Garden Tomb and Traditional Sites

It's been a while since I was able to post on the blog... but the experiences here have been overwhelming. Today is the last day of our trip to Israel, and it marks a final high-point of hope on our way out of the country. We'll be stopping as a group at Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace), a community built around mutual understanding. School is taught in both Hebrew and Arabic, and the people all live and work together. I'm really looking forward to touring this final stop before the airport!

This morning, we all shared a communion service, led by Thea. Following the communion service, a group of us went to the "Garden Tomb" - a sort of "alternate Golgotha/Calvary" run by the Anglican church (one of a very few number of Protestant-run sites!)


At the Garden Tomb, our guide, J.J. from Wimbledon, talked to us about the various sections of the tomb. First was the "Skull Hill" (a translation of Golgotha), which really did look like a skull... 150 years ago. (they had photos!) Today, it stands over a bus-station, which doesn't really lend itself to being a Holy Site.


Nearby the Skull Hill was the Garden Tomb - a "new tomb", carved into the rock itself. One side of the tomb was finished, with place for feet and a small incline for the head, but the other side was still roughed in; it may therefore have only been used for one person!


Outside the tomb, a shallow indentation in the stone marked where a heavy stone might have been, but no stone has yet been found. They did show an example stone, but it was too small to have adequately sealed the tomb.


What is particularly interesting to me about this site is that, unlike many of the other holy sites we visited on this trip, it was not covered over with a Church - and the guides and signs specifically mentioned that this was only a possibility of the location of the cross and tomb, not a surety. Which got me thinking: nearly everywhere we visited was labeled as "the traditional location of such-and-such", and pilgrims made a big deal about the ornate facets of rocks protruding from church floors. But this outside area, with constant reminders of the difficulty of proving authenticity, felt more holy to me than the traditional sites. Here, despite the carefully maintained gardens and outdoor chapels, I felt closer to understanding what the site would have looked like to Jesus - and thus, closer to Jesus in the process.

One thing that's come up over and over again on this trip has been "Holiness comes from inside". That is, the strength of your feelings at holy sites is directly propotional to how you experience holiness. It seems like a "duh!" statement, but realize that not everyone experiences holiness in the same way. To me, this fits neatly with the multiple-intelligences theory - because we learn differently, we feel different emotions when given the same stimuli. I don't begrudge those who feel holiness from massive, ornate churches - but my sense of the holy, my sense of God's closeness, comes to me more clearly in outdoor or ancient places.

I find the following to be sacred:
Un-altered places (or restored places)
Un-adorned places
Dark places
Old places
Stone places
The juxtaposition of Water, Stone, and Fire
Symbolic places (symbolic in themselves, not covered with symbols)
Gatherings of people worshiping together
Places of learning
Places of language
Places dedicated to mutual understanding

Where are your holy places? How does your choice of denomination reflect your feelings - or vice-versa?