Devotional Trip – Day 5, Site 4 ... The Deep Pit and the Ancient Street

Read: Psalm 88 (www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/psalms/88.html)
Sing: Rescue the Perishing, UMH 591
 
The lower two levels of The Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu are a guardroom/dungeon and a prisoner’s cell cut from the bedrock. If this is the site of Caiaphas’ home then this would have been where Jesus was held captive waiting for sunrise and the gathering of the Sanhedrin on the first Good Friday. The lowest level is a pit which served as a cell that could only been accessed from above using a harness and rope to lower and raise prisoners. Even if Jesus was not brought to this pit, Peter and John would have spent some time here and been whipped in the dungeon above. (Acts 4-5)
 
The Ancient Stepped Street
On the north side of the Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu is an ancient stepped street which runs east and west down the steep grade of Mount Zion into the Tyropoeon Valley. These steps were uncovered during the archeological work done in the late nineteenth century. Just over one hundred yards of this street have been uncovered. This street may have continued to the bottom of the Tyropoeon Valley and the Pool of Siloam (see John 9).
 
There is disagreement about just how old these steps are. Some scholars believe that they date to the time of the Second Temple and would have been in use by Jesus and his disciples as they traveled between the city and the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, Bethphage, and Bethany. Others believe that this stepped street dates from the time of the construction of the Byzantine church in the fifth century.
 
Thank God that we do not have to go to a certain place to walk with Jesus. Wherever we are and whatever our circumstances we can give ourselves to Jesus here and now.