Sunday, August 31, 2008

Garden of Gethsemane Jerusalem Israel



Picture from the booklet
Jerusalem - The Garden Tomb

In The Garden

I thank YOU, LORD, for giving me that very special day
in such a hurried schedule, to stop, and think, and pray,
To draw aside in stillness from every earthly care
and in the beauty of YOUR peace, feel your sweet presence there.

How good it was to stoop down and see YOUR empty tomb,
To know YOU rose victorious, and thus sealed satan's doom,
Death could not hold YOU captive, with fingers chill and grey,
YOU tore aside the gates of hell and rolled that stone away.

Yet my heart rejoices to know YOU live again,
To know we, too, are deathless, and with YOU soon will reign,
I see you in the garden amongst some olive trees
bent low in deepest anguish, in prayer, upon YOUR knees.

How much YOU had to suffer, we may not even know,
Or what it meant to YOU to be despised by friend and foe,
To feel the whiplash on YOUR back and cruel, sharp, thorny crown
Or rusty nails in hands and feet, as crimson blood flowed down.

I won't forget that garden or tomb where once YOU lay,
How quietly YOU met with me and spoke to me that day:
A moment oh so precious, filled with joy and peace divine
when I felt YOUR heavenly touch upon this humble soul of mine.

In the Garden (Gethsemane) ISRAEL
Reproduced by kind permission
Reflections
SJA