This is the second of two posts for our day in the Old City of Jerusalem. We pick up from the last post at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Stations X – XIV are in the church. We didn’t try to follow them in order inside of the church.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a complex (to me) maze of different churches (e.g. Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Catholic, etc). And within the larger Church of the Holy Sepulcher different parts are controlled by different denominations. There is also a very long and complicated history of building, conquering, destroying, rebuilding, which I won’t go into here. If you are interested there are lots of sites on the web, for example here, or here.
There is an Edicule in the church which is built above the tomb of Jesus. Four people are allowed to enter at a time, and pray briefly at the site. Is it really the site of the tomb? There is ample evidence to support the claim. But to us, it doesn’t really matter.
The place of the crucifixion of Jesus is also in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. According to the gospels, it is close to Jesus’ tomb. It was very crowded while we were there. There were amazing mosaics of different biblical scenes. You can touch the place where the cross rested by kneeling down and reaching through a hole in a silver disk. On either side of the silver disk, the rock of Calvary is exposed.
We walked to Zion Gate to exit the Old City of Jerusalem and go to the City of David excavation site.
The City of David site has extensive archeological excavations. There is a spring there, called Gihon Spring, which has been an important water source in the area through the millenniums. King Hezekiah famously built a tunnel to channel the water into the city, and away from his enemies. You can read about this in 2 Chronicles 32:2-4, 30; 2 Kings 20:20; Sirach 48:17. It provided a water source when the city was besieged. Captain Charles Warren was a British archeologist who first discovered the location of the tunnel and excavated it. Today, tourists can walk for about 1/3 of a mile along the excavation. It goes through water, so the hikers get wet, but it is a popular destination for school children in the hot summer days. There is a path for the less adventurous called the Canaanite Channel, which is about 1/10 of a mile, and doesn’t require getting wet. That’s where our tour group went. The pool of Siloam is at the end of the path. This is where Jesus healed the blind man. He put a salve of mud on his eyes, and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam, and, when he did, his blindness was healed. See John 9:1-11. Recent excavations have unearthed eight steps into the Pool of Siloam.
