The Tomb and Holy Saturday

In the Christian Calendar, today is Holy Saturday when the tradition says that Yeshua rested in the tomb following the horrors of crucifixion and perhaps even the “harrowing of hell” in an underworld beneath the surface of things. It is a day of memorial, and made more vivid this season having just traveled through the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which reveres the sites of death, burial and resurrection all within one huge compound structure at the heart of both modern and ancient Jerusalem.

The day of our visit to this site was intense. Not only was Jerusalem on high alert, but the site swarmed with throngs of pilgrims from around the world—focusing on just this place. It could not have been more poignant in so many ways—but I left with the deep impression that we, Christians, have entombed Jesus in our structures and there, still he lies wounded, bound and buried by a religion that has not transcended its basest egoic level.

We began the morning of the visitation on the Mount of Olives in a beautiful place overlooking the ancient sweep of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Dome of the Rock. We descended the valley walking to the Garden of Gethsemane (very impressive), and on down to the valley floor and up into the old City. When we eventually reached the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It could not have been more vivid. The Church space itself is divided up into “warring” Christian zones and jurisdictions—Catholics, Orthodox, Armenians, and Copts… each claiming their “piece of the prize.” Before entering the huge tomb-like structure of the Church, our guide took us to the court outside and pointed to a third story level where there were two windows above a ledge and a ladder planted below one window. She told us how recently a storm had blown the ladder off and someone had replaced it below the “wrong” window and a “religious incident” had broken out among the factions. Mop water often splashes over into another "zone" and creates a stir.

Inside the Church is impressive—up many levels, down many levels… built over the rock where the Romans had crucified criminals outside the “then city walls.” Lower down were caves and tombs, and further down still was a small opening to the base of the rock itself where an earthquake had rent the whole structure in two… down to the reputed place of “Adam’s skull.”

The place was jammed, noisy, competitive, heart-breaking, beautiful, ancient and, I believe, the actual site of the final events—but, as I said, religious sentiment at the level of the ego is in full control there, and you can feel the fierce determination not to let any of it go in favor of something higher. I left with a deep sadness for what we have created, but also an awareness that a Higher Self watches over even this sight of pilgrims still—calling out "people of the heart" to move to a place of resurrected awareness beyond religious convention and competition.

By the way, the only way to “keep the peace” there at the Church to this day is to have a Muslim family keep the keys to the whole structure (which they have for centuries), opening and closing its vast doors each morning and every night. It is interesting how Islam became the “mediator” in this particular instance.