Good Friday

Good Friday, indeed! First off let me start by asking: was it good as in everyone was nice and kind and Christlike to each other? Not quite. Was it good in terms that most turned into crazy people and pushed and shoved others to get what they want? Yes.

Now, this really was a very fun day for me. But I did think it was a little ironic that a day celebrating Christ could turn so many of his followers into mad men. I will explain what I mean throughout this blog.

So, we are usually not allowed to go out into the city on Fridays unless it is between the hours of 3-5. Friday is the Muslim holy day and so things in the city can sometimes be a little intense while they're worshiping, but once they're out then we can go in. But for this day we got special permission from security to go out in a large group with our teachers to walk the Via Dolorosa to commemorate, with other religions, the walk that Christ took this very week thousands of years ago.

There were a ton of people, the city was packed. The police were out in full force and they had a lot of streets blocked off. Good thing we've been living here for three months and know the back streets to get to places. We used this knowledge and skill to avoid crowds and get to where we wanted to be. But anyway, we all met near Lion's gate where the Via Dolorosa started, where Christ was convicted.



It was interesting to see all of the different groups of religions. The BYU students walked with the Franciscan Monks. Almost all of the groups carried crosses. I saw one troubling display of a small group walking with a man painted in blood, wearing a crown of thorns, and carrying a cross. They were carrying speakers and blasting music. But to my surprise, this was the only reenactment that I saw, all of the other groups had crosses and that was mostly it.


Like I have said in a previous post, the Via Dolorosa is the road that Christ walked from where he was convicted to where he was crucified, where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands. Along the way the groups stop and stations that recall what Christ did at that point on the road, such as fall for the first time, cry for his mother, etc. This road was absolutely packed yesterday with tourists all leading into the same place. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher (pictured below).


My little group decided to stand on the side of the road and watch the groups go by. We got interview by a film crew. Here is a picture of my friend Taeler getting interviewed (I tease her and tell her that this picture would be much better if her eyes were open, but I guess it's still an alright picture). We then moved to the roof of the Austrian Hospice to get a better view. But once we realized that most groups were the same and nothing really exciting was happening, we decided to try to get ahead of the processions and get into the Holy Sepulcher before anyone else was there.


Ha Ha. This was a completely failed attempt. Of course the church was filled wall to wall with people with a huge line of tour groups poring out of the doors. We decided that since there was only three of us that we could justify sneaking in, and we did. We got yelled at but we just kept pushing through the crowd. There were three of us and we literally had to hold on to each others backpacks to stay together.



Once we got in we headed straight for the Sepulcher. This is where things were really crazy. People were pushing and shoving to get their way around. I can't say that I was perfect, there was a time when I wanted to put up the old lady in front of me (because I didn't have the heart to run her over) and move her out of my way. There was a line to get into the Sepulcher with hundreds of people standing in it. The police shoved their way through the crowd to form the boundaries of the line. This was insane! I saw police officers and monks alike just shoving people. They would place the metal fence and then just push whoever was in their way with it. People were falling over and falling into each other. I guess you've got to do what you've got to do? We were pretty close to this mob-like scene so we got away into another crowded place before anything big broke out.



Once place that we moved to a woman randomly just started screaming. Kind of scary, I think everyone knows that you don't scream in an extremely crowded building unless something is actually happening. I don't know if she was filled with the Holy Spirit or whatever, but a monk came out and put her in her place. He stormed towards her yelling at her, pushed her over and threw a chair at her. We were also very close to this incident and Corina, Taeler, and I all looked at each other like "did that just happen??"

Since three bickering religions are all in the Holy Sepulcher there was a lot of hostility even between the priests from the different religions. On normal days they pick petty fights, such as "this step belongs to the Greek Orthodox because one of our priests is sweeping it" to priests literally drawing lines between their separate chapels and pushing their boundaries, like Kaitlin and I did when we shared a bed growing up. That's really how it is. I didn't have the privilege to see it, but many students who braved going into the Holy Sepulcher saw some fist fights and other skirmishes go down between the priests. Kind of silly. But anyway, I think you get the gist of the hostility and violence that was going down in the Holy Sepulcher, the holiest place in all Christianity, on Good Friday.

Now, we're not stupid. We knew that a group of three girls could get to places where normally people couldn't get to. And we used this knowledge to our advantage. We met a priest named Father Samuel who we became friends with. We asked him if he would let us up on the balcony of the church (which is gated off from the rest of the church) and he told that the priests were having a service in a chapel on the balcony but if we came back in twenty minutes he would let us up. By twenty minutes we didn't know if he meant "twenty minutes and I'll be here to help you" or "twenty minutes and I will actually be gone from this place" cause when we fought our way back Father Samuel was no where to be found. But we threw his name around a bit and finally a priest reluctantly let us up.

While we climbed up the stairs we were literally pushing our way through the group of priests that were just let out of their service. It was so cool. They surrounded us. We got to the top and pushed our limits a little bit by trying to go further before getting chased down by the priest that let us up. He was not very happy with us at all. But we got to stay up in the balcony for a good ten minutes where were could look down on the unfolding madness around the sepulcher below us. It also gave me a chance to get some good pictures of the worshiping crowds.



After we were tired of the madness of the Holy Sepulcher we decided to go to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and see what was happening for Passover. We didn't see much, other than all of the bagel/pizza shops had been changed to ice cream shops, since during passover the Jewish people must eat unleavened bread. The grocery stores in Israel have complete sections of food blocked off that are off limits to buy during this time. Just a side note, but because of this we haven't had fresh bread where we eat in the Oasis for quite some time. It is all stale and hard. I am ready for some good bread again!

Since not a lot was going down we decided to go back to the center to have a free dinner and to rest before it was time to head down as a group, once again accompanied by our teachers, to the Old City. But this time we were going to the Western Wall to welcome in Shabbat (Sabbath) with the Jews. We did this early in the semester. The time before was much more exciting because there was a group of soldiers there who were quite rambunctious in their Shabbat celebrations. Very entertaining. But on this day it was relatively quiet, which was fine; it was nice to get away from the chaos of crowds. Here are some pictures at the Western Wall that I took before the Sabbath police told me to put away my camera (pushing buttons requires work and is therefore breaking the Sabbath):





After the Western Wall some people went to Christ's funeral procession at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher but I felt like I had had enough of that place so I came home. They had a good time and did some pretty cool things, but as for me I enjoyed coming home and taking it easy, recovering from an insane, chaotic, but wonderful day.