A day of waiting. The Epitaphios

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I always think that for my Christian friends Holy Saturday must be the saddest day of the religious year.
As a Jew I can't even bear to imagine what it must be like, thinking of one's lord and master lying alone in a cold and dark tomb.
All the more so for the original disciples, for they did not know that Easter would come so soon, if at all.

My two photos are from the seldom-visited Greek Orthodox church Viri Galilei, on the Mount of Olives.

Orthodox Wiki explains the epitaphios:

The Epitaphios (Greek: Επιτάφιος, epitaphios, or Επιτάφιον, epitaphion; Slavonic: Плащаница, plashchanitsa; Arabic: نعش, naash)
is an icon, today most often found as a large cloth, embroidered and often richly adorned, which is used during the services of Great Friday and Holy Saturday .
 It also exists in painted or mosaic form, on walls or panels.
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The icon depicts Christ after he has been removed from the cross, lying supine, as his body is being prepared for burial.
The scene is taken from the Gospel of St. John 19:38-42.

Shown around him, and mourning his death, may be his mother (the Theotokos; John the beloved disciple; Joseph of Arimathea; and Mary Magdalene, as well as angels. Nicodemus and others may also be depicted.

Usually, the troparion of the day is embroidered around the edges of the icon:

The Noble Joseph, taking Thy most pure body down from the Tree and having wrapped it in pure linen and spices, laid it in a new tomb.

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UPDATE 2018: See more about the epitaphios here:
https://russianicons.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/two-plashchanitsa-inscriptions/

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Ear- and earth-shattering thunder

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What are we to make of this?!
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It is said that on this day, Good Friday, Jesus agonized on the cross for six hours and during his last three hours, from noon to 3 p.m., darkness fell over the whole land.
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Well, just before noon today the sky over Jerusalem and my village turned black.
For just a few minutes big tear-like drops fell from the heavens.
And then--a clap of thunder like I have never ever heard, its first part a shrill screech like a bomb falling and then a huge boom, right over my head!!
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"And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, . . . the earth shook and the rocks were split . . ."
So says Matthew 27:50-51.
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And now, just after 3:00, the sky is calm and much brighter.
It is finished.
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Here is the tapestry icon of the Epitaphios ("winding sheet" or shroud) from the previous post.
It hangs in the Greek Orthodox Catholicon, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
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Has anything strange happened in your world this Good Friday?
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UPDATE 2018: See more about the Epitaphios here:
https://russianicons.wordpress.com/2018/02/25/two-plashchanitsa-inscriptions/
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Keep looking up

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I'm just a Jew, what do I know--but I have a feeling that during Holy Week Christians can sense Jesus peeking through into their lives.
And I think that whether they are religious or not, they try to catch a glimpse of him too.

Especially as the intensity grows, from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday.
Here in the Holy Land at least, this is all quite palpable.

At such times the sun sends dramatic shafts of light into the dim Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A protected tapestry on the wall reflects the same dome of the Greek Orthodox Catholicon.
Light is all around.
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