The Church of the Holy Sepulchre - The Holiest of Holies

Stops #11, 12, and 13 are here.

#11 - Jesus is nailed to the cross.
#12 - Jesus dies.
#13 - Jesus is taken down off the cross and prepared for burial.

After two wrong turns, I decided to follow a Spanish tour group. I could understand the tour guide, so that wasn't hard, but I'm glad I tagged along!

We went though a small Coptic Sanctuary for Coptic Monks and came out to the front of the church. What luck!

I have to admit, this church was intense and almost too much to take in. You are kind of stunned at first, and by degrees, the light comes upon you.

The first thing you see is a flat piece of stone with candles lit eternally over it. This is the place where Jesus' body was taken down off of the cross and lovingly prepared for burial. People bend over and touch the stone, and I did too. It's indescribable.

To the right of the door is Golgatha - "place of the skulls". The steep stairs almost did me in. Golgatha is the rock Jesus was crucified upon and is 20 feet higher than the floor of the church.

I was able to crawl into a space and reach my hand into a hole and touch the top of the rock where the cross was imbedded.

To the left inside the door, downstairs, is the site where supposedly Jesus was first buried in a "donated" tomb of Joseph of Arimethea. The line was huge! I'm not always claustrophobic, but that was too much. It was 100 degrees outside and worse within the church. There were over 10 tour groups there and so I just went to watching the people, watching the priests spread stinky incense everywhere, and taking pictures.

I would love to go again. It was a struggle, but an awesome and rewarding one.