Many years ago, Tim and I were in Jerusalem, staying in a modest hotel in the Christian quarter near the Damascus gate. We discovered that we were across the street from an appealing little rock garden in the midst of all that ancient stone construction and tightly-packed urbanity.
The park was called the Garden Tomb, and a simple sign at the entrance told us that the cave at the far end was the place where many protestants believe Jesus had been interred. Holy cow! We were sleeping across the street from where Jesus spent his last earthly days!
Entry was free then, and still is, if you care to travel to Israel these days. There was no-one around. Just the two of us.
Within the garden, past the flowering shrubs, the entrance to the cave was wide open. There was no big stone that once had been rolled away. We went inside. It wasn’t too dark. It was a numbing feeling to be in a place where history may have happened, and where I had been well versed throughout my Lutheran childhood. The park is a good place to pray or to think.
A number of clues convinced some scholars and archeologists about 200 years ago that the garden was Jesus’s authentic entombment. For one thing, it was adjacent to a stone escarpment shaped like a skull. The Bible says the cave was near Golgatha. The word ‘golgatha’ means skull in Arabic. This was the right neighborhood; the cave was definitely old. There you have it, I decided.
Most Christians and Orthodox groups believe the real cave where Jesus’s body was placed is at the magnificent Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in an older part of the city. This site had been identified, proclaimed and constructed in the 4th century. To me, this official site was too immodest, decorated and gilded Donald Trump-style, and the incense in the air too intense. I always thought Jesus was a simple fellow, not a show-off.
Tim quietly bent over inside the cave and picked up a pebble from the floor. He put it in his pocket. Some months later he presented the stone, along with the story of its provenance, to his old pal, John Alley. John was skeptical. After all, the pebble looked like the ones in his own driveway. John faithfully went to church every Easter. I wonder if he ever carried that little stone in his own pocket, just in case.
Speaking of travel, I asked Lynne Whiting about the trip home from Utah last week, when the country’s airports were in chaos. No crowds at all, no lines, easy as could be, she reported.
Happy birthday Friday, April 3, to Wyett Jenkinson. Celebrating their special day on Saturday, April 4, are Deborah Mayhew, Nathaniel Haynes and Connor Bettencourt.
Craig Saunders, recently named volunteer of the year by Martha’s Vineyard Hospice, will enjoy another honor, his birthday, on Tuesday, April 7.
Happy Easter. The daffodils are about to burst open. The chocolate bunnies are hopping all over the lawn. And the birds are a-twitter with new gusto and passion.
This article appears in April 3, 2026.