Second chances in the Holy Land
Rob Long
It was a pretty simple question: “So what brings you to Jerusalem, my friend?”
I’ve been in Jerusalem for the past 10 days, seeing the holy sites and eating a huge amount of sesame candy. I probably should have an answer to that question by now. But as the guy at the coffee stand just inside the Damascus Gate poured me a tiny thimble of cardamom-spiked brew, I just shrugged. “I guess I’ve just always wanted to come,” I said.
This made sense to him, even though it wasn’t quite true. I’m here with a group from my church on what is called a pilgrimage on all of the printed literature and handouts we’ve received. But for some reason, I’m uncomfortable with that word — pilgrimage. It implies a level of piety and religious devotion I can’t claim to possess.
When I signed up for this trip about a year ago, I think I was imagining some kind of religious moment, some set of powerful revelations that might push my faith from Restrained Episcopalian to something more technicolor. When I sent in my deposit, I may have even thought to myself, I’ll bet I come back from this a much better person.
That particular delusion was destroyed on the first day when I saw a group of tourists (or maybe fellow pilgrims?) squeezing through the narrow lanes of the Old City of Jerusalem and thought to myself, Look at all of those awful fat people.
And they weren’t Americans, which I’m sure is the first thing you thought. (It was the first thing I thought, too.) I could tell because the men were wearing those idiotic pants that taper and cinch just above the ankle, often with a little dangly string hanging from the cuff. They’re called culottes, I think, and they make any man who wears them appear ridiculous and European, which are often the same thing.
And then later, while in line at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, perhaps the holiest site in all of Christendom, I used the 30 minutes or so it took for the line of fellow pilgrims to snake its way from the Stone of Anointing to the tomb of Jesus to catch up on some emails because Jerusalem has excellent cell service.
But you know how it is. You start checking your email — just to be sure nothing’s blowing up at home, that you’ve got the important stuff under control — and then before you know it, you’ve scrolled through Twitter and Instagram, and then suddenly you’re inside the tomb, touching with your right hand the stone that was rolled away 2,000 years ago — the central miracle of the Christian faith, the moment when Christ’s sacrifice freed us all from sin and death — while your left hand clutches an iPhone 14 with the text message you almost finished sending still on the screen.
“I don’t think I’m doing Jerusalem right,” I told an Anglican minister I met a few days later. “I’m seeing Jerusalem,” I said, “but I don’t think I’m feeling it, you know? I’m a really bad pilgrim.”
He smiled and told me this story. Pilgrims have been coming to Jerusalem since, well, since the stone was rolled away from the tomb. The more devout ones will walk along the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus took from his trial to his execution, carrying heavy wooden crosses just as he did. It’s hard work, especially in the spring and summer, when the heat makes the air still and sticky.
One year, he told me, a pilgrim invented an easier way to carry a heavy cross along the Via Dolorosa. He simply attached a set of wheels to the base of the cross and rolled it along the path. Easy-peasy.
“So don’t worry too much about being a bad pilgrim,” he said. “Jerusalem has seen much worse.”
But there’s not all that much difference between a guy rolling a cross along the Via Dolorosa like some kind of holy RIMOWA and a guy posting Instagram stories directly outside of the tomb of Jesus Christ. So yesterday, I decided to leave the phone at the hotel and go back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with hands free and eyes open.
Well, hands free, sort of. I bought a wedge of knafeh — a crunchy, sweet pastry filled with cream cheese — to eat while waiting for the line to shuffle along. But it was gone by the time I knelt in front of the stone and closed my eyes and felt Jerusalem.
In other words, I needed a second chance at this pilgrim business. Lucky for me, my faith is all about second chances.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.