Prison of Christ

Photos were not allowed inside.  There is a small church on the first level, then we take narrow and spiral stairs deeper and deeper into the cut stone.  There are several small cells which also held other significant prisoners of the time of Christ, including Barbara.  The dank stone walls are the same as they were 2000 years ago, complete with chiseled-out grooves where the chains and shackles would hold while the prisoners awaited their fates seated on crudely chiseled stone benches.

It was something else entirely to enter the cell believed to have held Jesus Christ himself.  A raised stone bench cut out of the wall had two holes through which he would have placed each leg which would have then been shackled together at the ankles.  On each wall, left or right of where he sat, were carved out areas where chains would have shackled his arms to the wall.  To run your hand along the very places where he would have sat, imagining these caves without any light, knowing he would soon face his fate, just trying to imagine it all and his thoughts…beyond anything I had expected to find on this journey around the world.