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PALM SUNDAY fistacufs in Holy City
As you may be aware, Easter is celebrated on a different calendar for the Orthodox Church among others. Apparently, last Sunday was Palm Sunday. Only this year, at the holiest site on the planet-- the Church of the Holy Sepluchre-- the site of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the celebration the palms clinched up as fists and became a brawl. Check out this headline.
JERUSALEM — Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows in Christianity's holiest shrine on Palm Sunday, and pummeled police with palm fronds when they tried to break up the brawl.
Read the full story and even see pictures here. posted by John David Walt | at 4/22/2008 03:15:00 PM
Today...
7 Comments:
This is an interesting development which sounds more like it is tribal,racial, or nationalistic in origin. I wonder if you might be willing to talk more about the statement "the holiest site on planet earth" and why you think this? Is this statement informed by a biblically founded understanding or is it the cumulative understanding that has been passed down through the centuries by institutional. . . .hmmm. . . .idolitry. Would and or did Jesus remark about the notion of locational holiness?
Have you visited the Holy Land?
John you need to read the article. That statement was not J.D. saying it, it was a quote from the article located @ Foxnews.com
dgh, I had read the article prior to my first post, but I re-read it just in case I missed something. The article mentions that the church of the Holy Sepulcher is "Christianity's Holiest Shrine" which is different than "the holiest site on the planet"
Whichever sentiment was being conveyed either a belief that this is indeed the holiest site on the planet or if it is what some reporter said was the holiest site on the planet I think it is still worth talking about. . .don't you?
In fact how might you answer the same questions I posed to J.D. even if you don't identify the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the holiest site on the planet, why don't you?
Thanks for checking me brother.
Well, at least they have passion for what they believe? Not that this is exciting but sometimes in relative safety here we loose our passion for our faith.
It just makes you want to sing doesn't it?
"I'm so glad... I'm a part... of the family of God... I've been washed in the fountain...etc."
Sigh...
john david palmer-- on my blog. worthy of a celebration. re: holiest site-- i do understand what you are driving at i think, and I did make the comment a bit flippantly. however, that said-- for my money, the site of the holy sepluchre church is the holiest site on the planet. it is the place-- the dirt on the earth where the Son of God was crucified, died and was buried and from where he arose from the dead. in the economy of incarnation-- place matters. and God doing this in that particular place, in fact, makes every place on the planet significant.
what do you think john? thanks for stirring the conversation.
J.D. I've had the good blessing of having traveled to the Holy Land and have stood in the very place that was displayed in the pictures from the sited article.
I have to confess a measurable amount of awe and wonder having traveled there. To breath the air at the sea of Galilee. To touch the stone's at the temple mount. To walk the path's that the disciples followed as they listened to and were taught by Jesus.
At the same time I was struck with with a sense of shame. . . or maybe anger or angst as I viewed the sites so many had made pilgrimage to. I felt pushed and even shunned at times, especially in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. On the defensive a bit as if maybe I didn't have a right to be there, though I felt I did. Caught between wonderment and disapointment.
Why is it that the Orthodox have such issue's within their own branch?
As I reflect on those moments of having been there I have to decide weather or not we can call a particular place or a certain object "holy" without it becoming an object that is subject to corruption and defilement. And if some "thing" holy can be defiled by us it run's the risk of us working so hard to prevent such defilement that we box it up and guard in such a way as to prevent its "holiness" to have any effect on us.
I don't really believe that there is any such "thing" that should be denoted with such sentiment. Rather I believe that, as you suggest, that Jesus's life, death and resurection is the event that changed time and thought in such a way that we view person's and people with this particular description and in so doing we perpetuate that Holiness for the world.
enjoying the conversation friend.
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