Scopus, Olivet, Gethsemane, Calvary
We pass over the Kidron Valley at the north end, where it begins, and are soon on mount Scopus, the eminence directly northeast of Jerusalem which gives perhaps the best view of the city. To this point of view Psalm 48:2 refers, “Beautiful for situation…on the sides of the north.”
Titus with his Roman army encamped just behind the Mount in ad 70; from this point he laid the plans which proved so successful for him and so disastrous for the city.
We next turn east from Mount Scopus and ascend the Mount of Olives, which is higher than Scopus but a continuation of the same ridge. Here we climb to the top of the tower and from this magnificent vantage point we have a view of the whole country for miles around. The city itself lies before us like a beautiful tapestry, and surrounded as it is by hills on every side, it reminds us of the words: “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people” (Ps. 125:2).
Farther west, beyond the hills and mountains and the plains of Sharon in the distance, can be seen the Mediterranean Sea.
Turning south, directly before us at the south end of the Olivet ridge lies “the hill of offense,” or “mount of corruption” as it is named in 2 Kings 23:13, and beyond this we can see Bethlehem, distinct and clear on her beautiful elevation, while Hebron lies in the distance.
To the east, Bethany lies below at our feet, with the road to Jericho winding among the bare and rugged hills. Beyond that we see the plains of Jordan and the Dead Sea, with the hills of Moab in the far background, including Nebo and Pisgah from which Moses viewed the whole land. All these distant scenes are here brought clearly before the eye by the powerful light of the Eastern sun.
As we turn to the north and northwest, the view embraces the hills at Bethel. Beyond them is Tabor, and still further north is the ridge of the snowcapped Hermon. On the northwest side is the Carmel range, which continues to Haifa.
As we gaze around us from the Mount of Olives, the most striking and wonderful sight that we have ever seen lies before our eyes. What must this view have been when Moses saw it from Pisgah, and later, when David and Solomon reigned in the land! The trees were then so abundant, the rains so plentiful, the hills and valleys beautiful and green, and the whole land flowing with milk and honey. Again, when the Saviour’s feet once more stand on this same mount, and He sets aside all the obstacles to the blessing of the land and people, and hallows the city and land with their bright millennial glory, the whole place will be a pleasant land, an ornament in the midst of the nations.
We look down now on the city and Temple area. The view of Jerusalem is charming still.
Eventually, after a tiresome walk under a hot sun, we reach Gethsemane. Here we sit down to rest somewhere near the place of our Lord’s deep sorrow, and meditate on the many lessons the mount affords. It was the favored spot to which, after days of toil in the city, the Saviour resorted for prayer and meditation; and somewhere here He spent whole nights in prayer to God (Jn. 18:2; Lk. 21:37; 22:39). On the night of His betrayal this garden was the place of His intense agony.
Then, again, before He returned to heaven, He took the disciples out to this mount, perhaps close to the spot where we stand. There His “beautiful feet” last stood when, in the act of blessing them He was parted from them and carried up to heaven. At that same place where His feet last rested, while the loved objects of His heart were still gazing up into heaven, there appeared two angels, who said: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). When this prophecy is fulfilled the same feet that once stood at this place will again stand here:
His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great
valley (Zech. 14:4).
This prophecy also is unfulfilled, and when the time arrives for its fulfillment there will be not only vast changes in and around Jerusalem and Olivet, but it will also be the dawn of a new day for the land and its true and proper subjects, the twelve tribes of Israel.
Whether this is the exact spot of Gethsemane or not, we are near to the place where the Lord entered that dark night: “Jesus…went forth with His disciples over the brook Kidron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples” (Jn. 18:1).
The present garden is encircled by a stone wall. In the garden are eight gnarled olive trees of great age and enormous size. They are said to be over one thousand years old, and to have sprung from the roots of those here in the time of our Lord, The olive trees and all others in these places were cut down by order of Titus when the city was destroyed, but as the olive tree grows again from the roots, these may be from the same source. There are also some neatly kept flowerbeds, and a reservoir to supply moisture for trees and flowers.
We cross the Kidron again, the brook which David crossed at the time of his rejection (2 Sam. 15:23); the same also over which our Lord passed when He left the “upper room” and went out to the garden. In the garden the band of officers “took Jesus and bound Him, and led Him away to Annas” (Jn. 18:12-13).
Our reflections now are concerning the closing hours of His passion, from the upper room to Gethsemane. From the garden He was led bound to Annas, and from him to Caiaphas, the high priest (Jn. 18:24). At this place the whole council of the elders gathered (Mt. 26:57), and took “counsel together against the Lord, and against His Anointed” (Ps. 2:2).
They continued their deliberations all night, and early next morning He was led before Pilate, the Roman governor (Mt. 27:13; Jn. 18:28-40). Pilate sent Him to Herod of Galilee, who was then at Jerusalem, “and Herod with his men of war set Him at nought, and mocked Him, and arrayed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate” (Lk. 23:7-11). “And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required,” and the demand, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” was obeyed. “And He, bearing His cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha” (Jn. 19:17).
At this point in our meditations we go from the Kidron along the public thoroughfare, past the place called Jeremiah’s Grotto on the north side of the city, and close to the Damascus Gate, and so reach the brow of the hill now called Gordon’s site of Calvary.
Four things impress us greatly as corresponding to the description given in the Bible:
1) The fact that the hill itself resembles the shape of a skull, and is even now called the skull hill in Jerusalem (Jn. 19:17).
2) The place is “without the gate” (Heb.13:12), and near to the city, “For the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city” (Jn. 19:20); and here the walls impress one as being near the ancient wall, close to the public road from Jericho and the east.
3) “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden” (Jn. 19:41), and just below the brow of the hill there is a little plot of fertile ground still used for the same purpose. The garden close to Calvary is neatly kept by a group of evangelical Christians, to prevent the simplicity and natural beauty of its surroundings from being spoiled.
4) As we enter the garden and walk to the end, on the west side we are side by side with a sepulcher hewn out of the rock, thought by some to be perhaps the one of which we read: “And in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.”
This sepulcher may or may not be the one in which our Lord’s body lay, but it certainly answers to every point in the Gospel narrative. And if this is the place, it would be here that Peter and John ran when they heard He was no longer in the sepulcher. And it was beside this place that Mary Magdalene stood and wept.
The hill is only one hundred yards from us; here is a sepulcher, and the garden fills in the space between. The site with its naturalness so well suits the Bible description, and its surroundings are so different from what we saw at the traditional site, that here we meditate on the lessons to be learned from the death of our Lord.
We enter, and walk softly through the inner chamber of the tomb. The passage comes to us, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” But it is empty, and as we leave the chamber the other part of the verse comes to mind: “He is not here, for He is risen.” While it is a great privilege to see the brow of the hill, walk through the little garden, and enter the empty tomb, yet to know Him now is a blessing to which nothing can compare.
The place is close to a public thoroughfare generally believed to be the ancient road into which those from the east, west, and north converged, and now very near the busy Damascus Gate. It is evident that the place where the Lord was crucified was close to the main road so that He could easily hear the taunts of the passersby, and they could readily read the inscription over the cross (Jn. 19:20; Mt. 27:39-43; Mk. 15:29-32).
The Jews to this day hold this place to be the “hill of execution,” the place where criminals were put to death. As a writer says: “It is to them an accursed place, and as they pass it they spit and throw stones in its direction, uttering, ‘Cursed be he that destroyed our nation by aspiring to be the king.’”
We have seen both Gethsemane and Calvary, and now will pen a few lines on the difference between what our Lord passed through in those two places; for of all the sites in or around Jerusalem, these two have, for the devoted believer, the most intense interest.
It was during the encroaching night that the Lord entered Gethsemane, but it was during the day that He was led out to Calvary that all Jerusalem might see. The sufferings of these places have not always been rightly distinguished. But a theme so sacred and so solemn needs to be examined in the spirit of thoughtfulness and holy worship. Beneath the shadow of Calvary and Gethsemane we can well afford to bow down and learn, scenes from which we shall learn for all eternity.
1) If we trace the Saviour’s life on earth for the whole thirty-three years, we learn that He was the “Man of sorrows.” He suffered from the hands of man on account of His righteousness, and those sufferings grew more intense until the shadows of the cross fell upon Him. There was no thought of atonement for our sins in those sufferings, but rather by them an example is set before us to follow His steps (1 Pet. 2:20-21). Our Lord suffered from men on earth; now those who follow Him will suffer also (Phil. 1:19, 30).
2) He suffered as well in sympathy with the needy: …and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses (Mt. 8:16-17).
In this scripture we learn the deep and tender feelings of the Lord as He beheld the sick and suffering and saw the sorrows of the people. To these tender feelings, to that deep and perfect sympathy, does the passage quoted from the prophet refer (Isa. 53:4; Mt. 8:17). The whole weight of their infirmities and sicknesses fell upon His soul, and in His love and pity He suffered as though He had the sickness Himself, yet He never had disease or sickness. We can in measure enter into this as we behold the same, though His sympathy was perfect. This was not upon the cross, but in His lifetime, as this chapter clearly shows.
3) In following the Lord to Gethsemane, we learn of sufferings different to those just mentioned. All His public ministry and works of grace have come to an end. In the upper room He eats the Passover with His disciples for the last time, and, rising up, He goes to this memorable place called “the oilpress,” a faint figure of the great press our Lord passed through when in His agony His sweat was as it were “great drops of blood.” The cross lay before Him; the requirements of God’s throne, if sinners were to be saved; the bearing of sins, the heavy judgment—all lay heavy upon Him. A sacrifice had to be offered for sin, and none in the universe but He could offer that to God.
In the garden the anticipation of all this lay upon Him; and He withdrew from the disciples “about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down and prayed…and there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him…and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the around” (Lk. 22:39-46). But these sufferings in the garden were not in atonement; the dread of the bitter cup was there, He anticipated all the sufferings of the cross, but in the garden He could say, “Father.” Communion was yet His, which He had always enjoyed with the Father, but when He suffered on the cross in that darkness, it was not “Father,” but “My God, My God, Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
At Gethsemane we see the storm approaching; on Calvary the dark cloud of judgment burst upon Him with all its fury. In the garden He anticipated the bitter cup, but on the cross He drank it to the dregs.
We must not confuse His sufferings from men in His lifetime for righteousness with what He passed through in the garden. Neither must we confound the sorrows of the garden with Golgotha. All were deep and keen, and each grew deeper and more intense until at the cross all the previous sufferings which He passed through in His lifetime and in the garden were superseded by what He endured in making atonement for us.
What sacred themes for reflection! We pluck a flower from the garden to carry away with us as a memento of our visit to the most touching and heart-felt scene, not only in Jerusalem, but in the whole universe—the place where the Saviour in His great love suffered and died, where also He was buried, where He arose the third day, and where the angel announced to the women: “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
—excerpted from The Land Far Off, pp. 178-193