Junior Ramona Tausz worked this past summer in Jerusalem as an “Ops & Blogs” intern for the Times of Israel, thanks to a placement negotiated by the Hillsdale College Dow Journalism Program.
The hurried rhythm of the Jerusalem work week ends every seventh day in the serenity of Shabbat. Israeli weekends span Friday to Saturday, rather than Saturday to Sunday. Buses and taxis stop, children are released from school, and shops shut down until the last lingering streaks of the rosy Sabbath sundown mark a return to the city’s former bustle.
Sunday in Israel, then, is not a day of rest but the start of the work week, when Jerusalemites crowd the buses to return to the grind of daily jobs or the mundane routine of errand-running. There is no “eighth day” in the Israeli week—no day paradoxically both last and first, no day of the new creation and Resurrection, no day as the inheritance of an era when weeks were ordered according to the beliefs of Christendom and Sunday was the day of rest.
And yet, even in Jerusalem, the eighth day can be found observed in all its glory. As most people head to work or go about their daily business, small groups of the faithful join together for Christ’s business in churches, monasteries, and homes where Christians first gathered around Word and Sacrament 2,000 years ago.
In the land where Jesus once walked, the faithful in Israel still gather in affirming awe of the Incarnation—of a God who became flesh and visited specific locations.
And on the physical ground that bears witness to that God, Christians today continue to celebrate the Eucharist and make present the food that now makes men God.
Nevertheless, fears of Christian proselytizing run deep in Israel, and open evangelism is not allowed.
“We have to find other ways to show the hope that is in us,” one Ethiopian Orthodox Christian told me, as he and I strolled through the winding alleys of the city’s Christian Quarter. “When we have that light in us, we can’t help but show the love of Christ to the world.”
Being a Christian in Israel simply means being present with Word and Sacrament, showing Christ by showing love to one’s Jewish neighbors and providing an example of what newness of life looks like.
Members of Christendom in the Jewish State can freely observe the eighth day without fear of persecution. Yet this ability ought not be taken for granted—the freedom to worship is cause for praise and thanksgiving to God as well as gratefulness to the state of Israel, where the Basic Laws have protected religious freedom for Christians since the nation’s inception.
Christians in the nations surrounding Israel, on the other hand, increasingly lack this blessing. Dangerously close to the Jewish State’s borders, in Syria and Iraq, Christians are mercilessly tortured by ISIS and forced to flee to refugee camps in Kurdistan. Even in Egypt and Jordan, religious freedom is not hallowed to the same extent that it is in Israel, and Christians often face violence and insecurity.
But in Israel, I as a Christian was free to climb the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane, to rest in the cool stillness of the Chapel of Adam beneath Golgotha in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to tread the stations of the cross on the Via Dolorosa with Franciscan friars on a peaceful Friday evening, and to observe the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene at the Mary Magdalene altar on the very ground where Mary first saw the risen Christ.
It is only thanks to the religious freedom offered in Israel that I was permitted to visit and worship in these places; and it is only through the grace of our Heavenly Father that Christians can continue to exist in the Holy Land. A Christian need not fully advocate the Jewish State politically in order to give thanks to God for this continued blessing; he need not support Israel in order to show gratitude to Jewish neighbors who make possible an unthreatened Christian presence in the Holy Land.
The Jewish State’s calendar week may not officially retain the mark of a Christian era when Sunday was a day of rest—a weekend rather than a week day. Nevertheless, that eighth day yet remains observed in Israel—and it is allowed to be observed freely. As Christians in the Middle East face increasing persecution, let us give thanks to God for this continued protection of His Saints in the Holy Land.
