Day 7...

So...how to describe walking through Holy Week in one day? Amazing, inspiring, challenging, exhausting, spiritual, emotional, how many adjectives are there?! We started at Bethphage, the church on top of the Mount of Olives with the mounting stone - from which Jesus mounted the Colt at the start of the Palm Sunday Trimphant entry to Jerusalem

 

 

As you can see, the mounting block was painted by the early church and used as an alter...

 

We then had a fantastic view over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

 

 

 

We then walked down the Mount of Olives, stopping at Dominus Flevit where Jesus wept over the city. And we descended into the garden of Gethsemene.

Here, surrounded by 2000 year old olive trees we shared a service of Holy Communion, and then travelled on to Caiaphas' house, where Jesus was taken and held before appearing before the religious authorities.

 

From here we took the bus to the Jaffa gate of the Old City and entered the Christian Quarter where we had lunch and time to explore the market

 

 

After lunch we were delighted that the church of Alexander Nevsky was open!  This is very rare to pass and find we can go in...

Inside this Russian Orthodox Church is the judgement gate - through which Christ would have walked as he went out of the city carrying his cross to Golgotha.  Also, next to the judgement gate is the Eye of the Needle..."truly I tell you, it is easier fir a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"...

 

 

 

 

We then visited the church of the Holy Sepulchre - the site of Golgotha and the empty tomb.

             

 

What a day!  Tomorrow is a bit lighter - physically and spiritually - as we share in a Palestinian service at St Georges Cathedral, and visit the Ophel excavations and City of David