Holy Land Geography
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As we approached the Holy Land we read together the harmony of the four gospel narratives so beautifully put together by President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and then as we left our room each time, we prayed that the Lord would deafen our ears to what the guide said about historical places but would make us keenly sensitive to the spiritual feeling so that we would know by impression, rather than by hearing, where the sacred spots were. ... Presently we were, as it seemed, with the shepherds at the mouth of the cave hewn out of the rock now to be found in the basement of the Church of the Nativity. There seemed to be in this place a kind of spiritual assurance that this was indeed a hallowed spot. Down in the basement is the cave hewn out of the rock, which seemed to us to mark a sacred place. Out beyond Jericho, the city of palms, we were to find again a wonderful spirit on the banks of the Jordan River, where the courageous John the Baptist had baptized the Son of Man. ... In the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the deeply spiritual places, there are eight old gnarled olive trees showing evidence of great antiquity. It was here that Christ kneeled, in the vicinity of the very spot where we were standing. ... Time was now running out for us on our visit to Jerusalem. We had followed the guide through the traditional hall of judgment, where the Master was beaten and sentenced to death by a tribunal that made mockery of justice. We followed the way of the cross supposedly to the place of crucifixion and the place of the holy sepulchre. But all of this, according to tradition, we felt, was in the wrong place. We felt none of the spiritual significance that we had felt at other places, for had not the apostle Paul said, speaking of the crucifixion, “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate”? (Heb. 13:12. Italics added.) In other words, he suffered to his death upon the cross for the sins of mankind, not within the gates of Jerusalem but outside the gates, and yet the guides were trying to make us think that his crucifixion took place inside the walls. And again, what we were seeing there did not agree with John’s description of the place where the crucifixion and burial took place, for John had said: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. “There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day [the Passover]; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” (John 19:41–42.) There was yet another place we had to visit, the garden tomb. It is owned by the Church of the United Brethren. Here our guide took us as though it were an afterthought, and as the woman guide with her little son led us through the garden, we saw a hill outside the gate of the walled city of Jerusalem, just a short way from where the hall of judgment had been inside the city walls. The garden was right close by, or “in the hill,” as John had said, and in it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, evidently done by someone who could afford the expense of excellent workmanship. Something seemed to impress us as we stood there that this was the holiest place of all, and we fancied we could have witnessed the dramatic scene that took place there. That tomb has a mouth that could be sealed by a rolling stone, and there is a stone track built to guide a stone as it was rolled across the mouth of the tomb. The stone has now been removed, but the stone track is still there.
President Harold B. Lee
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President Gordon B
President Gordon B. Hinckley
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