There are many maps of Jerusalem. I have walked with the throng of pilgrims in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, waving my palm branch with thousands of Christians from around the world, following the path from Bethphage to Stephen’s Gate of the Old City.

We could not start in Bethany because of the Separation Wall. Today, Jesus would be fenced out of Jerusalem unless he took the detour to the security crossing that connects Jerusalem with the illegal settlement city of Ma’ale Adummim. We cross over the ridge of the Mount of Olives, beginning our descent by the Holy Land Hotel (formerly Seven Arches Hotel, birthplace of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation), down past the ever-expanding tombs of rich Jews who have paid well to be among the first to rise at the great resurrection, and Dominus Flevit—the chapel built to commemorate Jesus’ tears on looking over the city from this place.

This modern map, never far from the signs of contemporary conflict, is far different from the mental maps pilgrims bring. We come with pictures of the Holy Land painted on our minds by pastel drawings from Sunday School, felt figures of people in pyjamas set on brown and blue backgrounds devoid of vegetation. And the expectation of feeling the holiness of the place, just because this is where the Bible happened.
When the real gets in the way of the ideal, the result is either rejection of the real or disillusionment. Sometimes, revelation.

Today, in Longsight, our procession huddled under blustery Manchester skies and before the indifferent gaze of passers-by, holding (sometimes waving) palm crosses, as we entered the gates of the church, a la Psalm 118 (‘This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!’), singing ‘All glory, laud, and honour, to Thee Redeemer King!’, and manoeuvred our way to our seats. Our map of Jerusalem consisted of stolid late-Victorian houses standing coolly undisturbed, dogs walking their sleepy owners unheeding of us, and a breeze which could in no way be called balmy—all suggesting nothing in common with Jerusalem at all. Certainly not the one from 2000 years ago.

This is the thing about Jerusalem maps—they seldom have much to do with the dirt and stones, and the people, of the place in Israel. I have seen many pilgrims come and go from Jerusalem, their mental maps intact. They have seen what they were looking for, and blocked out that which did not fit. And returned to their homes glowing with the joy of ‘walking where Jesus walked’. Like me, they simply passed by the inconvenient bits.

Today, however, Longsight mapped on to Jerusalem. Real streets heard hosannas from disciples of the King. The world around barely paused to recognise her Redeemer. But salvation came to Longsight.