Jerusalem high above, Jerusalem, the city in the hills.
If you have ever been in the Holy Land and you are aquainted with the geography there - then you know why it is called so.
The city of Jerusalem is built high in the Judaen hills, about 2,600 ft above sea level. The Dead Sea on the other hand is located far below sea level.
So there is a vertical interval of about 3,800 ft for instance from Jericho all the way up to Jerusalem.
And it is amazing that it takes just about 20 miles to climb up those 3,800 ft. Therefore the way up from Jericho to Jerusalem is steep, every now and then extremely steep.
When I was a student of theology I went after my Hebrew exam for a 4 week trip to Israel. During this trip I took a bus ride from Jericho to Jerusalem.
Because it is so steep, the buses going up there can only move very slowly, often times using winding roads. And then finally after about an hour drive, you can see the silhouette of the Holy city in front of you.
It is a beautiful sight. You look right at the ancient city, surrounded by a mighty wall and above all the temple Mount with the socalled Dome of the Rock.
Jesus didn´t take the bus. He and his disciples had to walk - a hard and tough journey, a journey that lasted at least a whole day.
Jesus was probably totally exhausted when he arrived at the Mount of Olives. From there he could also overlook the whole city, especially the holy distrct and the temple of God.
From the Mount of Olives, which is from the east, you go down the Kidron valley, and then later, again uphill, in order to get inside the walls of the city.
Now I am imagining that Jesus is standing down in the Kidron valley and from there he is looking up to the city walls,……………….. and he is weeping.
St. Luke writes: "He came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it."
Jesus is weeping. Jesus is able to weep. I personally find this fascinating. Jesus, the Son of God, is able to show his emotions candidly. This is especially amazing to me being a man.
A boy doesn´t cry or weep, I already had to listen to when I was young. A boy and a man is supposed to be tough. However I don´t think that is right. It is often times just the opposite.
In difficult situations it can be important to weep, important for our emotional balance. It can release and take away the pressure inside of us and around us.
Weeping is part of our human existence, weeping liberates. It´s nothing to be ashamed of.
This is something we can learn from Jesus. He shows his emotions. He shows his sympathy for the poor and sick, his love for children and outsiders, and also his fear of death in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Whenever Jesus shows his emotions, then he is very close to me. Then he is totally my brother and my friend. The weeping Christ is a comfort for me especially in difficult times of my life.
Jesus is weeping because he is sad. He does not weep because he is angry or hates his people.
Jesus is sad because he loves his Jerusalem. Jesus was a Jew. Already when he was a young boy he went frequently from Nazareth to Jerusalem. He is aquainted with this city, he loves the temple of the Lord, the most sacred place of his people Israel.
However he is anticipatind, yes, he is even seeing right in front of him that this city will end soon in a terrible disaster. And Jesus is sad because in this moment he feels helpless, and he says:
"If you (Jerusalem) only knew today what is needed for peace! But now you cannot see it!"
Jesus comes to Jerusalem to help, yet most people ignore his message. His Jerusalem does not grasp what is needed for peace. It does not understand: Jesus is coming as a peace maker.
Jews and Gentiles are supposed to be reconciled now. Through the peace maker Jesus Christ the gate to God is now wide open for all people. Jews and Romans and all other nations can live together in peace.
Jesus is sad, and later St. Paul and the first Jewish Christians, because their people Israel cannot confess Christ as the Lord and that they cannot go the same way with us Christians.
However their sadness has changed in Christian tradition into anger and hatred up until recent times. For almost our whole Church history Christians had taught a theology of contempt.
Because Israel didn´t accept Jesus, God has abandoned them. The church now takes the place of or supersedes the Jews, who have proved and sealed, by their rejection of Christ and the Gospel, that their old covenant was only a sign, now come to an end, of the new covenant that has replaced it.
This teaching of contempt had been the reason for so many discriminations and persecutions of Jews throughout the centuries.
At first,in conversionary enthusiam, Christians acted out the conviction that Jews may not live among us as Jews. Then we imposed the ghetto, acting in the conviction that they may not live among us.
And then in the middle of the last century, it was a pagan ruler in Germany, who took our theology of contempt to its logical practical conclusion that the Jews may not live at all.
Do we as Christians know what is needed for peace?
Only after the horrible catastrophy of the Holocaust, where billions of Jews died in the gas chambers, more and more Christians realise: The Church of Jesus Christ is guilty of persecuting its Jewish brothers and sisters.
We realize now that we have to stop teaching and thinking that God has abandoned Israel. The story of God with his people Israel is an ongoing story. The God of Israel is faithful to his promises and his covenants.
In this matter St. Paul writes: " They (Israel) are God´s people; he made them his sons and daughters and revealed his glory to them. He made his covenants and gave them the law."
God has made his covenants and is faithful to his people. Israel is the root of our Christian faith and we have to find ways to approach and to meet Jewish people.
And St. Luke continues to report: "The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side.
They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you!"
To lay siege to a city: to errect barricades, to starve out the people inside the walls and finally to do the lethal attack by a strong and well trained army. Jesus knows how cities were conquered in ancient times.
And as a matter of fact in the year 70 AD Jerusalem was plundered and the temple destroyed by the mighty Roman army as a reaction to a Jewish uprising.
Houndreds of thousands of mostly innocent people died inside the besieged city. Men, women and children were killed by Roman soldiers or died of starvation during the time of the siege.
Jesus is weeping over the dying children of Jerusalem. Jesus is weeping over this horrible tragedy.
This present time Jerusalem is surrounded by a new wall. Up to this day you can walk down from the Mount of Olives to the Kidron valley, and from the valley you can still look up to the city………………………….. and where Jesus stood 2000 years ago, we find a Christian chapel as a reminder of his tears.
Jesus is weeping. He is still weeping today. He is weeping over Jerusalem who does not know what is needed for peace.
On both sides, Palestinians and Israelis, there are religious and political fanatics who assassinate, kill and injure innocent people. I only have to remind you of the pictures we can see every day on TV.
Both sides think that they are right and the other side is wrong. They only wish each other ill.
However there is hope. Many Jews and Palestenians - Moslems and Christians - are involved in the movement for a lasting peace.
The will of most people for peace is there, however they have to learn how to trust each other. A lot of time and patience and work of reconciliation is needed. But it can be done.
To know what is needed for peace.
That is the task for all, who live in Jerusalem, Jews, Moslems and Christians. And I believe it is our task to pray that Jerusalem is going to find out what is needed for peace.
Amen.
