Church of the Ascension

Well, sadly, this is not a church any longer.  It is a mosque!  Muslims do not accept Jesus' crucifixion or his resurrection, however, they d believe in his ascension.  This is the only Christian holy place that they retain custody of.  They permit Christian groups to celebrate the liturgy there on the feast of the Ascension.  The outside of this place is pretty ugly.  It has an ugly mostly concrete but some stone wall and has razor ribbon all over it.  The grounds are mostly dirt and seem very forgotten.  The building is very, very small and I am sorry to say that we did not take a picture of it.  There was a Muslim group in the building right in front of us and they were having morning prayers very loudly and there was a Muslim man trying to sell us books about the Holy Land.  This all was very distracting and when the Muslim group came out we went in alone with our guide and all that was in this tiny place was a blocked off section of the floor with 4 pieces of marble.  Inside this area is a footprint of Jesus and this is where he ascended into heaven.  The pictures are not very good.  The lighting was poor and I had a really hard time figuring out what we were looking at.  The footprint is of just one foot.  It is large, almost too large to imagine that it is just a foot.  When we were in Oman in 2007, we saw a footprint of Job.  It was preserved in almost the same way but they had a piece of wood covering it and would only take it off for you to see for a few seconds after you paid to see it.  Today, we did not have to pay, which was good, but it was not at all what I would have imagined would be the Church of the Ascension, especially since it is a mosque!  Look at the pictures and decide for yourself.