Garden Tomb

27 March 2006
For the second time on the trip I got choked up this morning. We started the day at one of the two proposed sites of Jesus’ burial – the one known as the Garden Tomb. Our guide through the site was right proper English gentleman who made a really good case for this being the likely site. Whether it is or not, it certainly looks more like what the original site must have been like (translation – there isn’t a church built on top of it).

At one point during his presentation he said, with tongue in cheek, that we had come all the way from Kansas for nothing. He quickly assured us that what he meant was that the tomb we were going to see was empty. It was at that point that I stared to get misty-eyed. To be in a garden with a tomb in it at least somewhere near the actual site and to be reminded that Jesus had not only been buried but raised from the dead was moving. There is no body. He is risen from the dead. He has no equal in all of history. And because He is risen we have hope for new life now and eternal life after death. Being there was amazing.