081 - Chapter 81

(Illustration: Skull hill: Golgotha)

The Mount of Olives is where Jesus is said to have prayed the night before he died. It lies across the Kidron valley, to the east of Jerusalem’s old city. We visited this place on a really hot day, and we strolled in the olive groves there in the shade to keep cool, whilst looking at one or two churches. But then our guide reported that he’d had his wallet stolen from his inside coat pocket and police were called to investigate. In his wallet was everyone's ticket money for an evening performance of ‘Son et Lumiere’ which we had planned to attend at David’s Citadel later in the week. We stood around waiting for ages in the hot sun, while he spoke to the authorities, so on our journey back to the hotel, Bob said to me, “Let’s go to the Garden Tomb, sit down and relax.” 

This site wasn’t far from our hotel, and we could easily walk that distance, and Bob wanted to make a quick get-away once we got off the bus. But someone overheard him and  once our fellow tourists found out where we were headed, some  decided they wanted to come too; and so they followed us there.

This place, the Garden Tomb, made my holiday complete! What a memorable day this was.

It was a little late in the afternoon, and we weren’t sure whether we would be admitted, so when we arrived, I explained to the lady in the ticket office that I was a priest, and we were a very small party of people, who’d had a very frustrating day because of a robbery. I asked her, if we could just go in and sit in the garden, as we were so tired, but she insisted we have a guide to show us round, and I’m so pleased she did.

The Garden Tomb was such a peaceful shaded oasis, a place of solitude and prayer, with so many beautiful plants and shrubs around, and no-one fighting for space to breathe.

The guide took us first to the strange skull shaped rock formation. (allow me to give you Bible references as I tell you about our tour)

(Matthew 27.33 ‘they came to a place called Golgotha which means ‘The Place of the Skull’)

He proceeded to tell us why Protestants believed that THIS was the place where Jesus was crucified and buried, and NOT the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we had been earlier. He showed us that this site was outside the city gate.

(Hebrews13.12; And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.)

It was also near to the city.

(John 19.20: Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.

Our guide pointed out the main trading routes, old roads which ran close by, where people passing by would look on at the criminals who’d been crucified and be warned never to step out of line.

(Matthew 27.30 ‘people passed by insulting Jesus on the cross’)

I asked him to try and pinpoint where the actual crucifixion would have taken place, and he pointed down towards the road area a little way, to a derelict garage yard next to us, owned by Muslims. This made complete sense to me, for if Christ could be born in a lowly stable, surely a run-down garage could well mark the place of his death?

We were then taken through to the garden to a roughly hewn tomb which was part of the hillside.

 This site was discovered as late as 1867, when the land was part of the Turkish empire. A Greek man who owned the land near Skull Hill, had been digging, and to his surprise he found an extremely large cistern in the ground, (we saw photographs of this too). There was also a tomb in the rock full of skulls and bones, but when it was found to be a burial site, he had to stop digging. Sixteen years later General Gordon expressed an interest in the site, and was impressed with the topography of the land and the skull-like shape of the rock. He realised that this could be Golgotha. Following his death, Christians in Britain raised funds through the Times newspaper, to buy the site and maintain the land. In 1894 the land was purchased as a sacred site.

It makes sense that if there had been a cistern here, as large as this one, there had to have been a garden there at one time.

(John 19.41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.)

A winepress was also discovered, so presumably grapes had been grown in this garden?

On our way to the tomb, the guide pointed out a covered area, where we could all celebrate Holy Communion together later. They had already set out the bread and wine for us on a table, in the shade. How kind and thoughtful that was of them, and we felt very special and provided for.

First though, we went into the tomb, (there was hardly a queue) and once we were all inside, I read a gospel reading out. the story of the Resurrection from John 20, which began:-

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

A blanket of warmth wrapped itself around me, and I felt so emotional reading those words, in that tomb! It was unbelievable that our day of sightseeing should come to a close like this.

But even more of a blessing was our Holy Communion. My atheist friend whom I’d chatted with on the Sea of Galilee trip, had come to the garden with us and she asked to receive a blessing from me, as I administered the Eucharist. Wow!

When we counted up number of friends who’d come to the garden with us, the total was twelve! Just like the Last Supper.

This was the best day of my holiday.

The following day was really moving too, for different reasons. Our hearts were heavy as we all visited the Yad Vashem memorial, known as the Hill of Remembrance, a complex built to perpetuate the memory of more than six million Jews who died in the Holocaust! In the same way that a person can sense the atmosphere of prayer in a holy place, so too one can sense immense grief, in a sad place. More than twenty monuments fill this hillside site; but not only that, Yad Vashem is also an archive research institute, and a museum. The museum is a prism-like triangular structure, that penetrates the mountain from one side to the other, with both ends dramatically cantilevering into the open air, displaying the precarious nature of the life we live on earth especially in times of war. It comprises 10 exhibition halls, each dedicated to a different chapter of the Holocaust, and it contains over 2,500 personal items donated by survivors.

To enter the site itself, visitors pass along a road named, ‘Avenue of the Righteous Among Nations,’ an area filled with 23,000 plaques of the names of Gentiles (non-Jews) who did their best to protect and help Jewish victims to escape persecution from the Nazi regime, risking their own lives in the process.

It was both shocking and heart-breaking to see how easily a social system could break down and descend into terror and chaos. It was heart-wrenching to hear video accounts of survivors, read letters from victims to their loved ones, and see such sad photographs of this dark and evil period of history. We walked through the Children’s Memorial too, a chamber in darkness, where thousands of tiny lights had been lit up above, to represent the many children who had died. It reminded me of an Old Testament prophecy quoted at the time of the massacre of the innocents under King Herod, mentioned by Matthew in chapter 2.17-18:

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Photographs of the ghettos disturbed me most of all, seeing people looking so desperate and bereft of hope, the children especially, alone and frightened as they tried to eke out a living in the midst of all the horror around them. Their eyes said it all. The images of the death camps were shocking and disturbing, a stark reminder of the deaths of six million people.

When looking at the harrowing images of the wounded and the dead in the ruins of Palestinian towns, destroyed by Israeli bombs and hearing the terrifying accounts of those who managed to escaped the Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis, we understand the tragedies that war brings about. 

Israel’s rigid and steely determination never to return to the vulnerability and degradation of their people at the hands of the Nazis in World War Two is understandable. But, in the hunt for their real enemy, they are inflicting great suffering upon innocent Palestinian families, horrors that were inflicted upon their own families way back then in the Holocaust. What causes such wars in the first place, what lies at the root of it all? Fear? Inbred hatred? Prejudice? Injustice? Greed?

How can two extremes ever be brought to a lasting peace? How can two sons of the same ancestor Abraham do this to each other?

A priest once told me of a rather stormy church council meeting, where much in fighting was taking place over church policy. At the far end of the table an elderly lady, a member of the committee, sat quietly knitting as she listened to the loud arguments going back and forth. She suddenly raised her hand to speak, and their noise stopped. She asked her question with all sincerity, saying, “I wonder what our dear Lord Jesus would have to say about all this?”

What’s HE got to do with it?” one member snarled back forgetting completely where he was!

What WOULD Jesus be saying on the subject of this dispute in the Holy Land; he who taught us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us? Can Muslims not heed these words of one who is their prophet? Could Jews not have paid heed to the wisdom contained in Jesus' teaching or the wisdom of Solomon (Proverbs 25.21)quoted by St Paul:

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;

if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you!

SONG: The song ‘What a view’) was written on Good Friday in 1986 by Margaret Scott (of United Folk), after she watched reports of car bombings in Beirut. She remembered Salvador Dali’s painting of ‘St John of the Cross and pictured Jesus looking down on the world from that cross. She writes:

What a view!

From there you can see 

for miles and miles and centuries.

And you look with love,

 and you look with loving tears.

And when I think of all the pain

 we’ve caused each other through those years,

I wonder how you still could see it through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-UPOC7rj1c...

Following our visit to Yad Vashem, we made a brief visit to the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea scrolls were displayed. These many scrolls were impressive, all written between the 3rd century BC and AD 68. The museum also housed the Great Isaiah scroll, the largest and best-preserved scroll written around 100 BC.

I was also quite taken with a very large 3D scale model of first century Jerusalem, covering one acre of ground, adjacent to the Shrine.

That very afternoon, we travelled to Bethlehem, childhood home of David as a shepherd boy before he became King, but also the birthplace of Jesus Christ. To get there, our coach had to pass through a heavily guarded checkpoint, at the high concrete wall, which separates Israel from Palestine.

First we all went to the Shepherd’s Fields, then to Manger Square. Bob and I skipped the meal everyone else was having, as we wanted to make sure we got into the ‘manger’ shrine inside Church of the Nativity, after all time might have been at a premium, if there were long queues inside. The main door was very low, which meant we as visitors had to bow down to enter, a symbol of humility. A guide inside told us that individual tourists, not with a party, could be given access to the shrine by an alternative entrance, and directed us to it. Inside the shrine, people were bowing low to kiss the stone which was thought to mark the place where Jesus was born.

Many in our party, after their meal, didn’t get to see the shrine, as the queue for large parties was too long. One or two attempted to do what we did, but the guards acted suspiciously with them, so it wasn’t their most pleasant experience.

Our next day was the final day for our party in Jerusalem, and everyone had free time. Bob and I walked around the outside of the city walls this time. I hadn’t realise how very small the city was. As we passed a church named St Peter Gallicantu, we heard a cockerel crowing! It reminded me straight away of the story of Peter when he denied Jesus three times, followed by a cock crowing, just as Jesus had foretold. We later discovered that the word Gallicantu actually means ‘cock-crowing’ and this church was built in memory of Peter’s denial! It’s more than likely a cockerel was kept on site, but hearing it really sounded uncanny at the time.

 We also visited the tomb of Oscar Schindler on that route, which is shown at the close of the film Schindler’s List, and we placed our stone of remembrance there too.

In many places that week, Bob carried with him a bag of crosses made of olive wood, and he placed them beside many of the holy sites, so they could be given to sick friends on our return.

What a truly memorable holiday we had, a holiday filled with excitement and wonderfully strange coincidences. 

The best of all holidays.