Let me take you briefly to the Holy Land. This week in Jerusalem is usually abuzz with activity. It starts with the Palm Sunday procession from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem. On Holy (Maundy) Thursday, a solemn service in that church attracts crowds from across the globe. Then Good Friday arrives. Thousands are gathered early in the morning along the Via Dolorosa (“the Way of Suffering”). The procession begins at the Church of the Praetorian. Led traditionally by Franciscan friars, the crowd winds its way through 14 stations. People are seen carrying crosses. Others are singing in worship. Others are walking in prayer. It culminates in the Church of the Holy Sephulchre as people mount a high staircase towards a central point within the church – Golgotha, the place of crucifixion.
You might notice a similar theme. Every event that week ends at the same church: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is hailed as the most significant Christian pilgrimage site in the world. No denomination claims it as it their own – Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic Syriac, Ethiopian Orthodox – all come to this one place; it is called by many names, “The Church of the Resurrection”, “the Church of Anastasis” (“return from the dead”), “Golgotha Church”, among others. This is why the single decision this week by the Israeli government is devastatingly significant. On March 26, 2026, in the troubled times of the war with Iran, the church was ordered closed to the general public. The effect is still reverberating throughout the world.
My mind takes me to the biblical account of the death of Christ. The crowds are not there to worship but to condemn. They are shouting, “Crucify Him!” You can hear the yells of the soldiers and the sound of the wooden cross dragged across the dirt floor as Jesus stumbled His way to the place of crucifixion. You’re assailed with the wailing of mourners and the jeering of mockers mingled in cacophony. But what of Jesus? “Like a sheep that was led to the slaughter, so He opened not His mouth,” Isaiah marvelled. “He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”
In a troubled world in troubled times, the cries of a maddened crowd are replaced by the sirens of war and the groaning sounds of drones. But the message of the Cross remains the same. His death brought us peace. In the end, it is not to a church built in the Old City in Jerusalem that we all gather, but to the foot of the Cross of Christ. May we remember this as we contemplate Good Friday in these troubling days. May we be eager to call our friends and our loved ones to Him: to find in Him peace that the world can never give – freedom from the bondage of sin, cleansing from the stain of our own doing, reconcilation with the God of Heaven – true peace in Him.
