Jerusalem: City for All Time.
Text: 2 Samuel 5:1-5
“If you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history, that word would be Jerusalem.”
So wrote Teddy Kollek in 1981, then mayor of the city. He explained it further. “I do not think
you can find any Israelis who are willing to give up Jerusalem. They cannot and will not. This
beautiful golden city is the heart and soul of the Jewish people. You cannot live without heart
and soul.”
Similar words, though probably without military overtones, would express the feelings of many
Christians. Muslim Arabs have the same attraction for the city. The events that have taken place
in Jerusalem and their meaning for three of the great world religions make it a city for all time.
We consider Jerusalem, in this sense, as a place, a prayer, and a promise.
First, as a place.
It was King David who brought Jerusalem into the Jewish history books. It was an act of wisdom
that had him see the great future of the place. When the Hebrews settled Palestine under
Joshua, they did not succeed in taking the city from the Jebusites. It was a rock fortress,
surrounded by valleys. David’s capturing of the city is described in our reading. However, the
key verse, verse eight, is not clear in the original language. In part it cannot be translated. The
controversy over whether the attack should be directed against the water shaft of the city of
the windpipe of the defenders Is not yet settled. The reference to the blind and the lame in
verse eight seems to be an addition of a later editor. But that David conquered it around 1,000
B.C. is beyond dispute.
His reasons for wanting the city are obvious. He had been king of the southern tribe of Judah
for some years. He had, just now, been accepted as king of the ten northern tribes. To solidify
the nation, he wanted to place a capital near the border between the north and south.
Jerusalem lay there. It was equally accessible from both north and south, and it could be easily
protected.
Jerusalem, however, had a history as an important place long before David’s soldiers stormed
into it. The city is mentioned in the Ebla tablets found in Syria, dating back to around 2,300 B.C.
Canaanites lived there before the Jebusites, and even after David conquered it, the city had no
rest. The Babylonians conquered it. The Jews returned. Then the Greeks took it and, in turn, the
Romans, the Byzantines, the Persians, the Arabs, and the Christian Crusaders held it for about
one hundred years. Then the Turks had it, then the British, then the Arabs again and, finally,
after the six-day war in 1967, the Israelites took full possession. During its known history,
Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed seventeen (17) times! No other city on the face of the
earth has suffered like that. But it still stands there. Though it is the capital of the Jewish nation
of Israel, it contains many cultures. Within the Old Cit now there is a Moslem Quarter, a Jewish
Quarter, a Christian Quarter, and an Armenian Quarter. Those same people, as well as scientists
around the world, join archeologists each year in digging into the ruins, uncovering the past.
The discoveries and the almost universal interest in the city support what has already been
said: Jerusalem is a city for all time.
You may not have been there. Maybe you have. You may wish you could go, but you don’t need
to have been there to appreciate the city. Extreme interest of a place, in fact, or pride of a
place, can blind one from its greater importance. Jerusalem is more than a place; it is prayer!
Second, as a prayer.
In the early years of Mohammedanism, its people turned to prayer. Only later was the direction
changed to Mecca. In New Testament days people swore by Jerusalem! Though Jesus warns
against the practice in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37), it indicates that the
people held the city in high regard as a source of power. For Christians, the chief interest in the
city is that it was the center of the life of Jesus Christ. It is the scene of the suffering, death, and
resurrection of Jesus. It is the place that God had chosen to work out his redemption. That’s
why Christian pilgrims have gone, and continue to go there. It is not the sites in the life of Jesus,
that make Jerusalem a prayer, but what happened at those sites. The meanings of those
experiences in the life of our Lord are for all time, and they become our prayer.
It was Jesus who said of his own crucifixion experience outside the walls of Jerusalem, “When I
am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” (John 12:32) There was, of course, no
other reason for Jesus to draw people to himself except to draw them to God! He knew that by
his suffering and death he was being a mediator. He knew that on him were being laid the sins
of the world. He knew that he was the answer to humanity’s greatest problem: how to be the
friends of God. The Today’s English Version translates well Paul’s words from Romans 5:9, 10:
“By his death he are not put right with God… he made us his friends through the death of his
Son.” The particular faith and unique message of Christianity is that there in Jerusalem, by the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has opened the way for all people to him and has
extended his arms of love and forgiveness. That all people might be drawn to God, that all
people might be his friends, is the Jerusalem prayer of Jesus. It is our prayer. It is our prayer for
all time and for all people. As our prayer, it also becomes our mission.
Jerusalem is a prayer in another way. What happened there in the death of Christ is also to
draw people to each other. In the Letter to Ephesians, we told that is through the very blood of
Christ, shed on the cross, that peace comes comes between people. In the death of Christ “the
dividing wall of hostility” is gone, and two people become one. Reconciliation is made. Divisive
differences are erased. (Ephesians 2:13-16). The very mention of the name Jerusalem should be
like an announcement of peace! But the city has yet to experience it.
We quote again from Mr. Kollek mayor of the city: “We want Jerusalem to remain a multi-
cultural city – a mosaic of people. The bottom line is that Jerusalem must never again be
divided with barbed wire down its center. In this undivided city our objectives are free
movement of people and goods, the reduction of inter-communal conflicts and the satisfaction
of international interests.” Mr. Kollek restates the Letter to Ephesians. The death of a
reconciling Christ in Jerusalem ought to make that very city the seat of harmo0ny and peace,
not only for the people who live there, but for the people of the world. Jerusalem is prayer.
Jerusalem is a place. It is a prayer.
Third, Jerusalem is also a promise.
For the Jew, Jerusalem is the promise of an ethnic and religious future. The prayers recited at
the Wailing Wall are for the restoration of the city and the temple. The Zionist Movement holds
out hope for many Jews to return to live there. At the close of every annual Passover meal,
there is an expression, “Next year in Jerusalem”. For the Muslim, Jerusalem holds the promise
that the prophet Muhammed will return to that stie, at the end of time, and bring the faithful
to Allah. This explains the crushing number of gravesites and gravestones near the city wall.
For the Christian, Jerusalem is a promise in a different sense. Saint Augustine wrote: “in the
progress of the city of God through the ages, David first reigned in the earthly Jerusalem as a
shadow of that which is to come.” (City of God, XVII. 14.20) There is something beyond the city
as it stands there today. It is the promise of heaven. Jerusalem is a type of the City of God yet to
come. For this reason, it is especially a city for all time.
The letter to the Hebrews speaks of people who walked the paths of this life by faith. About
them, it says, “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” Therefore, God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:16). The
Book of Revelation presents a picture of the future city. “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven from God… and I heard a great voice from the throne saying,
‘Behold the dwelling of God is with me. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people …
he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.’” (Revelation 21:2-4a)
These are the words of promise. They lead the Christian to sing, “Jerusalem, the Golden, what
bliss beyond compare!” And “Jerusalem, whose towers touch the skies, I yearn to come to
you.” Again, “Jerusalem, my happy home, would God I were to thee!” These hymns express life
under the perfect reign of God. They relate the joining of the saints forever. And they tell of the
Christian yearning to be there, to be with him, to experience eternity.
Jerusalem is a place. It is prayer. It is promise. It is a city for all time, a happy home. From psalm
137, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right-hand wither! Let my tongue cleave to the roof of
my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!”