Tag: Compline

Jesus lived in a cave.

We saw this cave this evening. We’re in Nazareth and after a rather ordinary day of travel and nothing totally remarkable happening or requiring processing, we went down below the convent where we’re staying.

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This is the cave where Jesus lived (or at least his extended family did). The lowest portion before the entranceway is the part present in the 1st century.

My soul is both too silent for words to express my reaction to this sight and also too stirred up to ever be the same. I will need to process this a bit with you as I return, to begin to make sense of what I saw and where I was this evening. But I do know that seeing the place where Jesus lived, played, prayed, slept, and visited with his extended family brought me into a real mystical sense of the living Jesus, who was formed by this location and his traditions and family, and which played out in the ministry. I know more now about the living Jesus~ the why and how that plays out in our lives is still a wondering for me.

Mother Betsy and I ended the evening with Compline, a perfect way to enclose and release the gift we received into the love of God, whose son, our Lord, lives with us now as the risen Christ. Amen. Amen.

 

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This is a manger, like the one Jesus would have been laid in. It was made of stone, not wood.
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This was not Jesus’ tomb, but shows you the round stone (right) that was rolled in front of the tombs, that the women were wondering how they would remove it when they came to anoint the body.
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This is what the tombs looked like. Jesus’ body would be in that area outside the tombs (the dark areas) since the women had not yet prepared his body That anteroom was designed for the women to anoint the body and to mourn.