A FITTING RESTING PLACE FOR JESUS IN HOLIEST OF CITIES
It’s some years now since I stood there in that beautiful place, but the passage of time has not dimmed the memory of it. I can still see the flowers in all their colourful abundance, the bright sunlight giving the reds and mauves and yellows a stunning theatrical intensity.
It was quiet there. Certainly quiet by Jerusalem standards. Earlier that same day I had elbowed my way through the crowds amid the mayhem of everyday life in the Old City, a place where voices and colours and smells and sounds all seemed to come together in a kind of visual crescendo and audio cacophony.
And it was hot, too. Not the searing Middle East heat that would suck the life out of the place in another few weeks’ time, but hot all the same; the early May temperatures in this part of the world are definitely more than enough for any Irishwoman to contend with.
We’d ‘done’ the Via Dolorosa the day before, this historic ‘Way of the Cross’ along which Jesus is said to have made his way to Golgotha for crucifixion. The 14 ‘stations’ are marked along the route, passing through the various designated parts of this divided and complex city. The first seven of the stations are actually in the so-called Muslim Quarter, with the final five inside what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on top of the place generally deemed to have been Golgotha or Calvary (depending on your choice of Aramaic or Latin linguistic origin) but, whichever your choice of word, still translated as the Place of the Skulls.
I didn’t like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Too big, too commercial, too much herding of people, far too much general razzmatazz. Even entering the small space there that is identified as the tomb of Jesus left me cold. For despite the name of the church I felt no sense of holiness, no frisson of the sacred in any shape or form.
But the following afternoon, across the city and just outside the famous Damascus Gate, the socalled Garden Tomb experience was very different.
This is the alternative tomb site. In a city as complicated as Jerusalem, with its hotchpotch of citizenry and belief systems, there is never just one ‘take’ on anything. Even within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a number of different religious sects have carved up the territory for themselves. Alternatives, therefore, are the name of the game in the City of David.
And here, on the northern side of that pilgrimage city, close to an outcrop of rock believed by many to be the real Golgotha, you’ll find the Garden Tomb.
This is the place that many people believe to be the true tomb, the one in which the man known as Jesus of Nazareth was placed after his crucifixion, and the one from which he is said to have arisen ‘on the third day’ – today, Easter Sunday, in other words.
Here, amid the beauty of the garden, there is a real sense of peace. And when I entered the tomb itself on that hot May day, the cool air immediately embraced me. Looking back out from the cave-like tomb and taking in the views across the flower-strewn garden, my overwhelming feeling was that, yes, this was a fitting resting place for Jesus of Nazareth.
For whatever you believe he was – son of God, enlightened prophet, or charismatic political activist – the beautiful Garden Tomb is exactly where you’d want him to be.