Easter and Purim

Easter began in Jerusalem with bells ringing at 5:30 a.m. I had slept through three Muslim calls to prayer, which come between 4 and 5, but not through the tolling of the great bell in the tower of the German Lutheran Church on Mount Scopus. It rang steadily for 10 minutes, as a higher pitched bell provided a rousing counterpoint. Loud it was, on this glorious Easter morn.

I learned later in the day that the bells were part of a sunrise service I would have attended, had I read more attentively the lengthy list of services for the day. So, instead of a beautiful sunrise service, my day began with a run around the campus of Hebrew University, which normally on a Sunday morning would have guards in place at its several gates, and buses and cars bringing students for classes. But Jews have been celebrating Purim this weekend, and not a soul was to be seen on the campus.

After a light breakfast, I walked down the hill into the Kidron Valley, and then up to the Old City. I entered through the Damascus Gate, followed the Suq Khan ez-Zeit south, as men were opening their market stalls, and women were laying out the vegetables they had harvested even earlier and carried on their heads into the Old City. I turned west on El-Khanqa, and as I entered the Christian Quarter I found that all the shops were closed for the day, and there were no women sitting against the walls with their produce. After walking south again above the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I finally entered the Church courtyard from St. Helena Street.

Before I describe my Easter day in the Old City, I want to tell you about the services I attended leading up to Easter, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. On Thursday evening I went to a service at the Armenian-Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate. (In Byzantine churches an exarch is between a patriarch and a bishop, and an exarchate is like a diocese.) The service was in Armenian, but contained Catholic elements that were both pre-Vatican II and contemporary. For instance, the priest went up to an altar facing away from the congregation, and a curtain was pulled briefly to conceal him (a common practice in Orthodox services). But then he came down from the altar and faced the congregation behind a table, as in contemporary Catholic worship.

The Armenian-Catholic Church was a bit run-down, and the walls were painted a pale yellow color that added to its dingy appearance. Yet, brilliant light from the late afternoon sun found its way into the church and illumined the priest as well as the men and boys attending him. This light also allowed me to take photos during the service without disturbing anyone with a flash. Attendance was sparse, but those who were there seemed to be engaged by the rituals. I particularly enjoyed the chanting of the elderly man, who also played the organ.

After I left the Armenian Church, I went to St. Anne’s Basilica for a foot-washing service in French. St. Anne’s is a stark and striking Romanesque church, which dates back to the 12th century. The stone interior is white and light gray, and bare, with no paintings on its walls. It is also very dark in the church, unless the sanctuary is artificially illuminated, for it lacks the larger windows that the invention of flying buttresses made possible in later Gothic sanctuaries. On Thursday evening, the congregation was in almost total darkness, as only the front of the church was lit, where the priests sat in a semi-circle behind the communion table.

The St. Anne’s service was accompanied by the chanting of perhaps 20 priests, half of whom were of African descent. If there was an organ in the church, it wasn’t used for this service. The celebrant, who was likely the abbot of the community, washed the feet of the other priests, as another member of their order photographed the event with a video camera.

Throughout the atmosphere was subdued, which was in keeping with the largely older and mostly European congregation of men and women. It was just as well that no children were present, for in addition to the hushed atmosphere the church was extremely cold. So, despite finding it a lovely conclusion to my Maundy Thursday, I needed to walk briskly all the way up Mount Scopus in order to overcome the chill that had set into my bones.

For those who are wondering, the word "Maundy" is a Middle English word derived from the Latin "mandatum" meaning commandment. The reference is to John 13:34, where Jesus says to his disciples, after washing their feet and eating with them: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

The next morning, on the day all Christians know as Good Friday (the eastern churches will celebrate their Holy Week later in April), I joined at 6:30 an ecumenical walk of the Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa in the Old City. Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians were involved in the service, which was largely in English but also included a few statements in Arabic. Walking the Stations of the Cross, as a way of remembering the suffering of Jesus on the day of his crucifixion, is a familiar Catholic ritual. Furthermore, Catholic churches generally have the Stations of the Cross marked on the inner walls of the sanctuary, so the Good Friday walk can take place inside any church.

For Protestants, however, it is an uncommon experience, except perhaps in Jerusalem, as here it is possible to walk where church tradition claims Jesus made this most difficult journey.

The tradition dates back to the Byzantine era, for there are records of pilgrims walking on Good Friday from the Mount of Olives through the Lion’s Gate to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Originally, there were no stops on this walk, but by the 8th century stops had become part of the journey. In the Middle Ages, Latin Christians were divided over the correct route for the pilgrimage. So, the churches on the western hill followed a route that took them by their sanctuaries, and the churches on the eastern hill did the same on their hillside.

In the 14th century the Franciscan walk, which began at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was generally adopted by other Christians, and this pilgrimage, which is completely unlike the contemporary journey, dominated Good Friday celebrations for two centuries. Meanwhile, the Stations of the Cross being walked in Europe grew to include 14 stops, rather than the eight in the Jerusalem tradition. As more Europeans came to Jerusalem in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Via Dolorosa was adapted to fit the European pattern.

Our somewhat doleful pilgrimage on Good Friday concluded with a brief service in the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, which is on the Muristan, named for the site of one of the walls of the city of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. Not surprisingly, this large, stone sanctuary was very cold, so I was glad when the service ended and hot tea was provided in a nearby room.

Not much later, I went to the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center to meet over coffee with a delegation of visitors from Iowa, who were on an alternative tour of the Holy Land. (The word "alternative" implies they were meeting Palestinian Christians, who are members of the living church here, and were not only seeing the "holy places.") Americans working with the churches in Jerusalem were invited to this session, and we went around the room and shared reflections on what Good Friday in Jerusalem meant to us.

Most spoke of the suffering of the Palestinians, because of the harsh Occupation of their land: of the checkpoints, the attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian farmers, and the "Separation Wall" that is making travel so difficult for Palestinians living on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Some drew an analogy between the present Occupation and the oppressive Roman Occupation of Israel at the time of Jesus. The stories that were shared were sad and moving, and at least a couple of people in the circle had tears in their eyes.

Many in the circle also shared signs of hope, in their experience of the endurance and continuing hospitality of Palestinians. But for most who were there, this sense of hope was fragile and hard to come by. I thought of the settlers, who had prevented Palestinians from plowing their fields in the South Hebron Hills, and the report I had read in the English version of Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper, about settlers scattering poisoned barley on hills near Hebron where Palestinians graze their sheep. If the reality can be so depressing for us, I thought to myself, how could we expect Palestinians not to be enraged and to despair of any genuine peace accord?

Yet, when it was my time to share, I chose not to add another story of Palestinian suffering. I thought it important for our Christian group to remember that for almost two millennia Christians had marked Good Friday by blaming Jews for killing Jesus, and had often killed some Jews, as though commanded by Christ to seek revenge on his behalf. Surely, if we are to judge the sins of some Jews, which here in Israel are many and well documented, we must also confess that their seemingly irrational concern for security is partly due to centuries of Christian persecution.

The story of hope I shared was the witness of bereaved members of the Parents Circle-Families Forum, both Israelis and Palestinians, who had lost loved ones in the conflict, and yet had transformed their suffering into a compelling movement for reconciliation. Their stories had brought tears to my eyes, and I wanted to share with the other members of our group their impossible, and therefore absolutely compelling, faith in the human spirit.

On Easter morning, there was a rich fare of services to choose from in Jerusalem. After the sunrise service in English on Mount Scopus, there were three services scheduled during the day at the Anglican Cathedral of St. George, the Martyr. There were also Lutheran services held in different locations in Finnish, Swedish, Danish, English, and Arabic. In addition, services in English were on offer at Christ Church in the Old City, and at St. Andrew’s Church of Scotland just outside the Old City.

Similarly, there were many Catholic celebrations. There was a service in Armenian at the Armenian-Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate. There was a German service in the Austrian Hospice, a French service at St. Anne’s Basilica, an Italian service at St. John’s Church in Ein Karem, just outside of Jerusalem, an Arabic service at the Syrian-Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate, and a Syrian service at the Maronite Patriarchal Exarchate.

I chose to begin my Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the Latin Patriarchate was holding a Catholic mass in front of the tomb monument. I arrived slightly after the service had begun, and found a larger crowd than had gathered for the Good Friday service. Men and women in habits were abundant, and also lay people of all ages, speaking a variety of languages. A small choir sang in front of the organ, which is next to the Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene and raised about 10 feet above the main floor of the rotunda. Priests, who processed in with the Latin Patriarch, also led the chanting.

I was very much an observer, not a participant in this elaborate, Catholic mass. Yet, I finally found the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be a warm, welcoming place, despite its catacomb environment. I was primarily affected by the music, which was beautiful in a light, lingering way, but I was also moved by observing the people gathered there.

A father was sitting proudly in front of the side chapel with his small daughter on his lap. A slender, blonde in an outlandishly pink baseball cap whispered to her two children, who were wearing bright red caps. Two elderly Ethiopian monks in almost florescent yellow robes and wearing only socks, rather than shoes, sat a bit away from the crowd, communicating gently in sign language. A Muslim guard leaned over and kissed a small baby, held up to him by a smiling teen-age boy, who looked like the man’s son. Nuns knelt on the hard stones, as a man thin enough to be Jack Sprat stood beside his wife, who also fit the description in the old nursery rhyme, and both in unison made the sign of the cross. An attractive, young nun sang with gusto in the choir, while a tall, Franciscan priest, standing below, read a text message on his cell phone.

It was a wondrous mix, full of life and longing, and I felt both.

After an hour, when I think the service was about half over, I left to go to the Greek Catholic Patriarchate service in the Melkite tradition, deep in the Christian Quarter of the Old City. I thought the service began at 10 a.m., but when I arrived it had clearly been going on for some time. I wasn’t the last to arrive, however, for the church was only half full when I came, but soon filled. (Melkites are Christians in the Middle East, who supported the doctrine of the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ, which was decreed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. When a split occurred between Rome and Constantinople in 1054, the Melkites remained loyal to the church in Constantinople, but in 1724 gave their allegiance to the Pope in Rome.)

The contrast with the dark, bare stone walls of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was dramatic, for the Greek Catholic Church was brightly painted on every surface, except for the four stone pillars in the sanctuary holding up the ceiling. The walls were filled with paintings of saints, and large murals depicting scenes from the Bible covered the ceiling. Even the narrow sides of the stone arches above the unpainted supporting columns were filled with color, as intricate designs ran like borders beside the larger paintings. All over, blues and greens dominated the space behind the saints, and each of their heads was surrounded with the golden circle that in Orthodox iconography symbolizes their holiness.

The service itself was in Arabic, and the names of the saints etched on the walls were in both Greek and Arabic. I saw paintings of St. Mark and St. Matthew, and on the wall nearest me several of the saints were holding scrolls with words written in Arabic. Unlike the chanting in the Latin mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the chant of the Greek Catholics was not based on Gregorian tones. A choir of lay people sang in response to a cantor, and they chanted almost the entire service and not simply the refrains. The feeling here was Middle Eastern, the voices loud and assertive rather than restrained and blended. The priest faced away from the congregation and stood behind the iconostasis, the wall covered with icons that separates the "holy area" where priests take communion from the area where people sit in the congregation.

This was not, however, a service largely for priests and nuns, for there were only two nuns and a handful of priests, but many families with children of all ages. Five small boys were selected from the congregation to put on golden robes and process in front of the priests, carrying candles and the cross. Candles were also distributed to members of the congregation, and people went forward to light them, and to share the light throughout the sanctuary. The candle lighting, however, was an entirely symbolic act, as sunlight streamed through the upper windows of the church, illuminating the entire sanctuary. Later, the people went forward again, this time to kiss the icon on the cover of the elaborately decorated Bible.

From this Greek Catholic mass in Arabic, which felt to me more like a Greek Orthodox service, I went to St. Savior’s Latin Parish Church at the top of St. Francis Street, not far from the New Gate on the north side of the Christian Quarter. I was amazed to find myself in an immense, Gothic sanctuary, which somehow was built above the narrow street below it. Again, I discovered almost a complete contrast. Unlike the elderly Melkite priest, who led the Greek Catholic service, here a young, Arab Franciscan celebrated mass, assisted by an elderly Anglo priest (who stood no more than five feet tall). The Catholic liturgy was modern and familiar to me, except it was all in Arabic.

The pillars of the church and the walls were lovely slabs of marble, and the stone surfaces were placed to highlight the contrasting colors. There were paintings hanging on the walls to mark the Stations of the Cross, and here the designations below them were in Latin. A young group of musicians led the singing, with a keyboard and two guitars, but an organ was also used during the mass for some of the chants. An electric candelabra (I could see the plug into the wall outlet) had one lit candle when I first sat down near it. But soon a small girl came up and, after she put a coin in the slot below the candles, she jumped with delight as a candle lit up (and flickered!).

I stayed until the end of the service, so I have photos of the St. Savior’s Church, but not of the Greek Catholic Church, because I left before the service was over. These and photos of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are at http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/photos.easter.htm.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were days on which Jews were celebrating Purim. This Jewish holiday is based on the book of Esther, which is in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible as well as in the Jewish scripture. The story is set during the period between the destruction of the first temple in Jerusalem and the building of the second temple. In the narrative, which Bible scholars read as a work of fiction written later during the time the Greeks occupied Israel, the Jews are threatened with annihilation, because of the evil scheming of Haman.

Esther, who because of her beauty is chosen by the king to be his new wife, succeeds in turning the king against Haman, by feeding both men wonderful food, and then persuading the king that Haman means to harm her. She saves her people and, for threatening her, the king puts Haman and his family to death. Thus, on Purim, Jews celebrate their salvation as a people, and also what they see as God’s just vengeance on their enemies.

Some Jews observe the "Fast of Esther" the day before Purim, to commemorate that Esther fasted before she asked the king to spare her and her people. In the Jewish calendar, which is a lunar rather than a solar calendar, Purim is celebrated on the 14th of the month of Adar, except in walled cities where it is celebrated the next day. Purim is a time for feasts, for giving gifts of food to friends and the needy, for dressing up in outlandish costumes, for drinking a great deal (sometimes too much), and for reading or enacting the "Megilla," the story of Purim.

This year Purim was on March 25th (Good Friday), so in the walled city of Jerusalem it would have been celebrated on Saturday, March 26th. But as this was the Sabbath, Purim in the Old City was on Sunday (Easter). The Fast of Esther was celebrated on March 24th (Maundy Thursday). Christians in the Old City on Friday discovered intense crowding in some places, as Palestinian Scouts held their parades, tourists and foreign pilgrims moved through the streets, especially along the Via Dolorosa, and costumed Jews made their way to the Western Wall.

Of course, Friday was also the Muslim day of prayer, so Palestinians living in Israel and Palestinians with Jerusalem I.D.s were making their way to the Haram al-Sharif. But the number of Muslims able to reach al-Aqsa mosque to pray was not great, because the closure of the West Bank made it impossible for many Palestinians to travel to the Old City. This weekend it was easier for Jews and Christians from the United States to get into the Old City for religious events than for many Palestinians, who have lived all their lives in Bethlehem or Ramallah, only a few miles away.

For Christians, the story of Esther is a minor part of the Old Testament, whereas the Easter narrative is the climax of the Bible. Therefore, it is hard for us to appreciate that Purim might be as important for Jews as Easter is for us. It is also hard to admit that for much of Christian history in Europe, many Jews dreaded Easter, as then it was more likely that Christian mobs would come into their ghettos to beat and even murder Jews for being "Christ killers."

Also, for Christians reading about this Purim in the Jerusalem newspapers, there was good reason to be concerned that the story of Esther was being reenacted by some Jews to identify Palestinians with the people of Haman. The English version of Ha’aretz noted that one young religious settler was dressed up as Haman, but with clothes that were distinctively Palestinian. The paper reported this fact critically, not with acclaim, and similarly castigated a few other young Israelis, who had dressed up for Purim as Nazis.

Certainly, there is a danger in remembering the story of Esther at Purim, here in Jerusalem, for the immediate enemies of the Jews of Israel are Palestinian terrorists. Moreover, because there is little normal contact between Jews and Palestinians here, it is also easy for Jews to be convinced by cynical politicians and religious leaders that the Palestinian people, as a whole, supported the brutal terrorist attacks of the second Intifada, which have only just been suspended.

Yet, Christians who point to the danger that Purim may be misused to increase the fear of Jews and to offer justification for the brutal Israeli repression of the Palestinians, must also acknowledge that the Easter story, too, is extremely dangerous. For the Easter story has long been read and understood in churches (some to this day!) as blaming Jews for the killing of Jesus.

Moreover, this blaming of the Jews has fueled anti-Semitism in Christian cultures for centuries, and contributed to the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe during World War II. And that "holocaust" prompted nations with largely Christian populations to support the creation of the state of Israel, and also to aid the Israelis in their struggle with Arab governments and with the Palestinians over the past half century. In short, the present Occupation by Israel of Palestinian land comes out of a history in which Western Christians are deeply implicated.

Recalling this may help us see that the Easter and Purim stories are entangled, in ways that continue to cause suffering, for Jews and also for Muslim and Christian Palestinians. If the Purim story continues to have power for Jews, it is partly because they continue to find the Easter story threatening. Therefore, both stories require careful retelling and remembering. Each holiday is wondrous and uplifting, but each bright festival casts a dark shadow that must now be acknowledged and illuminated.

Of course, this is not the whole story. Muslim extremism is a new source of fear for Jewish Israelis. Moreover, the Israeli government has increased the anger and resentment that Palestinians have by treating them so harshly and unjustly. It is a tragic irony that fearful Jews are now acting in ways that make their reasons for being fearful more justified. If Jewish Israelis are to be safe, they must end the Occupation and negotiate a fair settlement with the Palestinians.

Christians will continue to observe Easter, and Jews will continue to celebrate Purim. But Easter for Christians, and Purim for Jews, will only be a source of hope and new life, if Christians and Jews purge these holidays of the blame cast on those too easily characterized as enemies. As Christians, let us do all we can to ensure that celebrating Easter will not give cause for Jews to feel threatened. And as Christians, let us pray that Jews will do all they can to keep Purim from being used to identify Palestinians with the threat that Haman posed to Esther and her people.

Bob Traer, 28 March 2005

I am writing as a participant in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, which is sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The views expressed above are personal and do not necessarily represent the World Council of Churches. If you wish to publish or disseminate this letter beyond personal friends, please contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission to do so. Thank you.

For photos taken during the events described above, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/photos.easter.htm. 

For other Letters from Jerusalem, go to http://christian-bible.com/Ethics/lj.letters.2005.htm. 

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