PILGRIMS WAIL AND WAIL

Today's blog was a group project between Jeff Wood, Roy Knight and John White! ~~~

Jerusalem and wailing? We’re talking the wall, right? Not completely.
We began the day at another possible site of Jesus’ tomb. Pretty quickly, however, we were at Caiaphas’ house. He was the high priest who was big in Jesus’ demise. There’s a statue on the grounds that has a rooster. It signifies that this place we were at was not only the scene of a trial but of a denial as well. (Peter and the cock crowing thrice. Mark 14:66ff) All that is pretty understandable, something we might expect. But it was the basement that got us.
Caiaphas had, supposedly, in his basement a sacred pit. That’s what one of the signs named it. You know what was in parenthesis after that phrase? Dungeon. Yep, dungeon. Here’s a high priest with a dungeon under his house. This is where, was suggested to us, Jesus was not simply kept after his hasty trial but tortured. He would be tortured by the Roman soldiers. But before that as well. Here at Caiaphas’ house. Beneath the chamber for the flogging inflicted by Caiaphas was a kind of cave. It could only be entered by rope. It could only be gotten out of by being raised by rope. The idea was that this is where Jesus was put until being paraded over to Pilate. He was put in a dark, cold stone pit.
While we were crowded in there, Fairfax read Psalm 88. Amongst its verses: “You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep." We wailed a little.
Thirty minutes later, in the bright sunlight, we were forehead to the Wailing Wall. All sorts of people foreheads to rock praying. It was a sight. Men in black with big hats. Tourists with cameras. Others in prayer shawls. All praying. Thanking God. Wailing for God’s desires to come to fruition for God’s world. It was a different kind of wailing.
Wail at the beginning of our day for Christ’s suffering for us. Wail at the end of our day for God’s weal for all of us.
Jeff, Roy, and John