Good Friday in Jerusalem: Scenes from Three Religions

March 30, 2016 

Scene 1: The crowd begins to gather at the Lions’ Gate on the east side of Jerusalem's Old City. Outside of Sultan Suleiman's 16th century walls, people converse in many languages: Russian, Slovak, Italian, French, Arabic and English.

At the appointed time of 11:30 a.m., Catholic priests lead the crowd into the Old City and onto the Via Dolorosa -- the route that Jesus supposedly took from Pilate’s palace to his crucifixion on Golgotha. As the worshippers move through the narrow street, they sweep everyone before them. No one even attempts the opposite direction.

Scene 2: Shops line the Via Dolorosa. This lucrative route is designed for Christian pilgrims, whether they’re visiting on a holy day or not. They sell frankincense, myrrh, icons and rosaries, as well as antique religious items, woven rugs and jewelry. On most days, shopkeepers come out of their stores to entice passersby to enter. Today, walking the street an hour after the crowd has gone by, most shopkeepers do not appear. They have already had excellent sales!  

Scene 3: At each of the 13 stations of the cross, the crowd stops, and the priests conduct a short worship service. All movement on the street stops. No one can go anywhere. Everyone becomes a participant, whether that was their intent or not.

If you get claustrophobic in crowds and try to leave, you will discover that you are in a highly secure zone. The police have blocked off all streets connecting to the Via Dolorosa; no one can walk down them in either direction. The only way out is the way in.  

Scene 4: As the pilgrims enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the street clears, a muezzin sounds the call for the Muslim Friday midday prayers. From all around, Muslim men appear, moving quickly eastward down the Via Dolorosa to the El-Aqsa mosque. After all, Friday is the Muslim holy day, and the other end of the street leads directly to this most sacred area.

Scene 5: An hour later, I sit in Jafar's Sweet Shop eating a plate of hot kanafi. Everyone knows, that in Jerusalem, Jafar’s is the best place for this cheese-based dessert with the crumbly red topping.

A middle-aged woman in a head scarf and a plain black kafia enters with her two 20-something sons. They walk over to the counter with the large round trays of hot sweets, debating what to have for their Friday desserts. They point, then a few deft slices cut by the salesman followed by some quick packaging, and they leave.  

An old man with grizzled hair sticking out from under a white skull cap waits at the sales register as they bag his purchase. His smile beams, encompassing the entire room, but his boyishly innocent eyes focus on one thing -- the bag of sweets being handed to him across the counter. He departs with his head erect and the smile still playing across his lips.

Scene 6: Outside the Old City, the flower store on Salah ed-Din Street is busy. A Mercedes is pulled up onto the sidewalk, a large spray of white flowers attached to its hood. Soon, it will be driven down the street to the bridal store, where the bride will walk down its broad steps, through the gate and into the car to be whisked off to her wedding.

Scene 7: In Judaism, this Friday is Purim, the topsy-turvy holiday, which last night highlighted readings of the biblical story of Esther, and today features crowds of children dressed in costumes. In West Jerusalem, a party atmosphere reigns -- as in a children’s birthday party. There are street musicians, clowns tying balloon animals, face painting and general joyous fun.

Scene 8: At Mary’s Tomb near the Garden of Gethsemane, a multitude of shoes nearly block the entrance. In Islam, Mary is the mother of one of their greatest prophets, namely Jesus. So, on this special day, a group of Muslim pilgrims visit her tomb, removing their shoes before entering, as they would at a mosque.

Scene 9: Today’s wanderings took me between West Jerusalem, East Jerusalem and the Old City. At the day’s end, I discover I traveled between two time zones. Daylight savings began Thursday night in West Jerusalem, but not in the other two areas. I saw the Purim parade at 10 a.m., and then Mary’s tomb at 9:30 that morning. Does anyone really know what time it is? What century?

And Now for Something Completely Different: Video-Game Religion

You may have missed it in the run-up to the election, but one of the most anticipated video games of the fall was released. No, not “Halo 4” for the Xbox, but “Assassin’s Creed 3,” which actually is the fifth game in the series.

In these games, the main character spends a lot of his time climbing up buildings, running across roofs and leaping the gaps between them. And what buildings they are! Set in medieval Jerusalem and Damascus as well as Renaissance Venice, Rome and Constantinople, the games are based on detailed 3-D photos of the historic buildings in these cities. It is quite an experience to scale the wall of the Blue Mosque’s minaret, to leap across the parapets of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and to crawl spider-like up the Pantheon’s ceiling in Rome -- even if only in a video game.

“Assassins Creed 3” represents a significant change from previous games. The action takes place during America’s Revolutionary War, and the main character’s initial goal is to protect George Washington from assassination attempts. Along the way, he takes part in the Boston Tea Party, works with Paul Revere and appears in numerous events of the Revolution. This is historical fiction reshaped quite smartly as an interactive video game.

The new story line takes the action out of the urban settings of the previous games and places it in the countryside (think “Red Dead Redemption”). Most of the climbing takes place in trees, on cliffs and on boulder piles left by glaciers. When buildings are involved , they rarely rise higher than two or three stories.

But the biggest change actually happens with the role of religion in the story. It has essentially disappeared. Only the Native Americans are shown doing or saying anything even vaguely religious, and that is quickly passed over. The towns contain churches, but they are largely ignored -- although the Old North Church of Paul Revere fame gets attention.

By contrast, the plots and the settings of the previous games were steeped in religion.

The first “Assassin’s Creed” takes place during the Crusades, with Christian and Muslim armies in great battles. The main plot features two shadowy groups, the Assassins and the Templars, both of which have secret mystical and religious leanings that allow them to position members on both sides of the war. Many of the key buildings are religious shrines, mosques and churches, standing alongside castles and other fortifications.

The next two games, AC2 and AC Brotherhood, take place in Renaissance Italy, with the plot featuring conflict within Christianity. The struggle between the Templars and Assassins ultimately rises to involve the papacy and “Brotherhood’s” move to Rome, enabling the play to encompass the many churches and other religious buildings of Rome, as well as ancient structures such as the Forum and the Coliseum.

The fourth “Assassins’ Creed” game, known as “Revelations,” occurs in Constantinople (i.e., Istanbul) a few years after its fall to Muslim armies. The fights between the Templars and Assassins happen against the background of dynastic struggles within the ruling Ottoman family. But religion remains an important component of the game’s physical setting, with action taking place in the Hagia Sophia church (by then converted to a mosque), Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque, as well as many lesser known mosques.

The continual presence of religion in the first four “Assassins’ Creed” games makes its absence in “Assassins’ Creed 3” quite striking. Eighteenth-century America was filled with a variety of Christian groups, from Congregationalists and Presbyterians to Quakers and Anglicans and even a few Jews and Catholics -- to say nothing of the Deism of many colonial leaders. Although the Revolution was political, it had deep theological underpinnings.

While I applaud this game’s role-playing opportunity, which gives its players ring-side seats at the American Revolution, I am disappointed that its recreation of historical realism is missing a key component of the society.

Why would the game’s creators make such a radical change, given their approach to previous games? I can only guess, but I suggest two reasons.

On the one hand, the different Christian groups came to America for religious freedom; that freedom revealed the differences and vitriolic disagreements among them. To present a realistic picture, the game would need to show difference, rather than the unity with which the country faced the British.

On the other hand, current debates over the role of religion in today’s American culture would have latched onto any display of religion at the time of the nation’s founding and used it to their own advantage. These present-day cultural fights over the role of religion inspired the game’s creators to avoid controversy altogether and edit out the religious circumstances of the time.

(Note: Thanks to Conor McCracken-Flesher for his gaming expertise.)