The Ark IV

 

Okay, last one.

 

Yesterday I went with some friends to their Baptist church to visit its “Good Friday Experience.”

 

Inside the church lobby there was a huge line which meandered over the course of an hour, until we reached the “Experience” entrance. Over the next hour we moved through darkened corridors from one room to another, each room holding museum-quality exhibitions describing some key events of the Passion: the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Cross and the instruments of torture, the cloth and perfumes to anoint His body. And this, the Ark of the Covenant:

 

Now, as we know, the Ark was lost to history in the year 586 BC. The Ark was included in the exhibition to show us how the curtain inside the Temple – the one that separated the Holy of Holies, the Ark, from the outer Temple – was torn in two, from top to bottom. I took this stealth pic, and in hindsight I should have also taken one closer up from a side angle so you could sense its height and depth. If I stood on the stage, my hips and lowered hands would be equal to the poles extending from the sides. The ark in this picture, to the best of my reasoning, had the same dimensions and same design as the historical Ark.

 

The exhibitions really triggered your tactile senses deep down. I held a replica of the whip which scourged Christ – felt its weight and heft, touched the barbs of bone and stone tied to leather straps that tore into His flesh. I tried lifting the surprisingly heavy Cross. In the Garden a cool night breeze touched our skin – and the soft hooting of owls and other wildlife echoed past. It was an intriguing and worthwhile experience, and something that really furthered my understanding of the Passion.

 

Would definitely recommend.