We continued down the Mount of Olives on our second-last day of our time in the Holy Land. About halfway down the mount is the Church of Dominus Flevit. This is where the Lord Wept for Jerusalem. The church is even shaped like a teardrop. This particular site offers a great view of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Jesus would have seen a great view of the Temple, the path He would follow to his death, the path to fulfilling what He was sent to fulfill.
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Dominus Flevit, "The Lord Wept"
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We left the prior site of Pater Noster following the Palm Sunday Path. Some parts use steps early on. But most of the path is a steep roadway with walls on each side in a path surrounded by death--a graveyard in which people have been buried for thousands of years, and thus even before the time of Jesus.
Here are some of the graves. The people believed God would come from the east and judge, so those that were buried on the Mount of Olives would be judged first. I suspect that if it wasn't for some of the Christian holy sites on this same mount, the northern half would be lined with graves as well. I suspect the Mount of Olives would lack olive trees if that would ever occur.
We continue heading down...
The blocks that form the walls are level, so you can see just how much this road drops, and you can see the Kidron Valley ahead, and the Temple Mount rising up from it.
When I started to notice this incline/decline, I wanted to capture it straight on for reference.
Here is the entry to the Dominus Flevit site.
Hey! It's the Mount of Olives for a reason...olive trees! There's apparently a garden area on the way to the church. How appropriate is that?
Here's another view of the garden.
The have found burial caves on the site. So aside from the tombs seen at ground level, there are ossuaries and other signs of tombs below in these covered caves.
I've grown so used to autofocus and especially cameraphones that keep everything in roughly the same amount of focus. But the item of focus here was so close compared to the background that you can tell what I was looking at. This is part of a mustard tree. I imagine we're about to get a lesson...
What does a mustard seed look like? Let's grab a pod and break it open.
A dark clump fell out, but that's a cluster of several seeds.
The guide spread them out by rubbing it. He then pointed at one of two seeds that I can spot in this photo. Can you see them? It's a tiny, black speck that from this angle can be found by following his fingernail's edge (the left side from our perspective) down in a fairly straight line...it's barely to the left of that line.
When he takes his finger away, and you can still see the lighter spot where his finger had pressed his palm a moment earlier, one should see a third one that was hiding in the shadows very close to his finger in the last photo.
So when the Bible speaks of the tiny size of the mustard seed, this is what they mean. It's practically dust. I've seen larger depictions of a mustard seed, but this is what I've seen with my own eyes from knowledgeable tour guides.
I think they said there was a group in the church having a Mass, but I'm not certain. I would have to think so, because I never stepped foot inside the church. The group stayed out in front of it for the most part looking out toward the Old City of Jerusalem and the view Jesus would have had of the Temple.
That was me zooming in with a good zoom again. Let's take a step back. It's still a bit of distance to the city gates. I like this view. It means more to me now, and anything within a block or so of this site means a great deal.
Here is a view to the southwest, to the left of the Temple Mount in the last few photos. This is the area of the City of David that's associated with Jerusalem, forming the side of a hill from the Old City down to the valley below. Another "City of David" is Bethlehem, which is coincidentally in this direction, just a few miles away. If there were no hills, you'd easily see it from here. Oh, and here are thousands of additional graves.
I aimed down the hill a bit, still aiming a bit to the south, but mostly west.
Straight across the valley again.
Our guide showed us parts from a plant that is in the same family of plants as would be used to form the crown of thorns. The thorns are a few inches long.
After looking away from the church, I knew I better get a few photos of the church. Like I said earlier, it's shaped like a teardrop. The corners have objects that symbolize objects used to capture the tears. I've seen photos taken from inside this very small church, but like I said, I haven't gone in, and thus have no photos from inside. The clear, rectangular windows are behind the altar, and when one looks out from the altar, one sees a cross inside that lines up nicely with important sites in the city.
Another church is visible in a nearby place. I wanted to see what it was like inside. It's a Russian Orthodox church named after Mary Magdalene. But there aren't any known incidents involving her there; it just bears her name. If there was ever a site halfway between these two sites, that's a site I would like to visit.
Since I didn't go inside the church, this was another opportunity to keep taking photos from this mount. This angle looks to the northwest, toward Gethsemane, which is where we will go next.
Speaking of continuing on down the Palm Sunday Path, it's time to head down the hill some more. I found this spot interesting. There was a bench to sit on along the side of the road. I think it's placed very well. If someone tires of walking either direction, this would be the spot where I would expect them to want a break. Since there isn't much room on the side of this roadway, one has to have the bench built into the walls.
I love the way the rounded outcropping of the wall has a tall tree that has a similar diameter.
Now we continue down the route.
We visited it previously. So you may have already visited that page. Sadly, the formatting of that important site had much smaller photos until you clicked them. I may see if I can reformat some of the older posts at some point to match what the more recent posts show.
After visiting that page, the bottom links forward to two different sites. I you want to continue along the path we are following, then after Gethsemane, you'll want to continue using the link to the post for the Upper Room. That's more the Holy Thursday route.
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