The Garden of Gethsemene

Bethpage

The Church at Bethpage

Mounting the Donkey to enter Jerusalem

Bethpage has at least two important meanings for us. Because it is very near Bethany, it is the place where Mary came to meet Jesus when he was on his way to the tomb of the dead Lazarus. It is also the place where Jesus mounted the donkey and began his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 

The Palm Sunday procession begins at this holy site each year in the Holy City. 

Dominus Flevit

Where Jesus would have looked out over the city and wept

On his way from Bethpage to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped on a site overlooking the Temple, and wept over the city because it had turned away from the Living God. Dominus Flevit means “The Lord wept.”

The chapel in the form of a tear drop where Jesus wept

   

          

A chapel on this site, built to look like an tear drop, looks over the city towards the Church of the Resurrection.

Gethsemene

Just outside the entrance to the Garden of Gethsemene

From Dominus Flevit, we continued the slop down towards the Kidron valley to Gethsemene. The Garden of Gethsemene is on the Mount of Olives, and it is the place where Jesus went to pray after the Last Supper was celebrated in the Upper Room just outside of the city walls. It is the place where Jesus was arrested.

The Church of Gethsemene, in the Garden

The Olive garden at Gethsemene

The Upper Room

Before Jesus made his way to Gethsemene, he celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room. Scholar’s tell us that this Upper Room was in either Mark’s or John’s house. The historical development of the site was to see a church built on to the room, to the room being enclosed into a larger building, to the Muslim’s building a Mosque next to it, to the Jews suggesting that David’s tomb was underneath it (beginning around the 12th century).

Entrance to the Upper Room

Interior of Upper Room

Mosque on far left, Upper Room on top, David's tomb on bottom floor

Church of St.Peter in Gallicantu

The site of St.Peter in Gallicantu, is where tradition says that Peter wept after denying the Lord three times.

St.Peter's

Peter denying Jesus at the trial

Another amazing day in the Holy Land. It is one thing to hear of and know the Biblical stories. It is quite another thing to see them and to fit that part of the picture together. It changes things.