I walked today where Jesus walked.
We funneled slowly in companionable silence through Lion’s Gate into the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem. Today, we’d be following the winding half-mile route that Jesus walked on the way to His crucifixion.
The road known as Via Dolorosa, Latin for 'Sorrowful Way.'
A celebrated place of Christian pilgrimage.
The path was marked by stations of the cross. As we walked, some people moved off the side, like the Red Sea parting for Moses.
First Station. Jesus is condemned to death.
Everyone seemed collectively to be under a kind of spell. Or maybe so enthralled to be there that they couldn't speak.
Second Station. Jesus carries His cross.
No soft conversation. Just an ever-building tension and excitement of whatever it was we were about to experience.
Third Station. Jesus falls for the first time.
The street was hushed in reverence. A few whispered quietly and moved slowly through the next stations...
Ninth Station. Jesus falls for the third time.
It seemed that everything had gone quiet around us. No noise came from the busy path. Even the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. There was only the heat. And silence.
The remaining stations were inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The crowd of spectators, stunned silent, were swirling inside like too many cattle forced into a pen...
Eleventh Station. Jesus is nailed to the cross.
I heard a collective intake of breath from the crowd behind me. A muffled groan came from somewhere.
Twelfth Station. Jesus dies on the cross.
Someone uttered a sound that could only be described as lamentation.
Like a death moan...
Fourteenth and Final Station. Jesus is placed in the tomb.
Silence, heavy and thick, filled the room, as if the world had been frozen. No one said much, the mood somber and grim.
We reentered the streets, melting into the crowd just like everyone else, invisible and unnoticed.
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