Final Instructions

Suppose you were Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and you were now about to leave Earth and the disciples you have mentored for three years. What would you say to them? What would your final instructions be?

On top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is a very small Crusader-era church called “The Chapel of the Ascension.”

Unlike the popular and crowded Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which marks the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, this little chapel sees few visitors. Administered by Muslims since the end of the Crusades, the chapel marks the traditional site of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Muslims believed that Jesus was a prophet, so they maintain the site and allow Christian pilgrims to see what’s inside.

And what’s inside is a small area that — according to tradition — reveals the footprints of Jesus — the place where he stood before he was taken up into heaven. Pilgrims in the medieval period would take home dust from this little spot as relics of their Holy Land visit but, like the pieces of the “true cross,” if you took all that sacred dust and put it together, Jesus’ footprint would be about size 500.

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