I just returned, exhausted, from my third day of exploring the Old City of Jerusalem. Today was very interesting because we began not in the currently-walled Old City, but in an area outside of it that would have been inside the city walls in the time of David. We saw some ruins that quite possibly belong to David's palace, as well as some other interesting things, but there was one definite highlight that lifted my spirits and lit my imagination and just made me feel so wonderfully alive. That thing was wading through Hezekiah's Tunnel.
This tunnel was carved into bedrock some 2700 years ago when Hezekiah learned that the Assyrians were going to besiege Jerusalem. Its purpose was to contain the Spring of Gihon, the only water source near the city, so that the people of Jerusalem would continue to have safe water access during the siege, and the Assyrians would have to find their own inconvenient water source somewhere far away. The average height of the tunnel is about my height, and it runs for 533 meters. There are so many things about it that are amazing, starting with how people actually created it using chisels by lamp light, but it's all its mysteries that get to me, the ways and means and purposes and discoveries that we don't fully understand yet.
It took us 45 minutes to walk through, and at the beginning the water hit us mid-thigh. It is obviously pitch black in there, and even with flashlights scattered throughout our convoy it was impossible to see the ceiling and the floor simultaneously. Some sections were only about five feet high, while during the last stretch towards the Pool of Siloam the ceiling reached heights of twelve feet and more. We had no concept of how long we'd been wading or how much further we had to go. The tunnel had a strange echo, and after a while we each began humming to ourselves, creating a pleasingly discordant sonorous wave that followed us until our guide, Allan Rabinowitz, asked us to stop walking, turn off our flashlights, and be silent. The darkness and the silence were complete. Hello, sensory deprivation therapy. Rabinowitz had told me to start singing Amazing Grace once the silence was full, so I did as I was instructed. We all sang, and after a few notes we began wading again. Once we got to "'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far," we turned a corner and saw the light from outside streaming in. As I stepped out onto dry ground, I heard the warm and muddy echo of the tunnel diffuse into individual voices singing out confidently that grace would lead them home.
That un-embellished experience would have been enough for me. The tunnel would have even been enough without the song. But the fact that a Jewish man who is unapologetic about his religious and political beliefs (and disbeliefs) led a group of Christians in the singing of a hymn was a beautiful gift to me. It was in itself a glimpse of grace, a refraction of the hope that still shines out in dark places. It was what I needed.
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