—John G. Whittier.
I GO TO THE GARDEN
Light clouds hung over the city that Sunday morning when we looked out at the tower of David, one of the oldest monuments of Jerusalem, standing directly across the open space in front of our balcony. It still looks the part it long played as a watch-tower and a place of refuge and strong defense. The people call it the Citadel, and until the coming of the British it served as a garrison for Turkish soldiers. During our first days in Jerusalem we had walked about Mount Zion, had read of the various controversies waged over exact locations, had gone into the House of Caiaphas, the House of Annas, and had looked at the upper room. They may or may not have been the exact spots made tragic or sacred by that last week of the Great Life. It did not matter to us. The stone courtyards, the little chapels, the marks of Crusaders’ crosses, the burial stones made us conscious indeed of the triumphs and tragedies of men and nations that had written themselves from that hilltop into the history of Palestine and so into the making of the world. It was very easy, standing in that upper room, bare now save for an ancient picture, to imagine the long table, the couches, the reclining disciples. One is almost overwhelmed as he realizes the effect of that simple supper of bread and wine upon the characters of succeeding generations of men. What breaks in the ranks of Christendom the varied interpretations of its significance have made! To what heights of spiritual power, to what depths of shame, sorrow and repentance has it led those who, following His request, have celebrated it in remembrance of Him. In wonderful cathedrals, in rude chapels, in the lonely spots of earth, in the jungle, in the desert, on the islands of the sea, in the hospitals, in prison, on the fields of war kneeling before improvised altars within sight of the no man’s land which tomorrow would be their graves, men have heard the words: “As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this wine—”
How intensely He struggled, in those hours in the upper room, to make them understand that He loved them, to lead them to a comprehension of the meaning of service, to help them to accept the great commission His death would leave them to fulfil.
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood
Out there on the wind-swept hills, without priest or altar, we could better understand the words of the Book.
We could almost hear the voice of our Lord saying: “Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone: yet—I am not alone because the Father is with me.
“These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”
It was easy to see Peter standing by the fire in the place which they showed to us and to hear the cowardly words, “I never knew him,” but easier still, as though a beam of light had fallen upon a dark picture, to hear Jesus saying, “Tell my disciples and Peter.... Peter, lovest thou me?... Peter, feed my sheep.”
From the background of Mount Zion we went to the Garden, not to the formal garden of Latin or Greek, with their chapels, their neat little gardens, their oranges and their olive trees planted about with fragrant flowers and green grass, though they are very beautiful, terraced there upon the steep sloping hillside. We went instead to the Armenian Garden, kept as nature made it, a wall with the vine leaning over it, a fallen trunk covered with doll moss, and the olive trees, large and small, gray green with twisted boughs ages old, grass as in a meadow, with lilies of the field nodding here and there in sunny spaces, though it was still winter. A soft mist hung about the hill and settled in low lines over the Garden. In one of the trees, hugging a branch, was a tiny gray bird. We could hear its song in the silence.