The
Garden of the Tomb, October 1983
by Leon
Archibald
completed
on Good Friday, April 20, 1984
I
noticed the quietness as we entered.
There
was a simpleness of rambling paths,
a
careful waywardness of shrubbery,
of
flowers, of unshrined quiet.
Beyond
the trees I saw a stillness surround the tomb,
but I
thought to see that last,
so I
walked out to a platform at the garden’s edge,
and
stood, for a moment, facing the steep stone stare of Golgotha.
A
startled cry pierced the quiet air,
and
suddenly, for me, it was as
the
shout that assailed Him on that hill—
just as
they might have shouted when they pierced Him.
This cry,
however, was no clamor of hatred, but, oddly, of buses
that revved, and rattled out of
Jerusalem’s bus depot
which sprawled out before me at
the foot of the hill.
Then the guides spoke reverently
above the noise through bullhorns,
and I noticed I could turn around
and find it quiet—
so distinct was the garden’s
effect of quietness.
( and there
is a moment in the turning,
infinitesimal,
that
expands in my memory,
and in
that moment, there is only He )
Slowly I turned back toward the
bus depot and let
the sound of it become
the shout of derision that had
brought Him to that place—
as He scraped His cross from
street to street,
cobble to asphalt.
The shout that harried Him past
ancient rubble of stone walls
and Christian shrines,
past the checkpoint of the Arab
soldiers,
through the bazaar that is bright
with banners and clattering copper,
past the roaring depot, to the
top of Golgotha,
where the shout stood round Him
and hammered Him to the wood—
a sacrifice to expiate its hate.
I thought it was right that it
was not quiet where they crucified Him.
It was quiet where they buried
Him
and in turning, I walked in a
quiet place,
through the garden to the
garden’s tomb—
to the place where they carried
His still corse—
this speechless tomb,
ancient,
empty.
Silently, I waited while others
entered the hollowed stone,
and each of us searched,
cautiously, within,
expecting to find the wrappings
folded neatly to the side,
the angel sitting brightly by.
But we found, instead, that we
were angels,
whispering that He was not there—
while we were crushed with the
stillness
of a great feeling of Him in the
garden near the tomb.
And in the garden’s hushed and
shadowing day we wept because of Him
( when there was only
He )
and turning, we walked quietly
away.
