I’ll admit to having sneaked out early from St George’s College today, but in my defence it was to get to the site of the tomb of Christ early in the morning on the first day of the week. The Holy Sepulchre is rather busy – to say the least – during the day, but at this time in the morning it was just a little less hectic, and yet no less full of the passion and excitement, the hustle and bustle, the chaos, even, that seemed strangely reminiscent of the day of resurrection itself. I went in from a pitch black and silent Jerusalem, and came out into the glorious light of day, smiling from ear to ear. Not a bad start to the day.
Straight onto the bus we went, and off to Nazareth. The drive through the countryside was just extraordinary – out of the city and straight into the wilderness, driving up country to what still feels as a bit of an out-of-the-way town. We joined the congregation at Christ Church, Nazareth, for a joint Arabic-English service, gazing on those wonderful words of commission that Jesus speaks from Isaiah in Luke’s Gospel – The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…
The hospitality of the congregation was warm and effusive, and we joined a group from New Jersey in the US and a few other pilgrims in the church together with local Christians – a real scene of unity across the Anglican Communion. Then on we went to the Basilica of the Annunciation, a beautiful space in which it really felt like we were at the Holy Land’s Walsingham. It was immensely moving to find ourselves sitting in the spot where Our Lady Mary was surprised – startled, even – by the Angel Gabriel, and the place where her ‘yes’ changed the world. It was possible to feel Mary encouraging us even now – ‘turn to Jesus, follow your Lord and mine’. And with a small chapel dedicated to St Joseph the Worker, to whom I have a particular dedication – a place where I was able to pray for my own late father and hold my own family, the family of St John the Divine, and the whole human family before God – something good truly seemed to have come out of Nazareth.
That would have been quite an extraordinary enough programme for one day, but that was not the end – we jumped back on the coach and headed towards Capernaum, the town of Jesus’s ministry, the town where healings and teachings took place, a town nestled next to the Sea of Galilee and that feels a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem. And here we will rest a while, and accompany the Lord on His short but fruitful ministry in Galilee.
