Saturday, March 3 2012: Day 7

Saturday, Mar. 3 - After breakfast, we loaded the bus and traveled to the Church of the Holy . The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem.  The site is venerated as Golgotha or Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and is said also to contain the place where Jesus was buried. Today it also serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the building is shared between several Christian churches and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for centuries.   We then started our journey on the Via Dolorosa (the way of the cross) backwards.  Stations 10-14 are located within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  The Via Dolorosa is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of Jerusalem, held to be the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to his crucifixion.  We ended the Via Dolorosa with a visit to the Pools of Bethesda.  The Pool of Bethesda is a pool of water in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, on the path of the Beth Zeta Valley. The Gospel of John describes such a pool in Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. It is associated with healing.  With in the complex is St. Anne's Church, the traditional site of Mary's birth.  Here we stopped to hear ourselves sing; St. Anne’s Church has great acoustics.  Our final stop of the day was to the Israel Museum.  Here we saw the Dead Sea Scrolls, q huge model of Jerusalem in the days of Jesus, and the newly revamped Archeology Wing.   Another fulfilled, educational day even though it was cold and rainy again.  Tomorrow it is to clear up and by Monday is supposed to be nice...finally.  Hope all is well back in the states!  Shalom, Ian