The Holy Sepulchre

Dear friends,

It is Holy Week. Bu the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is closed, along with all the pilgrim sites in the Old City, due to the threat from Iranian missile strikes. Christian communities in the Holy Land once again face a severely restricted Easter. Clergy are making preparations for limited services to be conducted online. However there may also be political, and not just security reasons for the closures, which are not self imposed but ordered by the civic authorities and police in Jerusalem. Many employees, and indeed clergy, in these globally important spaces are Palestinian Christians, and the closure of their places of work poses real risk to their livelihoods, and puts further pressure on the Palestinian economy.

The church of the Holy Sepulchre is arguably the most important historical site for Christians the world over. It is a hotch potch of a mish mash of architecture and archaeology, shared by multiple ancient Christian denominations – Coptic, Orthodox, Latin, Syriac. The interior is a confusing maze of steps, pillars, corners, shrines, and chapels. It is dark, and everything is worn smooth by years of thousands of pilgrim feet, and hands anxious to touch the sacred. The denominations each have their portion, and defend it fiercely. The Ethiopian Coptic monks, for example, have their outpost on the roof (seriously!). There are always tourists, and pilgrims. It is normally impossible to find a quiet spot in which the reflect on where you are standing.

Although the church is now well within the “Old City” of Jerusalem, the boundaries of this have changed over time, and it has been demonstrated that the site of the church was indeed “without the city walls” until about AD 44. Remnants of a rock cut 1st century tomb found not sixty feet from the site venerated as the (empty) tomb of Jesus prove this. Remnants of a pre-first century quarry, where a stump of fractured and faulted rock, unusable for building stone, has been ignored by the quarrymen to create an outcrop not two hundred feet from the tomb, also give a plausible location for Golgotha – the place of crucifixion. Picture if you will two main roads coming together outside a city gate, with an old quarry to one side of the roads. A promontory of rock is used by the Romans as an execution site, displaying their power and cruelty to all those wishing to enter. In the bed of the worked out quarry there are allotments, as the sheltered spot provides good growing conditions. At the back of the quarry floor there is a cliff face, and one or two wealthy families are having deluxe tombs cut into the rock. These normally have a facade, steps down into an antechamber, and a second doorway into the tomb itself, which is a large space at least 2m square, with a rock cut shelf to one side, and large enough to stand up in. The entrances of these tombs are normally sealed with a stone plug, but some have a slot carved in the rock at the base for a large and very heavy stone disk which can be rolled across the door.

Whilst what you can see (and touch if you wish) today in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre bears little resemblance to what I’ve just described – the cliff and quarry being hacked about to have a  huge church built over it by Constantine soon after 325AD, and this then almost razed to the ground by the fanatical Caliph Hakim in 1009AD (prompting the first Crusade). It nonetheless remains the site where Scripture, History, Tradition, and Archaeology all cohere. Here, in this place, the Lord was crucified. Here he was buried. Here, three days later, he arose. Constantine built a huge rotunda over the site of the empty tomb (akin to the Pantheon in Rome). The apex of the dome has multiple window lights, and the sunlight streams in over the “aedicule” that surrounds the tomb below. This is now the “cenotaph” (Greek for “empty tomb”) and the rotunda and cenotaph together are called the “Anastasis” – the “place of the rising up”. It is here, on this very place on the earth, where the worst that humanity could do was shown not to be sufficient to overcome God’s intention for us all – which is life forever with Him.

Join us on Sunday as we celebrate our risen Lord, and pray for hope for the hurting world.

Holy Week

Maundy Thursday, 2nd April. Team Service of Holy Communion at St Leonard’s Woodcote, 7.30pm.

Good Friday, 3rd April  Easter Activities for all ages in Checkendon School Hall, 10.30am.

Easter Day, 5th April.

9.30am St John’s Stoke Row – Easter Communion with Canon Kevin Davies

11am St Peter and St Paul, Checkendon – Easter Communion with Canon Kevin Davies

Sunday 12th April

9.30am Morning Prayer at St John’s Stoke Row with Mr Peter Ferguson

11am Holy Communion at St Peter and St Paul, Checkendon, with Revd David Benskin

Easter Bonuses.

Our “Ten Minute Tuesday” Lent series concludes this evening at 8pm. I’ll be reading extracts from Richard Foster’s book “Celebration of Discipline”, which explores some of the classical disciplines of the Christian life, with the aim to help us all on our spiritual journey as disciples of Christ. This week – the Discipline of Service. The zoom numbers you need are:  Meeting ID: 842 3186 5923 Passcode: 598598. Everyone is welcome, wherever you are in the Team ministry.

If you are interested in further exploring the history of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a good place to start is the wikipedia page, which has some excellent images to scroll through.

Some dates for your diary: On Sunday 19th April our 11am service will be held in Checkendon Village Hall. This is because we are sharing food! Join us for our Easter Brunch – where we’ll be enjoying and tasting some foodie tales from the New Testament. There will be a whole church Working Party at Checkendon on Saturday 25th April from 10am until 12 noon. Please come along equipped for inside or outside, as you prefer.

Lastly our Church Annual Meeting Dates are: Checkendon – Sunday 26th April at 11am after a short service; Stoke Row – Wednesday 29th April at 7.30pm.

Thank you all for your support and care for our churches. Let us remember those who love their church too, but who are harassed and hassled by the authorities as they try to live faithfully and follow Christ’s call. The next one of these notes from me will be on April 14th. May the peace of the risen Lord be with us all, wherever we may be.

Your servant, for Christ’s sake.

Canon Kevin