Gethsemane and Garden Tomb

Tuesday, July 21. Our last day and the best was saved for last. The first stop was the Garden of Gethsemane. We first went into a garden adjacent to the Garden where Bro. Nyman spoke to us. Then we went into the Garden; very peaceful, quiet and smelled heavenly. There were Star Jasmine and Sweet William in bloom. No lecturing is allowed in the Garden. There are eight ancient olive trees with HUGE trunks. I have never seen such huge trunks on trees, especially on these trees as they are not very tall. We were told that these date to the time of Christ. Olive roots seem never to die, they just keep on sending out suckers and fruit is still being produced.. We walked around the trees, behind a fence, and everything was very quiet. I thought it a special place. I kept thinking of the words to "I Stand All Amazed" and thought that this was the place that Jesus suffered for my sins.
The Church of All Nations is adjacent to the Garden; it was not intrusive like some churches but had a reverent atmosphere. From the Garden we went to the place where supposedly it was the Upper Room where Jesus kept the Passover. Next, we walked along the city streets, the old city; we hardly were ever in the new part. We saw a man, dressed like King David playing on a harp and singing about Jerusalem in English. We took his picture.
Next was the church of Peter in Gallicantu, where the cock crowed after he denied Jesus three times. It is a beautiful, modern, small church which I enjoyed a lot. There was no one else there so we sat and talked and looked at the paintings on the wall. The twelve apostles and others were represented. The church was built over what is thought to be the ruins of the house of Caiaphas the High Priest. Under his house was a dungeon which tradition states that Jesus was imprisoned and beaten there. We saw the dungeon and its several rooms. Outside are steps leading up, and dating to the 1st century. Jesus very well could have been led up these steps.
We went through the Lion’s Gate and visited the ruins of the Pool of Bethesda and next to it was the Church of St. Anne. A group ahead of us was singing Amazing Grace. Our group sang I Stand All Amazed. The acoustics were great.
Our last stop was the Garden Tomb. General Gordon, of Khartoum fame, visited the area over a century ago and was struck by the skull formation on the side of the hill at the end of the Temple Mount. He felt that this was the place of Calvary or Golgotha and not the Church of the Sepulchre. Others had also notice the skull formation. I saw it and it really looks like a skull with the eyes and nose plain to see. No one had ever built there as it had a reputation as a place of execution.
The ground next to it was owned by a Greek who wanted to use a tomb there to be used as a cistern but an archeologist told him the tomb was ancient, dating to the 1st century. The man then wanted to plant a garden but there was no cistern to hold water. A Christian group in London raised money to buy the land which was covered with rubble and when they dug they found the third largest cistern in Jerusalem, which showed that the area had once been a garden. One can only have a garden if one has a cistern for water storage. Jerusalem has the same amount of rainfall as London but it comes in two or three months of the year so it has to be stored.
The group has made it a most beautiful and peaceful spot. There are little separate areas where groups can sit and listen to their guides. The group sends out their people for about three months to be guides and care for the area. One of their guides talked to us and said he couldn’t state definitely that this was the tomb where Jesus was buried but there were so many reasons to believe it was: 1) the skull formation, which is what Golgotha means, place of the skull, 2) it was near the junction of two major roads where Romans like to execute criminals, 3) it is very near a city gate 4) a garden next to the place of execution with a tomb, 5) the tomb is that of a wealthy man and unfinished, 6) the tomb dates to the 1st century.
We were able to go inside the tomb and see the two little rooms. As one goes inside one sees on the right another little room with two stone beds or ledges. The most important thing about the tomb is the message painted on the door of the tomb: "He Is Not Here For He Is Risen". I thought it most impressive. Pres. Harold B. Lee felt that this was the place where Jesus was buried and resurrected, not the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.