Day 9 Part 2 - The Garden Tomb

With great reluctance I depart the national museum with my group.  Honestly, the visit there would have been worthy of the entire day.

It is difficult to convey all of the reasons I am feeling ambivalent about moving on to our next destination, the Garden Tomb.  Since our visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we have been told more than once that the chances of the Garden Tomb site being the place where Jesus spent three days (dead) following his crucifixion is pretty remote.  Most everything about the site is wrong from a logistical and historical standpoint.  The tomb is from the first century and has [had] a rolling stone covering for the tomb but most of the arguments favor the Church of the Holy Sepulchre site.  

We ride our buses through the narrow streets to the the Arab sector of Jerusalem.  This part of Jerusalem is home to mostly Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.  This area is pretty nice and pleasant if not busy.  Having seen pictures of this Garden Tomb all of my life, I had no idea that this area is somewhat like a park and is privately owned by a British Organization that oversees it's preservation and upkeep.  Many people who give the tours are from all over the world and are all volunteers and actually have to pay to do what they are doing.  They obviously love what they do.

Surrounding the park are the busy streets of Jerusalem where cars and traffic of all kinds whiz by.  Right next to the Tomb area where the skull-like cliff face of Gordon's Calvary is, is a fairly new bus depot.  

Apparently the organization that owns the Garden Tomb area did not own the area right next to it, where "Golgatha" or the skull-like cliff face is.  Too late they realized the land had been sold and a Palestinian bus company filled in and paved the land to provide parking for their 100 or so buses.  Having no sympathies for the Golgatha landmark, their parking lot abuts right up to the cliff face and now obscures what would have been the "mouth" of the skull.  A little lack of planning on the part of the Garden Tomb organization has lost a lot of their attraction.  I am sure it is pretty disappointing to them and many people.

We wander through the garden which is taken care of pretty well.  It is very warm today and I kind of walk from shade providing tree to shade providing tree.  I didn't think we would be outside so much today so I didn't sunscreen up as usual when we are going to be outside.  

There are many places in the garden where groups can sit together, worship and have communion.  We are not the only group visiting here today.  People of many nationalities are here.  One of the larger groups is from Nigeria.  The Nigerian government will pay for their citizens to visit Mecca once in their lifetime.  The Christian citizens of Nigeria petitioned their government to extend that privilege to them as well and the Nigerian government granted their wish! So that partly explains why there are so many African pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Nigerians are singing Christian hymns in their typical harmony and the sound is beautiful.  We stop to enjoy the impromptu chorus.  

Our group gathers in one of the seating areas and we also sing some hymns about Calvary.  Unfortunately this seating area offers almost no shade and I am feeling my skin turn red as I sit in the full brunt of the sun.  General Superintendent Dr. George Wood leads a devotional as we are all served communion.  

We are all given little wooden communion cups and a communion wafer as we observe the centuries old instruction from our Lord to, "do this in remembrance of me."  It feels very special to be participating in this communion with all of the other nationalities represented all around us. Perhaps a foretaste of heaven? 

Following our devotional and communion, we join an unending line to actually step inside the Garden Tomb.  I am ok with this, but more from a famous landmark sort of point of view.  Maybe I am weird, but if we are pretty convinced that this is not the tomb of Jesus, really, what is the point?  Just like the replica scroll of Isaiah, the gift shop has plenty of those so why take the time to look at a replica in the dark?  It was the same thing when we visited the traditional place of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river.  Most likely not the real deal.  I don't mind stopping, but why spend so much time at a place that really should not have that much significance?  Perhaps I am too pragmatic but in light of the fact that there are so many places that are authentic and undisputed that we don't have enough time for that ultimately I feel visits to these sites could be time better spent elsewhere, like the inside of the National Museum...

The line is long and we take our place and wait slowly creeping along.  It takes a lot of time as the tomb itself is not very big so only 3-5 people can occupy it at a time.  The drill goes like this.  The next people in line pause at the door to the tomb while someone takes their picture.  Usually right after that, someone comes out who was in the tomb and the new people go in. Every one will eventually take their turn at this so we all wait patiently as out pasty white skin takes on a pink hue.

After some time, our turn finally comes up.  We pause for our pictures at the entrance, wait a moment for someone who is inside to come out and then we enter the tomb.  It is very interesting.  It is spotless, obviously well cared for. There are old Christian symbols painted on the plastered smooth interior walls.  There is a raised bench like area where the body would be placed in a secondary room at the back of the tomb.  There are other people with us in this crowded space so taking pictures is a little awkward and we don't want to over stay our visit as there are many more people who are waiting their turn inside.  

Click on this link to see inside the tomb: http://youtu.be/I5s1KDcpmPQ

We emerge from the tomb into the dazzling sunlight and across the little courtyard to tour the garden a little more.  I can see how someone might like to spend their time volunteering at such a place as this.  So many Christian people to visit with from all over the world, the setting is beautiful, a little oasis in the midst of a hustling, busy city.  The mostly British sounding volunteers are very nice people and bid us all farewell as we prepare to board the buses once again.

We are heading to Jaffa Gate and a couple of hours to ourselves!  We are quite excited!  Little do we know we will have our own little adventure that will give us a sense of danger and vulnerability that we weren't counting on.