"Sleeping on Golgotha"

For the April newsletter 

One of my favorite memories from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2009 was the reality that I got to sleep beside Golgotha.  No one realized this, as our group arrived to Jerusalem “at night,” which meant we were unable to recognize the landmarks in the darkness.  It seemed a little bit like Nicodemus going to visit Jesus “at night” [the gospel lesson for the second Sunday in Lent this year]; and the next morning, we discovered that our hotel was next door to a Jerusalem city bus depot. 

As we were invited to walk to our day’s first appointment, some of us noticed a particular rock formation behind a row of buses in the back portion of the bus lot, which was directly adjacent to our hotel.  Within a couple of blocks’ walk, we arrived at the Garden Tomb, the primary site in Jerusalem where Jesus is said to have been buried.  And when you visit the Garden Tomb, they show you this photograph …taken by a British citizen in the 1800’s. 

In the nearly 2,000 years since, the landscape has changed; time, replete with wind, rain, earthquakes, and other things has transformed what once was.  The picture below is what you can see directly from the bus depot.  On the right, just out of the frame, is the observation point from the Garden tomb; on the left, just out of the frame, is the Golden Arms Hotel …where we slept.  The British

docents explain how the site has been continuously in their care since the early part of the 19^th century, and how this was one of the most prominent locales along the route into Jerusalem.  The explanation makes total sense, even if you hold a somewhat skeptical view.  And …it would mean that I was sleeping beside Golgotha. 

  I was instantly excited!  Sleeping beside Golgotha seemed like it should be a big deal.  But …what does it mean?  That I had some kind of affinity with Jesus’ death?  I wouldn’t want to sleep in the room next to the electric chair or the “death chamber;” why was I giddy beside Golgotha?  But in the end, “nothing unexpected” happened.  There were no signs or visions from God; there wasn’t any sudden realization I didn’t have before, just a deeper sense of peace amidst a world full of distractions and catastrophes—that “God’s got this” and “God’s got me.” 

As the month of April begins we’re counting down the last days of Lent.  To me, there’s a place of scarred earth that remains a silent witness to Jesus’ death.  It’s where Christians for centuries have drawn strength from the stories that surround those last days for Jesus, because we know God’s promised pathway is …dying and rising.  For Jesus, yes; but also for us. 

Friends, we know where this story is going; and we know that the cross and death is not the ending.  Like Jesus, we are all of us dying to what was …and rising into something new.  This is the promise of God’s story that is new every morning in and with and for each one of us.  Jesus offers us real change—of hearts, of minds, in life!  What has been, doesn’t have to forever.  It’s possible to leave some things behind and be transformed.  We can do this.  God can help. 

So, as we come again to this sacred story in a season of sacred time …let us be confident that God still holds our stories, and us.  And that what is coming next may not be entirely expected, but God has already promised to meet us there.  In the meantime …rest well.