envied their total abandon to joy, not thinking whether it and they
looked ridiculous, like King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant. And
how easily ecstasy can turn into something very nasty. Cheering and then not long
afterwards shouting Crucify Him. I suppose that it what I am afraid of in large
groups. People lose their identity easily, become influenced by others, their
mood may change from one minute to the next.
Along the
line was a Jewish policeman with the most beautiful eyes, deep, dark pools,
begging me to go out with him that night. He offered me half his kingdom, if I
would come with him. He did not look to have any possessions whatsoever, and
besides I did not fancy a walk with him on the Mount of Olives amongst the
graves after dark, in spite of his pleading eyes, his smooth olive skin and his
black hair. He did find out where I stayed and turned up on the hotel’s
doorstep that evening, to the utmost enmity of the Arab hotel owner, fighting
over a bone which neither could have.
Yes, there
were soldiers everywhere, there were tensions between Arabs and Jews. There were
Christian organisations trying to reconcile Jews and Arabs – they weren’t
called Palestinians and Israelis yet – and in spite of that Jerusalem was a
magic place. Not just because of Golgotha, not just because of the holy
churches, not just because all the Biblical references and places, the Easter
services in churches and in the garden of Gethsemane, but because it is an
amalgam of religious beliefs, a melting pot of cultures, race and ways of life.
Many people claim Jerusalem for themselves, but it is there for all of us.
On Palm
Sunday we think of this entrance into Jerusalem and the people who expected to
be rescued from Roman suppression by this modest man riding a donkey. They did
not know yet the bitterness, fury and disappointment many would feel that same
week. The betrayal and the death of their supposed saviour, who exactly by his
death did become our Saviour. A humble man, consorting with former fishermen
and simple people, not a hero high on a horse, with plumes and feathers like
the Romans. The groups shouted, condemned and cursed Him.
Perhaps,
being in forced isolation for some time, may be helpful to discover what each
one of us personally believes and hopes for, independent of the majority. A
church can only be healthy if each individual member is filled by grace with a
living faith, and compassion for the other members. Like in a real family, that
constitutes a church family.
So, we
rejoice on Palm Sunday remembering Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem, full of
hope. Of course we know that the most joyful day will be Easter. But that is
yet to come. First, we will experience sorrow, grief and darkness. But hope
remains.
No comments:
Post a Comment