Traveling the Via Dolorosa

Most Christian travelers/pilgrims to Jerusalem take a tour through the Old City which usually includes following the Via Dolorosa. The Via Dolorosa is the route that Jesus took following his condemnation by Pilate. There are 14 stations along the way beginning near the Lions Gate. At the second station, pilgrims may pick up a cross and share in carrying the cross through the rest of the route to the  

Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Small signs/plaques on the wall or a door mark each station. Each station carries its own story of importance to Jesus' final walk through the Old City to his crucifixion and burial. Through the centuries, the route has changed based on Catholic or Orthodox perspectives. Today, the primary route follows that of the early Byzantines.  

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Traverse the Via Dolorosa in spirit this Lent while studying The Way of the Cross, a new Lenten devotional written by Pal Craftaid founder, the Rev. Elizabeth B. Knott. Download a free copy of the study from www.palcraftaid.org.

If you wander through the streets of the Christian quarters in Jerusalem's Old City, you'll find crosses everywhere - in the architecture, in the shops.

There are the nail-like etchings carved in the buttresses of ancient churches, such as St. James' Armenian. Simple X's are drawn in ash along the hallways of the Holy Sepulchre, the cathedral built over the site where tradition holds that Jesus was buried and resurrected. The ash is a remnant of the holy fire the Greek patriarch carries from the tomb on Easter morning. Metal handholds in stairwells are shaped like crosses on the way to a rooftop chapel.

And, of course, at Golgotha, a dramatic cross stands planted on a solitary rock, mourners at his side.

Crosses are so commonplace, so deeply embedded in Christian tradition, that we seldom stop to look at the meaning of the symbol itself, or, the multiple meanings it has assumed over centuries.