Our Road to Emmaus

In 2009 we visited the Holy Land on a tour with our church, Upper Arlington Lutheran Church and Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Columbus. St. Jerome called this kind of pilgrimage, the fifth gospel. And it is, indeed, as all the readings and stories you've heard for years come alive.

 
According to Fr. Sebastian White (editor of Magnificat, April 2021, p. 3-5) the one place we're not sure we saw is Emmaus, the place two disciples were heading when the risen Jesus joined them on the road. There are 6 contenders! Not to worry, the Bible is very clear even if modern explorers can't agree on the historical location. It's the road that represents "every place," -- "the road every Christian, every person takes. The risen Jesus makes himself our traveling companion as we go on our way, to rekindle the warmth of faith and hope in our hearts and to break the bread of eternal life." (Pope Benedict XVI)

Brother Wenger finds medical care 110 years ago

A.D. (Amos Daniel) Wenger's 14 month trip around the world, with "Six months in Bible Lands," the title of his 1902 book has been a fascinating read. A widowed Mennonite evangelist and teacher, he relates everything he sees to scripture, theology, and modern (19th century) times. He must have been in extremely good condition, because although there was good train service in those days, probably better than today, for any distance they used a carriage, donkey, or went on foot. He believed in nonresistance, so wouldn't arm himself or hire armed guides. And it was very dangerous territory with many robberies and assaults. Sometimes he appears to be traveling alone except for his guides, other times he mentions people he meets--Europeans and Americans, some with children--and they go in groups. Since about 3/4 of our group got sick in March 2009, I did wonder about their medical care. On p. 332 he mentions it, and develops a sermon of sorts:

"Thinking there was a bug in my left ear I crossed the valley to the English Ophthalmic Hospital a short distance southwest of Jerusalem. The examination revealed the fact that I had taken a severe cold.

At this hospital as well as at several others in the city a great many persons are treated for diseases of the eye. In our country the proportion of blind is only about one in a thousand while in Palestin and Egypt there is one to every hundred. It seems to me that the dust, the rapid changes of temperature between day and night and the glare of the brilliant sun from the white limestone rocks and stones in all parts of the country have something to do with causing eye diseases and blindness; but the chief cause of the spread of eye disease is very likely through the medium of flies. Apparently, mothers never brush the pests from the faces of their babies and it is quite common to see the flies clinging in half dozens round the eyes of the children. Mothrs allow this when the babes are yet helpless in order to keep off the "evil eye." Thus the children become habituated to it in infance and do not resent it when they grow older. The diseases are spread by the insects carrying infection on their feet from one child to another. . .

Blindness is mentioned so many times in the Scriptures that we must conclude it was very prevalent in Bible times, especially in the time of Christ. (notes John 5:3, Luke 7:21) Everyone who will not see it to his best interests to prepare for a home in glory is awfully blind, but the case is not beyond the healing power of the great Physician, whenever employed..."

Here he notes a visit to some German colonists living near the hospital, members of a religious order called Templars, who do not believe in Jesus Christ, although they give him honor. He is grieved that some Mennonites from Germany and Russia have united with them, and tries to turn them from their error. From there he visits a leper's hospital built and maintained by the Moravians. He describes their hideous conditions, limbs rotting, and body sores. He thinks if marriage could be prevented the disease would be reduced, but many lepers refused to live at the hospital and preferred to beg on the streets, where their pitiful condition could support several people. Again, A.D. quotes the appropriate passages about lepers.

"Leprosy is a most striking type of the more deadly leprosy of sin. Often the children of leprous parents are just as pretty and as healthy looking as other children, but by and by some of the signs indicated in the 13th chapter of Leviticus make their appearance. There is no escape from it, every child born of such parents must fall a victime to the dread disease. It is just so with sin. . . The Lord alone can heal the leprosy of the soul. He who cleansed the leper with a word can forgive sin and save the soul. All are invited to come and be healed of the leprosy that eats as doth a canker and mars the beauty and loveliness of the soul." (p. 337-8)

As I noted before, I have been impressed with his readability--and he can even spell ophthalmic, one of the few words in English that has the "phth" and is even misspelled in medical journals! He's a lot easier to read than William Dean Howells, a prominent 19th century American writer just a few years his senior.

Traveling the Holy Land with AD Wenger

As I noted 2 weeks ago, I bought a book recently for ten cents, “Six months in Bible Lands” by Amos Daniel Wenger (doesn't seem to be one of "my" Wengers), an account of his 14 months traveling through Europe, the Holy Land, and Asia in 1899-1900. Because we were on a “Steps of Paul” tour in March 2009, in Ireland and Italy in 2007 and 2008, in Finland and Russia in 2006, and Germany and Austria in 2005, many of his stops and descriptions whether of cathedrals in Europe or the waters of the Jordan are quite vivid, even though he experienced them 110 years ago.

My questions to AD and travelers of the 1890s are quite practical: first of all toilets, then shoes, clothing, traveling companions, arrangements for money and translators, food, medical care, suitcases, etc. But just as we know that there used to be a two-story outhouse attached to the hotel here at Lakeside (for men only) a hundred years ago, there is no photo of it in existence, because those necessities were just a way of life, and usually not recorded in guide books. So we are left to wonder what the women used, or who were the poor servant staff who emptied chamber pots from the hotel rooms of 19th century Methodists.

In our diversity-obsessed and PC academic culture, some academics or liberal Christians might find his descriptions of the people he meets and cultures he experiences “ethnocentric” or “xenophobic,” but I found his honesty and true compassion and love quite refreshing. When he sees a fierce, dark skinned, armed Bedouin he mentions his fear, but also is firm in his unwillingness to arm himself or even travel with an armed guard, because he is a “nonresistant” Mennonite. He thinks that nonresistant missionaries (I don’t think he uses the word pacifist) who hire armed guards are hypocrites. When he sees women doing the work of pack animals, he mentions how much better off and respected are women in America. When he observes lascivious, drunk women on the train in France, he makes note. When he compares the differences among the Turks (area was controlled by the Ottoman Empire), the Arabs, the native Palestinian tribes, Druses, native Christian groups, Palestinian Jews, European Jews and various European and American travelers either guides or missionaries who live and work there, it is with the eye of a Christian, American Mennonite evangelist who believes the living water of the gospel of Jesus more important than digging a local well for fresh water and moving on. And he is quite distressed and saves his harshest words for squabbling Christian sects.

He observes the irony and pain, as did we, of the various Christian sects--Armenians, Greeks, Roman Catholics and others--sharing worship space in churches build over holy places, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, and the Church of the nativity in Bethlehem. These places then and now are controlled by Moslems, and they, not the Christians who squabble and refuse to worship together, keep the peace. When AD was at these sites, he was told of killings and fightings among the Christians going back to the times of the Crusades, and he grieves that this is such a poor witness to both Jews and Moslems. I'm sure the Mennonites' squabbles back home over whether to use a pulpit or table, or whether Sunday Schools are an evil concession to the larger culture, paled by comparison, because he never mentions them.

His experience inside these holy shrines sounds very similar to ours. For instance, in Bethlehem:

“We went beneath the floor of the church into a chamber in the natural rock. A silver star is pointed out as the place of the birth, and a stone manger is shown, but it seems painful to see it all so changed and embellished by the hands of idolizing sects. It seems more painful however that the Christianity of the land has so degenerated since the Pentecostal shower of heavenly grace that Mohammedan soldiers must be kept on the spot to keep peace among the Christians--to keep even priests from flying at each other’s throats.” (p. 122)

Of course, you don’t have to read far into Paul’s letters to the New Testament churches to see the first thing Christians did was to start creating factions and disagreements, even in the first century. There is a 2,000 year history of squabbling over baptism, food, times of worship, end times prophecies, which holy days to observe, whether to marry or tarry, etc. And dear brother Wenger spends more than a few pages showing his readers why the Mennonites have the proper way to use water in baptism, using Scripture, archeology and his own observations.

Updating my trip log

It's a bit tedious, but I am continuing the trip log of the cruise, "Steps of Paul," but I have redated all of them for March 18 so they will be consecutive. So you won't see them at the top of the blog page. Yesterday I did a print preview, and although I'm not yet to Israel, it was over 30 pages. Yes, I'm old fashioned. I don't trust technology and I print anything I want to really save. Here's my Holy Land tour. The photo album is already put together, thanks to my husband who feels better than I do and is a tad more organized. He took over 700 photos, winnowed that to about 500, then bought an album that holds 402, so still had to make some painful decisions. He had it ready to show his breakfast group on Thursday.

If you're interested in a Holy Land Cruise

Here's one sponsored by Catholic Heritage Tours that sounds exactly like ours, although it doesn't mention the name of the ship (ours was MV Cristal), and ours was a little less expensive (although this is still quite reasonable). This one starts in Cairo, where we ended; but it describes our original plans to begin there. There were several Catholic groups on our tour, but none by this name.

Aren't you afraid?

Our cruise to the Holy Land and sites of the early Christian church (Cairo, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Galilee, Antioch, Tarsus, Antalya, Aspendos, Perga, Ephesus, Athens and Corinth) is coming up, and as recently as last Thursday was revised and rescheduled. I have no idea what's going on, but I do know that I don't remember a time in my life when there wasn't something scary going on in that area of the world.

It's been a year since a lone gunman killed five women working at a Lane Bryant store near Chicago. He's never been caught. And yet every American is less safe than a year ago when they were shot, but the President has a 70% approval rating. He's weak, apologetic and a puppet of the left within our country and abroad--and so don't tell me it's not safe to go to Israel or Turkey! There might be dangerous waters in the Mediterranean Sea, but those Illinois women simply went to work in a quiet suburb of Chicago minding their own business and not looking over their shoulders. Just like us today.