Peace

We went to the Mount of Olives today. A beautiful view to the west looking at Jerusalem and a rather harsh view looking east toward the brown wilderness. I can picture Jesus coming up from the eastern wilderness area to the top of the Mount of Olives where he catches his breath, drinks some water and sits and ponders Jerusalem.

Jerusalem. The center of so much history. The center of so much warfare. The center of so much expectation and hope.

Jerusalem. It will be the place of his triumphal entry. It will be the place of his triumphant death. It will be the place of his triumphant resurrection.

The gospel writer Luke tells us that when Jesus came to Jerusalem for his final week he processed from the Mount of Olives. In Luke 19:41 it says of Jesus that , “As he approached Jerusalem(from the Mount of Olives) he saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day had only known what would bring you peace….”

Peace.

I have not found Jerusalem to be a place of peace. Here is a great irony: the Holy City doesn’t feel very holy. Here are three religions that have histories of mistrust, warfare and evil done in the name of their God. Disagreement and infighting within these three religious groups further the sense of disharmony, suspicion, and tension. There is unfriendliness in the air borne from years, decades, centuries of conflict and strife.

When you look around the land I am stuck by walls. The great wall around the old city of David. The wall still in process dividing Israeli from Palestinian living in the west bank(about 6 miles south west of Jerusalem). The Western Wall(the Wailing Wall as it used to be called.)

These are the seen walls. But there are unseen walls between those of different ethnic backgrounds, between Jew and Gentile, Christian and Muslim, between religious and irreligious.

What Jesus wept for was peace.

The apostle Paul tells us that Jesus “himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…(Ephesians 2:14)

May the peace of Christ which passes all understanding, guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)