Meditation on the Via Dolorosa

It’s a narrow, crooked street, the Via Dolorosa, deep in the shadows of the heart of Old Jerusalem. If you look up, you can see a sliver of sky, but if you look down, you’d almost swear you’re indoors.

The Via Dolorosa is not kind to pedestrians, for it goes right through the center of an Arab marketplace. The air is heavy with sights and sounds and smells—oh, the smells—and the crush of the people in the street is fantastic. You can easily find yourself trying to go one way and being swept another by the tide of humanity.

More than one passerby has been hurled headlong by this torrent of people into a merchant’s stall, only to be tossed back into the street accompanied by Arab curses. It’s a lot like whitewater rafting, except that the river is people. A tourist needs one hand on his wallet, one to clutch his camera to his bosom, and two more to fend off the jostling crowd.

You’ll see things on the Via Dolorosa that you won’t see anywhere else: Meat stalls where freshly butchered sides of goats sway in the hot sun, waiting to whack you in the side of the head if you walk too close.

The clang of the silversmith’s hammer echoes off the dirty walls above the din of the crowd. Dark Palestinians with angry eyes, looking like they just came from a Hezbollah meeting jostle with pale-faced Greek Orthodox priests resplendent in their high black mitres as they pass by Jewish soldiers in yarmulkes with Uzis slung casually over their shoulders who are trying to push through a crowd of flower-shirted American tourists in sunglasses and baseball caps.

It’s a crazy street, this Via Dolorosa. And it’s a lot like the street that Jesus stumbled down on his way to Golgotha. The Via Dolorosa is not THE street that Jesus walked. The city of Jerusalem has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times over the past 2,000 years that the city of Jesus’ day lies straight down under about 50 feet of rubble.

But the Via Dolorosa is populated by the same kind of people that walked the streets of Jerusalem in 30 AD.

There were soldiers in the street—as there are today—just trying to do their job with as little hassle as possible so they can get off duty and enjoy life.

There were merchants in the street—as there are today—bickering and bartering for the almighty shekel, hoping one day to retire to a quieter place.

There were rebels in the street—as there are today—seething with anger at the occupation of their homeland; resenting the intrusion of all these foreigners.

There were religious folk in the street—as there are today—going to or coming from their place of worship, preoccupied with their spiritual exercises.

There were sightseers in the street—as there are today—looking for a souvenir of their visit to the Holy Land, intent on experiencing its culture, its life, its atmosphere.

There were shoppers in the street—as there are today— trying to obtain their daily needs and searching for a bargain in the process.

And there were idlers in the street—as there are today—there for no other reason than that they had nothing better to do that day.

And along comes a man stumbling through the crowd in the middle of a squad of Roman soldiers. He’s bleeding, he’s bruised. He staggers under the weight of a heavy wooden beam that has been lashed to his shoulders. His breath comes in wheezes and gasps.

The burly soldiers shove people out of the way, and curse at the prisoner to move faster. When he stumbles and falls one more time, they realize he isn’t going to make it under his present load. So they look quickly around and grab a big man standing nearby and commandeer his shoulders to carry the beam for the prisoner.

Turns out that this bystander is from out of town. His name is Simon, he’s Jewish, and he comes from a city in North Africa. He’s here to observe the Passover Feast in Jerusalem. His holiday plans certainly do NOT include being part of THIS bloody procession.

One wonders what he was thinking as he carried the cross-beam of Jesus’ cross on his broad shoulders. For that matter, what were all the people thinking as they saw Jesus stumble by early that Friday morning?

Did the early morning shoppers look up from their bargains, only to avert their gaze, trying to ignore the gory parade?

Did some of the passersby feel even a twinge of pity for the victim who was being led to his death? Did the idlers cheer for him, or jeer at him as he passed?

And what did the religious folk think? Did any of them pray for him? Did any of them try to catch his eye to somehow say “I’m sorry for what you are going through… I wish I could help you?”

The Gospel of Luke only tells us that some of the women who were in the street that day mourned and wailed for him. The words that Luke uses there indicate that it was the typical mourning, or lamenting that is still commonly practiced in the Middle East. It is a loud, rhythmic wailing sound that once you’ve heard, you can never forget.

Families who had been bereaved would hire professional mourners to provide a background of this kind of wailing, and sometimes passersby would even join in.

I believe that this is the kind of mourning that was being done by these women in the street. It was a ritualistic mourning as they witnessed a prisoner going to his death.

I don’t think that there was any real personal feeling in the hearts of these women. I don’t think that they had any personal connection or attachment to Jesus. They were just doing what they thought needed to be done in these circumstances in order to provide this poor Jewish boy with a decent funeral. Jesus, to them, was nothing more than a “dead man walking”.

Listen to what Jesus said to them. He didn’t call any of them by name. He didn’t thank them for their tears, or bless them for their sympathy. He simply said “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”

“Because the time is coming when Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. And it is going to happen because you didn’t recognize your Messiah. You didn’t respond to God’s offer of salvation. If this is what men do when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

People in the street, going about their everyday lives. Confronted by the Son of God, the Savior of the world. But unable to recognize him for who he really is. In that way, the Via Dolorosa is much like Hamilton St., MacArthur Road, Cedarcrest Blvd.