Photos: Easter morning inside the Holy Sepulchre Church - 1. the "skull" of Calvary under the altar (a worshiper is kneeling there) 2. procession of priests, etc. 3. chapel under the church, with candle lighting 4. dome of the church (here is where I heard the "Hallelujah Chorus") 5. Orthodox priest in procession by the tomb of Christ

After showering and eating some breakfast, I decided to go once again into the Old City and see what kinds of Easter celebrations were going on there. I stumbled on a most interesting group, on the roof of the Holy Sepulcher Church: the Ethiopian Christian community! With their robes and special palm branches and brightly colored tent where their worship was taking place! Then I descended the stairs to the courtyard of the Holy Sepulcher, and into the throngs that were spilling in and out of the church’s enormous doors. It was packed inside! But again, to watch these beautiful, devoted believers in Christ espress their worship and passion for Him was wonderful to behold. I spent a lot of time on top of Calvary watching people light candles, climb under the altar and touch the top of “the skull,” praying all around the chapel itself, again, amazingly reverent and unhurried. Suddenly the organ started to play, and from the direction of the tomb came a long procession of clergy, decked out in their Easter finest, with candles and crosses, circling before the doors for some kind of Easter service in Latin. I was able to see it all, from my vantage point on top of Calvary, and the formal beauty of its elegance and pageantry brought another new sense of the power and glory of the resurrection to me--so different from the setting of the Garden Tomb. By the tomb itself, the Orthodox were putting together their own procession and I watched this for quite awhile too, even as a choir in a balcony overhead sang the “Hallelujah Chorus!”

And so my Holy Week has ended (except for church tonight at King of Kings). Through every place, activity and event I've experienced these last days, I am more aware than ever of God's love for us, expressed through everything that Y'shua has done for us in his tremendous suffering and death on the cross.  The physical dimension of this--of being in the city, in the general locations where these events occurred--has worked into my heart and soul like never before, and I am feeling stunned; breathless; overwhelmed with realizations and insights of the grace and love and utter extremes that our God has gone to in order to redeem us.  I think you know I can get pretty emotional about things, and that both symbol and realism (e.g. having an actual donkey come into the church with Jesus riding it for "The Promise") help to bring me insight and appreciation and fresh levels of meaning as I'm engaged by them.  This is what has happened this week:  the "actual  place" aspect of being here in Jerusalem has added new richness to the biblical, historical, and theological framework that I always grasped before, touching my heart emotionally and with new "aha" experiences that are truly more than I can absorb fully right now.

But as I sat again in the very front row for the sunrise service at the Garden Tomb, with the empty tomb directly before me, I could shout out with more confidence and feeling than ever before--together with the hundreds of others gathered there to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection: “Christ is risen! HE IS RISEN INDEED!”