Reflections in Pentecost Jerusalem
June 4, 2022 — Tongues of flame walked towards me from a distance. I remember seeing the procession of men, women, and children holding torches with long handles and bright flames. They meandered quietly alongside the Northern Wall of Jerusalem’s Old City towards the Damascus Gate, a bustling gate central to local Palestinian life. Around me, cars honked and screamed past. Teenagers yelled for their friends. Vendors solicited for new customers.
I had stopped near the gate when I caught sight of them: a peaceful, ethereal river which seemed out of place from the chaos around. Who were these people? On closer inspection, I realized they were local Christians beginning an annual march across the Old City to commemorate the events of Acts Chapter 2. They must have chosen this time in accordance with Jewish tradition, in which the day began and ended at sunset. What a joy to march with fellow Christians during Pentecost! Finishing my food in a hurry, I strode toward their march.
I let the river of bodies carry me towards the entrance of the Damascus gate. Here, my mind wandered to the history of the gate. In recent years, this gate has become a flashpoint in Israeli-Palestinian tensions, with frequent violent confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli police. This is epitomized in the spatial organization of the plaza outside the gate, where an Israeli police outpost surveils the entrance tirelessly. As a result, whenever I enter through the gate, I sense the atmosphere of tension, violence, and conflict.
To my surprise, none of this emerged today. I only felt a great appreciation in the community of Christians with which I walked, gliding through the gate into the belly of the city. Inside, the city held its breath. We walked in silence, traversing slowly through the alleyways of the Muslim quarter. Around us, archaic stone buildings of pale yellow rose to envelope us, but only managed to form a shady contrast to the mass of torches. Maybe the flames even burned a little brighter in protest.
Before long, we arrived at an intersection. The roads we followed south crossed paths with the Via Dolorosa, which turned east toward the Lion’s Gate. We turned as well. Around us, the streets narrowed, and the people squeezed together. The torches swung over my head, and its heat radiated comfortably against the brisk night air of the Judean mountains.
Abruptly, we stopped. We halted on the Via Dolorosa, near where some scholars believed Pontius Pilate proclaimed his judgment of Jesus. Under the Ecce Homo arch, the sounds of footsteps and shuffling slowly dissipated, and only the crackling of flames remained. The line of torches stretched before me and behind me seemingly into infinity. A solemn voice began some distance from me, and I could not see the person. He sang in worship, and the people around me also sang, but in a language which I could not understand. In their melodies, I could sense love—a deep, deep spirit-filled love for this city. A deep emanation of God’s love for this city and his gift to the believers in the form of the Holy Spirit. God’s work is not done in Jerusalem, where his blessings flowed out to the world in the form of Jesus Christ.
I had to leave soon, but I stood there for some time, in awe that the Son of God walked these lowly paths. In awe that here, in this chaotic Judean town, he bestowed his Spirit in the world.
Gabriel Cao is a junior at the Dual Degree Program between Columbia University and Tel Aviv University. He enjoys bowling and playing pool during his free time.