Wed March 7 – The Garden Tomb and Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum

Weather: After all of the wind of the day before, a beautiful crystal clear blue sky kind of day in the mid-70’s.

After the winds of the day before, a spectacular blue sky day in Jerusalem. This is the courtyard of the Guest House.

Still waking up between 3am-4am each day and not falling back asleep. Wondering when my body will get on this time zone. I think the excitement of the day ahead keeps me wide awake as soon as I start to stir – I can’t wait for morning.

Here is me looking bright eyed and bushy tailed, even with the lack of sleep, excited for the day.

Today we were first headed over to Calvary, or Golgotha according to the Gospels, a site immediately outside Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus was crucified. Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels translate the term to mean “place of [the] skull” (Latin rendered Calvariæ Locus), from which the English word Calvary is derived.

Here is the side of the mountain that they call ‘the place of the skull’ – if you have eyes to see it, you can see the skull head. I needed the guide to point it out before I could see it, but now when I look at this photo it is obvious to me.

We had a great tour guide that walked us over to a view of ‘skull hill’ and gave us eyes to seek what looked like the face of a skull on the side of a mountain. He also explained why historians feel that Jesus was crucified in this general area. He kept repeating 5 key facts – 1. Near Jerusalem 2. Outside its walls 3. By the place of the skull 4. Near a Garden 5. In a new tomb.

The tomb we walked towards had this ancient wine press near, which would indicate this was a garden site in biblical times.

“So they took Jesus and he went out [of the City]…to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him….. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.” (John 19: 16-18, 40-41).

The exterior of the garden tomb, you can see the doorway to the tomb in the center of the photo.

From the view of the place of a skull we walked towards the Garden Tomb. As there are many places for reflection on this site, they move through many tour groups with appointments, with each having its own area for reflection and worship. As we walked, there was a group of Christians doing worship and singing Hallelujah, it was so moving to hear voices lifted up to this worship song as you walked along the garden path towards the tomb, both Amy and I began to weep. You couldn’t help but feel like you were in a funeral procession and the emotion of what occurred here gripped our hearts. Of the whole trip to date, this walk towards the tomb hit my heart in a way I will never forget.

View inside the tomb. This was a rich man’s tomb in ancient days, because of its size and location. Placed there by Joseph of Arimathea, who was a member of the Jewish council – the Sanhedrin.

After the tour guide explained why this tomb was had a good probability of being the place where Jesus was actually buried or in a tomb very similar to this one, we got to go inside. It was fascinating to see the inside of what a tomb looked like in that day and to consider this might be be the place where Jesus was actually laid to rest.

Me in front of the door that is now on the tomb which quotes the biblical reference to the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection and disappearance from the tomb on the third day.

The garden tomb area is a beautiful garden with many places for reflection. Would have loved to have spent more time here. They have different plaques positioned throughout the garden. This is the one in front of the tomb quoting Romans 1:4.

On this day we also had time for lunch on our own. I wanted to finally try a ‘bagel’ in Jerusalem as I was hoping this is home of the bagel. I ordered what read like a bagel with salmon and cheese, pretty similar to what you might get at a brunch back home, right? Actually, no. What was brought to me, looked like a smashed sesame seed bread bagel panini. LOL. Oh well! Amy also ordered what she thought was a salad that came out looking like pasta sauce with no pasta. We both kind of just laughed and ate – we only had 30 minutes on our own to eat, so we just made do and appreciated the meal we were able to have on our own.

My flat panini style bagel, side salad, and cappuccino.

By now we are both exhausted, we have had 3 full days of touring and our tour guide is VERY no-nonsense. You have to fall in line on time for everything throughout very packed days and you don’t dare question it. It is so odd to be in the position again of asking, ‘Um, can I go to the bathroom?’ I have been cutting myself off from a lot of water, just so I don’t even need to ask. She happened to mention on this day that she was a men’s prison guard in Norway for 10 years. My eyes opened wide and it explained a lot about her strict ‘style.’

‘Elin’ our former men’s prison guard tour guide. She runs a tight ship!

After the Garden Tomb we headed over to Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem which aims to bring the past to life and prevent future atrocities through greater understanding. This musuem is amazing and also emotionally draining. To understand with more depth what happened in the Holocaust and to know it actually didn’t happen that long ago is very disturbing. Our tour guide led us through certain points of interest in the museum. We were there about 2 hours. It is impossible to see it all in such a short visit, but I don’t even think you could handle more than 2 hours in one visit. It ends with a beautiful memorial to to the 1.5 million children that were killed during this time. The museum exits out onto a beautiful vista that shows greenery, life, and the reestablishment of towns and vitality of modern day Jews in Israel.

Beautiful vista you see when you exit the Holocaust Museum, it is a view of hope and life.

There is a Garden of many trees with the names of the Righteous Among the Nations – non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Many trees are planted around the whole hillside of the museum in their honor. This is Oskar Schindler’s tree, the rocks represent people that have come to pay their respects to this tree.

Overall, this was a sobering and reflective day in many respects, but also rich in ways that grabbed your heart and made you want to love others better. We were very tired at the end of this day and had an early dinner. We were relieved that Thursday (the next day) was a free day and we wouldn’t be on any schedule all day. We were looking forward to sleeping in and taking things more at our own pace, and also having some time to reflect on all we had seen so far.