Transfiguration

In Israel where half the enlisted men are women, the old cliché "I ran into an old army buddy" doesn't always mean a reunion of brothers. Once upon a Yom Kippur, I was a young Israeli soldier pulling guard duty on a base near Haifa. Left behind while our comrades were fasting with their families, we unhappy few sat at the gate to pass the time. A girl (soldier) became the center of attention. And not (only) because of her feminine wiles - which would only be natural, her being the only female stuck on base with a bunch of lonely young men. No, she had something much more interesting, more mysterious, going for her. She had Jesus.

Her name was Melody. Between snacks, a few self appointed defenders of the Jewish faith were poking fun, although not successfully, as their ignorance of her faith, not to mention their own, was painfully obvious. Nonplussed by her tormentors, Melody was radiant, even cheerful. Maybe that's why I remember her 25 years later. Her warmth. Heat.

I grew up in the Church. I'd heard it all before, and it left me cold. For me, Christianity was an institution, churches, theology, rules. So her message wasn't new to me, but I was impressed by her delivery.

25 years later, Melody is a guide to Christian holy places. Naturally, I was curious. Is she still a believer? No, she laughed, but it’s a good living.

She met us at the Catholic Church on Mount Tabor. No trouble finding it. You can't miss it; it's just next door to the Greek Orthodox church. Mount Tabor is where 'The Church' claims Jesus took Peter, James and John to witness His transfiguration, which was a cosmic coming out of the closet, with Moses and Elijah making a cameo appearance. The disciples, who had always suspected that Jesus had divine tendencies, were nevertheless taken back.

Peter was psyched. "Hey Jesus, lets build three tabernacles up here for You and your friends!"
Jesus was less than excited about the idea. "I don't know…."
But Peter was on a roll. "You're right. Why think small? Tabernacles won't do. We'll build a huge church right here on top of the mountain. People will see it for miles around and come from far and wide, from all over the world! Just think of the tourist income! Think what it will do for the local economy!"
Jesus: "Peter, you're starting to sound like Judas."
Moses (to Jesus): "What's going on? Nobody said anything about this when they told me to come down here!"
Peter: "If we make the church big enough, visitors will be able to celebrate mass!"
Moses: "Mass?"
Jesus had heard enough. "We're finished here, guys. Let's go!"
Moses and Elijah headed on up to heaven while Jesus hustled His favorite disciples back to join the others – but not before reminding them to keep His little secret. Peter promptly posted it on his blog.

Melody says that Mount Hermon looks like a more likely candidate than Tabor for the mountain where Jesus was transfigured, but the Catholic Church owns real estate on Mt. Tabor, so that's where they built the Church of the Transfiguration. Inspired by St. Peter, the Italian architect Antonio Barlucci designed the church to appear like three (very fancy) tabernacles, with two small ones on either side of a big one (for Jesus, of course). The ceiling over the sanctuary is inlayed with alabaster to create an effect of heavenly light streaming down on the worshipers celebrating mass, but has been covered with a lead dome because the alabaster roof turned out to be leaky.

The village of Cana is where Jesus performed His first miracle by turning ordinary water into fine wine. Today the locals turn cheap hooch into tourist dollars. The Roman Catholic church is right across the alley from the Greek Orthodox one. The reason that you find so many holy sites with Catholic and Orthodox churches next to each other isn't because Greeks and Catholics like each other so much; it's more like McDonalds and Burger King setting up shop in the same food court at the mall. Pure and simple, its good ol' fashioned American competition.

In Nazareth, St. Gabriel's (Greek Orthodox) marks the place where Mary became the first virgin in history to test positive with a home pregnancy kit. Unlike Catholics, who clutter their churches with statues, Greek Orthodox churches have icons. Icons are simply 2 dimensional versions of Catholic images which can best described as saints who have been run over by a steamroller. These icons have nothing whatsoever to do with the icons you see on the Internet. Everyone knows that images on the net are creations of the Geek Orthodox Church.

The Catholic Church of the Annunciation is a short walk down Main Street from (you guessed it) the Greek Orthodox establishment. Its all about Mary at Annunciation. It reminds me of the joke about the proverbial fat girl in 3rd grade – she was so big that no matter where you sat in the classroom, you ended up sitting next to the fat girl. Melody pointed out the Mary mosaics on the walls,

Mary statues on the walls,

Mary in the fountain,

Mary on the door, and so on. You can't avoid Mary at Annunciation. (They also worship Jesus. He's the baby being cradled by some of the Marys.)

Melody finished the day at a rather neglected church crammed between vendors' stalls in the market which (they say) is the synagogue where Jesus prayed. It was the only place we visited where I thawed a little. Maybe because it wasn't just another grand monument to human creativity and endeavor; maybe because it was the only place that took us back to Jesus' Jewish roots.

Churches still leave me cold, but in 25 years I've warmed to Jesus. So it’s a bit ironic meeting Melody again. "Back then, I loved the story about a God who loves us so much," she recalls. "I wanted it to be true, so I believed it." Now she's not sure if Jesus ever existed. Still, when she talks about churches and their stories, its with warmth. I guess she's just a warm person.

When we started the day on Mount Tabor, Melody explained that "transfiguration" is a change in perception, how someone is percieved, not a change in being. Jesus didn't take on a different form on the mountain, rather his disciples saw Him for who He is. For 25 years Melody had existed in my mind as the glowing, red hot follower of the Messiah. But Melody isn't a memory, and in the course of that day she was transfigured back into person. A person with a life, a human being who's on a journey and has yet to arrive. But for at least for now, I see her for who she is.

A lot of things change in the space of a life time, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that after 2000 years the Church that erupted with a simple, beautiful story about God's love has frozen solid into an icy institution carved by men. I don't think that Jesus has been transformed by the Church, but there has been a definite change in how He is presented and perceived.

Kind of like a transfiguration in reverse.

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Church Hopping

And now we finally come to the subject of Christianity. Yaki, our guide and instructor is Jewish and I suspect an atheist to boot, so his take on Jesus and the New Testament is a bit different than the one I recall. (To remind the reader, I did 19-20 years of hard time paying my debt to society in Sunday School.) Naturally, if Jesus is the subject de jour, a day in the field on the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee is mandatory. This was Jesus and his gang of disciples' stomping ground, where he spent most of his ministry and performed the majority of his miracles.

We started at an octagonal Roman Catholic church run by grumpy Italian nuns on the Mount of the Beatitudes. Yaki took us off to the side, hopefully out of the evil nuns' earshot, to explain at length about the Sermon on the Mount. Yaki thinks that even if Jesus existed, he never said or did the things 'they' say he did and in fact 'they' made it all up. He says that the Sermon on the Mount is a Christian invention meant to copy Moses giving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Yaki has a point; Jesus would have been a lot more original if he would have given the sermon in a bar. Jesus didn't really say anything new (Which is to be expected, him plagiarizing the Torah and all.); he just said that it's not enough to be good, but you have to really mean it. The nerve.

(In the meantime I'm on the lookout for angry nuns. Seeing how nasty they are to Catholic pilgrims, I can only imagine what they would do to a bunch of Jews bad mouthing Jesus.)

Despite my aversion to all things Catholic, I had to admit that the place is breathtaking. A short shower cleared the haze over the Sea of Galilee and freshened the gardens around the church. I decided to keep a safe distance from Yaki while he was Jesus-baiting and wandered in the grounds.

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It was a Sunday and groups from Brazil, Mexico, Germany and England had arrived in the meantime and finding quiet corners here and there, were celebrating mass. The Church has recently built a hostel for visitors, although this is misleading as from appearances it deserves at least four stars. As appealing as it looks, spending a night under the same roof with the cranky nuns isn't my idea of fun.

If I had the guts, I'd ask the nuns why they planted a big ol' church (with a big ol' plaque honoring the Pope that donated the funds to build it) smack on the spot where Jesus told his followers to (1) pray in private and (2) give alms in secret. As we were leaving, I wondered aloud if very many non-Catholics visit the place. I mean, the church and the bougainvilleas and the view are really swell, but they came all this way to see a hillside where Jesus spoke to the masses. You see lots of Catholicism, not much Jesus. Yaki is convinced that Evangelicals like the place, but my bet is that if they come at all, the first thing they do is cut through the garden and around the church, and head for the fence on the other side overlooking the lake.

Our next stop was at the bottom of the mount on the shore at the Church of the Primacy of Peter at Tabgha. This is where the Catholics say that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he rose from the dead. He asked Peter, who was apparently sitting on a rock at the time having lunch, to feed his sheep. The disciples, none of them being the sharpest tool in the shed and all of them being Roman Catholics, immediately set to work and built a church over the rock and made Peter the pope. In the meantime, a flock of sheep in Nazareth starved to death.

Yaki sat us down behind the church on the beach for yet more heresy, but coming in I noticed that the priest in charge of the place was being distracted by a couple of giggling (female) Filipinos that couldn't get enough of him, so I was pretty sure we were safe.

Next door to the Church of Peter's Primacy is the Church of the Multiplication. This is an odd name, as the Catholics are notoriously poor in mathematics. This is where the Church has decided that Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, although anyone who has read the New Testament and is familiar with the local geography knows that the miracle could have taken place at any number of places around the lake except for Tabgha.

Unlike most churches which are closed all week and open only on Sundays, the Church of the Multiplication is open all week and closed on Sundays, so we didn't get to visit. Rats. Yaki says the place is worth a visit in our spare time if we get a chance. He explained that when the Church started building churches (After being legalized in 324 by Constantine the Great.), they built structures using the blueprints of pagan temples and simply translated the symbolism of idolatry to a Christian message. The Church of the Multiplication, built recently but on the guidelines of the ancient structures, is a standing example of what almost all churches looked like after Christianity came out of the closet.

Now, after Peter became the first pope they hadn't built Vatican City yet, so Peter had to live with his mother-in-law in Capernaum, which is just down the road from Tabgha. Not only was Peter the pope, but he was known for cracking great mother-in-law jokes from the pulpit. It wasn't long before they had to remodel the place to contain the ever growing congregation in Capernaum, and after Christianity was legalized they flattened the house and built an octagonal church instead. Unfortunately, in the meantime Peter had got fed up with living with his mother-in-law and had moved to Rome where he was crucified upside down.

Our visit to Capernaum was the first place in the day that smacked of authenticity and not Catholicism. A modern, round church has been built suspended over the ruins of the ancient one. Yaki fondly calls it "the flying saucer". The ruins which can be seen from under the church and from an opening inside are probably the first church built ever. They reflect the development of the Church from Jewish roots to an underground movement to an established state-recognized institution. An average home like any of the others on the site was renovated internally to allow large numbers of believers to congregate (but not externally lest it draw the attention of the authorities), and then in the fourth or fifth century was turned into a place of pilgrimage.

A fifth century synagogue a stones throw from the church, built of white limestone while the local stone is black basalt, was obviously imported. The Christian Byzantines prohibited the building of new synagogues, so it's possible that the local Jewish community purchased an existing building elsewhere, transported it here and reassembled it on its present site. Or perhaps the Church wanted a standing synagogue for pilgrims who wanted to see the synagogue where Jesus preached (John 6:59). Anyway you look at it, the white synagogue in Capernaum is a product of the Church.

While the Catholic church may have reinterpreted the pagan architecture, they didn't succeed in sterilizing the interior decorating of idolatry. It's hard to pick out Jesus among the host of images in a Catholic Church. I've been to quite a few churches over the last few months, and save for notable exceptions like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the nun's church on the Mount of the Beatitudes, all of them are dedicated to saints, not Jesus.

The little girl with the doll caught my eye in the Greek Orthodox church at Capernaum. She was fascinated by the Madonna and child, and repeated approached the icon and imitated Mary cradling her doll like baby Jesus.

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We ended the day at the baptismal site at Yardenit. Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, but probably quite a bit downriver at Kassar el Yahud near the Dead Sea. Today the water flowing in the Jordan is for the most part treated and untreated sewage, so this spot near the Sea of Galilee where the water is still fresh is favored by Christians that want to be baptized in the waters that Jesus was. This is a site oriented to the Protestant crowd, and we came just in time to witness the baptism of a physician from California by Pastor Bob. He told his friends and family gathered around about his life since he had come to faith as a young medical student, then joined Christ symbolically under the water as Pastor Bob dunked him.

For me this underlined the difference between the Evangelical experience and Catholic pilgrimage. The Evangelical comes here seeking a closer relationship with Jesus. They want to see where he grew up, trace his footsteps and follow his ministry unobstructed by changes in the scenery, including beautiful churches, over the last 2000 years. And they want to meet his people, the Jews that live here today.
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For Catholics, it's all about the Church. They want to see the "Church Triumphant", and are perfectly willing to accept the interpretations they are spoon-fed by their clergy regardless if it contradicts historical research or even common sense. As the Pope's last visit to Israel made clear, the Catholic attitude towards Israelis is that they are trespassers, in both definitions of the word, in the holy land.

During the day Yaki mentioned the three towns Jesus cursed – Korazim, Bethesda and Capernaum (Luke 10:13-15). The first two are deserted ruins, but before Christians get too smug with this knowledge, consider this. The same earthquake that flattened the cursed towns also destroyed Christian Hippos known for the number of churches out of all proportion to the number of inhabitants. And Jesus' prophesy hasn't been totally fulfilled. There's still a small community of Franciscans living in Capernaum.

Better watch out………

Sunday School

When I was a kid, we used to compete at Sunday School to see who could memorize the most scripture by heart. Besides John 3:16, the all time favorite was John 11:35, "Jesus wept." The shortest verse in the Bible; only two words. A freebie.

It's about how a friend of Jesus, Lazarus, gets sick. His sisters run off to fetch Jesus, but by the time Jesus can get away from the Messiah business, poor ol' Lazarus has died in the meantime. When Jesus finds out that his buddy Lazarus is dead, he's real broken up about it. "Jesus wept."

Now everybody is real impressed with the show of emotion, but his friends take Jesus aside. "You know, the sympathy is really nice, but you being the Messiah and all, we were hoping for a little more." Jesus takes the hint and then and there raises Lazarus up from the dead. Once again, Jesus saves the day and everybody's happy. (Especially Lazarus and his sisters.)

All this happened a few years before the rebellion against Rome. It didn't go well for the Jews, and Jerusalem didn't fare any better than Gamla and the rebels in Galilee. The Romans took their sweet time and then finally stormed and took the holy city, destroyed the Temple and slaughtered anyone that had managed to survive the siege. Jerusalem was leveled, and then to add insult to injury, less than a century later the Romans founded a pagan city on the ruins and called it Aelia Capitolina. They built a temple to Zeus on the temple mount to rub in their victory over the Jews, and another temple to Aphrodite on Golgotha (Where Jesus was crucified.) to stick it to the Christians, who they liked only a little more than the Jews.

The Romans built fortifications for their new city Aelia Capitolina, included 4 gates – and no wall. Not only that, only one was at the entrance to the city. Another one stood half a kilometer north out of town and two more so called "gates" were in the city center. Our guide Nachum claims that this was something the Romans did to demonstrate power, but to me it looks like a bureaucratic snafu – someone budgeted for 4 gates and forgot to allocate funds for the wall. Despite my objections, Nachum maintains that the Romans did this all over the empire, including in Rome. I counter that it only proves that they were consistently incompetent, no more. My friends duly noted Nachum's opinion and not mine because he claims to be one of the examiners for the exam to be certified. (But then, if he's inventing tales glorifying inept Romans, then it's likely that he's not above impersonating an examiner.)

Nevertheless, the city gate was very impressive. One main entrance was flanked by two smaller ones, and on the other side was a huge half circle plaza with a statue of the emperor or Zeus on a pillar. Today the Damascus Gate built by the Ottomans 500 years ago stands on the ruins of the Roman/Byzantine one, but you can still see one of the minor gates below serving as foundation for the 16th century one.

And then in one of those strange twists of history, the Romans converted to Christianity. Most people don't realize that the Byzantines were no more than the same mean ol' Romans that had simply switched from idols to icons. This brings us to the Byzantine period.

When you are studying the land of Israel in the Roman Period, Jesus doesn't figure in. He wasn't a player; working miracles and being the Messiah don't cut the mustard. But when you come to the Byzantine Period, it's a different story. A lot of things had changed since Lazarus rose from the dead.

One of the first things the Byzantines did was change the name of Aelia Capitolina back to Jerusalem. It was confusing for little Byzantine kids in Sunday School, memorizing Bible verses about Jerusalem and then the grown ups had to explain that it meant Aelia Capitolina. Changing the name back to Jerusalem made it a lot easier for everybody. Not only that, they built churches.

Now everybody knows that Constantine the Great was the first Byzantine emperor, but it's a little know fact that he never went to Sunday School. When he was a little boy he didn't have to go because he was a heathen, and even after he got saved he was just too busy running his empire business.

One Sunday morning his mom, Helena, dropped by the palace.
"Constantine the Great, Sweetie, I think you should come to church with me this morning."
Constantine saw where this was going. The last thing he needed was for the palace guard to see him tagging along behind him mommy to Sunday School. In no time they would have him memorizing Bible verses.
"Mom, I've got a better idea. I think you should go to the holy land."

So Helena went to Jerusalem. She walked through the gate, took one look up at the statue of Zeus and told the city fathers to pull the dang thing down and put up something more appropriate to the city of our Lord. In a jiffy they had the statue down, sawed off the lightning bolt, and drilled a hole in its place and then inserted a golden staff. They shaved off the helmet and a sculptor chiseled away until it looked like long hair. By the time Helena left town, a statue of the Good Shepherd was standing on the pillar as good as new, without making a dent in the city wall fund.

Helena's mission was to find the very places Jesus had been, in particular the ones connected with his crucifixion, and to build churches there. She marched down the Cardo, which is Latin for "Main Street", and stopped smack in front of the temple of Aphrodite, which is Latin for Hustler magazine.

"Isn't this Golgotha?"
"Yes, ma'am." The town fathers blushed. (Who would have thought that the old bag was so well informed on holy places.)
"What in carnation is that abomination doing on the passion of our Lord?!!"
A few town fathers snickered.

Helena demanded that they tear down the temple, get rid of those outrageous statues of naked women and build the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Someone dared suggest that if they left the statues it might be easier to get the kids to go to Sunday School. Helena wasn't amused.

Which brings us to my course in the 21st century. The subject for our day in the field was "Byzantine Jerusalem". This means for the most part going to churches, and being a Sunday, I couldn't help getting a little de je vu from my childhood years in Sunday School, but for most of my collogues church is about as familiar as the far side of the moon. (Somehow I got separated from the group at the Damascus Gate, so I headed for the Holy Sepulcher hoping to catch up with them. When I didn't find them there, I back tracked and found them in the museum that's under the gate. Miron, our course coordinator, asked me where I disappeared. I just shrugged. "I went to church.")

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We took the Via Dolorosa, the same route Jesus was lead to Golgotha, to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There are stations along the way marking every detail of Jesus' way to the cross.
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If there is a time and place on earth that is the focus of the Christian religion, it's what happened here 2000 years ago. Its heart is an empty tomb. It has been embellished, and a dome built over it, but that's what it is. While ancient churches always were always oriented, pointing east, the Holy Sepulcher's basilica points west, towards the place that Jesus rose after 3 days in the grave.

One cannot but be impressed by the emotion, the awe, the passion, of worshipers from all over the world that make the pilgrimage. The sepulcher itself is covered with soot and wax, and the air a thick haze, from hundreds of candles lit around the base every day. It's as if an aura of holiness has been bottled and capped inside a grand Roman vestibule.

Yechiel, the other American taking this course, is an observant Jew. This was no doubt the first time he went to church. As we were leaving, he remarked that he can see why Christians that visit the Holy Sepulcher are moved.

I agree; no Christian can be apathetic, but not always in a positive way. I couldn't help but recall my brother Barry's remark after visiting the place: "This is the first time I've seen idolatry in real life." Barry's gut reaction to the religion the Romans created by dressing Jesus in the vestments of paganism is understandable. And anyone who's been to Sunday School knows that if Jesus is who he says he is, the last place you are going to find him is in a grave.

The last place we visited in Byzantine Jerusalem was in the parking lot of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. Nachum pointed to a spot on the pavement and explained that we were standing on the northwestern corner of the Nea, a church in honor of "The virgin Mary, mother of God" built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. It had a sanctuary bigger than a football field and towered over the Temple Mount.

The Nea would have been just another VERY big church if taken out of context. Its location and size were no accident. One of the curiosities of Byzantine Jerusalem was that one vast stretch of prime real estate, the Temple Mount, was left in ruins purposely as witness to Jesus' prophesy that the Temple would be destroyed; that not one stone would be left on another. (Luke 19:41-44) Pious women all over the empire were asked to save the soiled rags after their monthly cycle and the church sent special deliveries of these "offerings" to be thrown on the Temple Mount. The Nea had no connection whatsoever to the life and ministry of Jesus; building a monument of grandeur to dominate the Temple site, and degrading the mount with refuse was a statement of the triumph of Christianity over the Jews.

Today the Nea lays under a parking lot. Jews park there.

Yechiel remarked about the Nea Church on the way home.
"They built this huge monumental church out of hatred, to humiliate the Jews and to one up the Temple. Was this what Jesus had in mind when he said that there wouldn't be one stone left on another?"

And my Sunday School lessons served me that moment. I recalled the story of how Jesus had come into Jerusalem a week before he was crucified. He came up over the Mount of Olives on a spring day, and as he made it over the top, the city was spread out before him in all her glory. He saw the Temple and the mansions around it. No doubt he knew that there were people there already plotting to take his life, and that same blind hatred would one day take them deeper, to murder one another while the enemy stood at the gates. He saw the Romans pulling down Jerusalem's Temple, raping her women and butchering her babes. He saw the abomination the Gentiles would make of her, and how one day they would built monuments of hatred in his name. Perhaps he even realized that the same Roman Empire that crucified him would twist his words and convince his people that he had planned all this.

That Sunday School story popped into my mind when Yechiel asked about Jesus' prophesy.

Did Jesus prophesy about Jerusalem in a spirit of spite and superiority?

"No", I said, "Jesus wept."

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