When we were in Jerusalem in June 2012 we were pretty nauseated by the 'holy' pilgrimage sites. I came across one though that really got to me. It was the understated English recreation of the Garden Tomb. I was taken with its tranquility and its take-it-or-leave-it explanations. I was particularly captured by the suggestion that the possible site of Jesus' crucifixion may have been just outside the fence at what is now a bus station in the Muslim Quarter. I wrote this little meditation about it.
Hello Jesus,
When Joan Osbourne asked in her song,
What if God was one of us,
just a slob like one of us,
just a stranger on a bus,
tryin' to make his way home?
I wondered if you’d
think it was a rude question.
But Martin the enthusiastic Englishman in the Garden
Tomb today said they crucified you at the Muslim Quarter bus station there at the
cross roads in East Jerusalem just outside the Garden fence; not on a hill, not
up high, but down low where everyone could see you, laugh at you, spit on you
and blow smoke in your face as they went past with their donkeys loaded with
olives and oil, onions and dates and falafel mix.
Then he said you were too heavy for two old men to
carry all the way up the hill to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so Nicodemus
and Joseph of Aramathea carried you a hundred meters to the tomb Joseph's
family was going to use for him. It's nice there. The birds must have woken you
up three days later. I saw a little mother Laughing Dove on her nest she'd made
on top of the Arlec floodlight where we had communion. Did you see her too?
Or did you help her make a home there? I suppose you did. That's what you're like, isn't it?
Or did you help her make a home there? I suppose you did. That's what you're like, isn't it?
When the Maries came to embalm you properly on that
first morning of the week you were up and about, waiting for the bus to Emmaus.
Then you got a ticket to Galilee, cooked your friends breakfast and then caught
the last bus back to Jerusalem. A bit later you caught the first bus home.
You've been on a lot of buses ever since.
Do you remember the day when I was 10? You caught the
Number 17 to Kingswood and got off at Kyre Avenue and came to Mrs McPhee's
after-school Bible group? Do you remember how you asked if you could catch the
bus home with me afterwards and stay?
I do.
I was a bit unsure of you at first, but I am really
glad we've been on the same bus ever since.
And then a month or two later you gave my Daddy a free
ticket to Heaven. Kind really. He was tired and sick and I didn't really mind
that much at the time. I thought it fair you paid his fare.
And to think I saw the place where you first got
interested in buses.
You and buses.
I see why you're interested in slobs like us, and
whenever you meet us and ask us on board, you really do find your way home.
