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Friday 4 July 2008

Armageddon is up the road

Paul Wood visits the Holy Land

The joy of travelling around the Holy Land lies in seeing the place names of biblical legend right there on the signposts in front of you. Leaving Ben Gurion airport on my first visit here, some years ago, there was a jolt of excitement as we passed the motorway exit almost casually directing drivers to The Galilee. Armageddon is not only what will happen if the Israelis discover that Iran has the bomb; it’s a real place, about 60 miles north of Jerusalem. You really can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The sheer weight of anticipation can turn to disappointment, warns one of my guidebooks, when the sacred sites do not seem as grand as might be expected of the home of the greatest story ever told. It is true that for a city which is central to the world’s three great monotheistic faiths, Jerusalem can seem a bit shabby in places. Wandering through the Old City’s narrow alleyways and passages, there is graffiti on the walls and, by dusk, piles of rubbish left rotting in the streets.

Still, all this, the crush of people, and even the souvenir sellers plucking at your sleeve — some things don’t change over the millennia — start to work on the imagination. OK, I must admit that one of the things which leapt into my mind was the Python sketch about the People’s Front of Judea. No! The Judean People’s Front. But making your way up the Via Dolorosa, over polished stones left by the Romans, it is also easy to picture the centurions at the foot of the Cross, casting lots for Christ’s single garment.

After squeezing through the gap between the tourist police and the T-shirt shop, you arrive where this is supposed to have happened, now marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a sepulchre being a grave carved into a hillside. From the outside, the church is rather modest; you can see what the guidebook is talking about. But inside is a cool, dark, echoing chamber topped by a great dome. Up a flight of stairs is Golgotha, ‘place of the skull’, reputed site of the Crucifixion.

The exact spot, a tiny square of rock, is just visible, framed by the ornate brass and gold leaf of the eastern churches. There’s usually a line of Rohan-clad tourists waiting to take photographs and reach in to touch. Many people are here on pilgrimage and it’s always interesting to watch their reactions: often, they are overcome with emotion. Just below, half a dozen American women wept as they knelt to touch the spot where Jesus was said to have been laid after being taken down from the Cross.

More articles from: Lucy Fleming | this section

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