Hilton Head Island, SC – November 3, 2013
The Chapel Without Walls
Psalm 122:1-8; Psalm 87:1-7; Luke 19:41-45
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they prosper who love you! Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers!” – Psalm 122:6-7 (RSV)
It was there before the Jews were there. It was the main and perhaps only town of a Canaanite tribe known as the Jebusites. The Jebusites built it there because there was a large spring there, called Gihon. Nobody knows when the town started, but it was conquered by the Israelites under Joshua about 1200 BCE, and it belonged to the Jews on and off for the next fourteen centuries or so --- more off than on. Then it did not belong to the Jews at all for the following 17+ centuries, and then, in 1948, by UN action, it became shared with the Arabs. Then in 1967, the entire city was conquered a second time in its history by the Jews, at the conclusion of the Six Day War.
“It” is Jerusalem, the Holy City, Zion, the City of God, the City of Peace. The very word Jerusalem means “City of Peace,” but it has known little peace for the past 3200 years No city in the world has caused more political or religious discord than Jerusalem. Over the centuries it is arguably the most important city in world history, more important than Shanghai, Beijing, Mumbai, Kolkata, Teheran, Cairo, Berlin, Paris, or London, all of which were founded much more recently than Jerusalem, and certainly more important than New York, Chicago, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, or Sao Paulo. At around 500,000+ residents in 2013, it has the largest population now it has ever had, but it is far, far smaller than any of these other cities. It isn’t size which makes Jerusalem so important, nor location, exactly. It is the only major city in the world which is not built on a river, lake, bay, or ocean. Its natural water supply still is only the spring of Gihon.
Jerusalem is a major spiritual center for all three western religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It became the capital of Israel under David and Solomon, it was where Solomon built the temple, and it has always been the religious heartbeat of Judaism. It is the place where the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth took place, and it has one of the oldest and most important churches in Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is the place where tradition says Muhammad took his famous Night Journey on his winged horse Barak, and it was there on Mt. Moriah, where the temple had once stood before it was destroyed by the Romans, that the Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock were constructed, and still stand. Al Aqsa is the third most sacred mosque in the world, after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque of Medinah.
Religious music is filled with scores of references to Jerusalem. In Jewish and Christian oratorios, it is frequently mentioned with reverential and respectful tones. Numerous hymns are named after it: O Zion haste, thy mission high fulfilling; We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion, we’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. The tune for one of England’s greatest national hymns is called Jerusalem: “And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green.” We’re singing two Jerusalem hymns today, one well known to nearly all of you, Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God, and one probably not so familiar, Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest.
Jerusalem is written about by name over 800 times in the Hebrew Bible, and almost 200 times in the Greek Bible. The word “Zion” is a synonym for Jerusalem, as Gotham or The Big Apple or The City That Never Sleeps are synonyms for New York City. There are almost 200 references to Zion in both the Old and New Testaments.
Is Jerusalem MORE than Jerusalem? With all those numbers and literary allusions and musical references, has Jerusalem become more than a mere city over the past three millennia?
Muslims have Mecca, Roman Catholics have Rome, Lutherans have Wittenberg, Anglicans and Episcopalians have Canterbury, Presbyterians have Geneva and Edinburgh, but it isn’t the same. None of those cities, even Mecca, holds the mysterious and mystical power of Jerusalem. And, as I said, Jerusalem has a very strong religious magnetism for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. No other city anywhere has that unique distinction for so many people.
Psalm 122 is the third of the Songs of Ascent, that fifteen-Psalm collection of Psalms which pilgrims recited as they went up to Jerusalem, or as they went up the steps to the temple once they were in Jerusalem. It is not surprising that one of the Songs of Ascent focused on Jerusalem itself.
“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” (122:1-2) There is a phenomenon called “the Jerusalem Syndrome” which has been known for several generations to Israeli and Palestinian tour guides. It is the singular brand of religious or spiritual ecstasy which overcomes certain kinds of people when they first arrive in the Holy Land, but especially when they get their first sight of Jerusalem.
The best way to approach the city for the first time is from the east. The bus climbs up the east side of the Mount of Olives, and then it goes around the south or north shoulders of the mountain - - - and suddenly there it is! Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest! We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion, we’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God!
The first sight to which one’s eyes are immediately drawn is the Temple Mount, with the glistening gold Dome of the Rock and the black dome of the Al Aqsa Mosque. To the west one sees the dome of the Holy Sepulcher, and other famous landmarks. It is a breathtaking sight, especially the first time one sees it.
Every year dozens or scores or even hundreds of people end up in Jerusalem hospitals, overcome by the excitement of seeing the Holy City. Whether this is perceived as lunacy or ecstasy depends on the essential mindset of the observer, but it is a phenomenon which has been documented so many times it is impossible to ignore. Jerusalem has a power over people like no other place on earth. To be standing within the gates of Zion is like being nowhere else on earth.
Mt. Zion is at the southwest corner of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is actually slightly higher than the Temple Mount, and thus is the highest place in Jerusalem. It is understandable, therefore, why “Zion” is a synonym for Jerusalem itself. On Zion is the traditional place where Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples. The Upper Room is in an ancient building directly above King David’s Tomb. Next door is the large Church of the Dormition, the place where tradition says Mary “slept” when she died. “Dormition” means “Sleep.” Frere Jacque, Frere Jacque, dormez vous, dormez vous: Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother James, Brother James? “Brother John” is an incorrect translation.) Next to the Dormition is the Christian cemetery where many famous people through the centuries are buried, including Oskar Schindler.
“Jerusalem, built as a city which is bound firmly together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord. There thrones were set, the thrones of the house of David” (122:3-5).
It is important for Christians to remember that Jerusalem was and is the Holy City first to the Jews. We are Johnny-come-latelies to Zion. We cannot conscript Jerusalem for ourselves; we are obligated to share it with the Jews and the Muslims. It was the center of Israel long before it became the center of the world. In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a place in the main nave of the church which is traditionally known as “The Navel of the Earth.” It is there where the earth was born, the tradition declares, and it is in Jerusalem where the world discovers the deepest meaning of its existence.
And then there follow the concluding verses of Psalm 122, the climax to which this particular Song of Ascent has been building. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! ‘May they prosper who love you! Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers!’ For my brethren and companions’ sake I will say, ‘Peace be within you!’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good” (122:6-9).
Twice Jerusalem has been completely destroyed, by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and by the Romans in 70 CE. Before and after it has been attacked by many invading armies: Egyptians, Assyrians, Syrians, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Mameluks, Ottoman Turks, Arabs again, Israelis, Palestinians. There are bullet and shell holes in the stone walls of Jerusalem, the walls built in the 16th century by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent. The Zion Gate, close to the Church of the Dormition, has hundreds of bullet indentations from 20th century battles. It has always been very hard to maintain the peace of Jerusalem, although millions have fervently prayed for its peace down through the ages.
It is so ironic! The very name of the city means “City of Peace!” Yet how little peace it has known, and how much war it has provoked. Religion can be and has been a great force for good, but it also can be and has been a great force for evil. Unholy warfare over holy places has characterized the human race as long as there have been humans. Surely the City of Peace is meant to reflect the peace of God. But the peace of God is also very hard to maintain. As the final lines of one of my favorite unknown hymns declares, “The peace of God, it is no peace/ But strife closed in the sod/ Yet brothers pray for but one thing / The marvelous peace of God.”
Jerusalem represents the deepest longings, the shattered hopes, the greatest prospects, and the fondest dreams of at least three billion people. Jerusalem is more than a municipality; it is an idea, and ideal, an idyll – i-d-y-l-l. It illustrates a notion, namely, the notion of a better, more peaceful, more productive world, made possible by God. It is an ideal which holds out hope for a better tomorrow, a happier future, a time of international cooperation and good will. Jerusalem is an idyllic poem, an epic dream of humanity that all will ultimately be well, and that all shall dwell in harmony: rich and poor, black and white, male and female, west and east, north and south.
The next to last chapter in the last book of the Christian Bible is Ch. 21 of the Book of Revelation. The man who wrote the Revelation apparently lived under great Roman persecution on the Greek island of Patmos off the west coast of Turkey. Before the very last words in his apocalypse he divulged a vision he had. “I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). That’s what we want; that’s what we all want --- a new Jerusalem, not the city represented by tragedy and bloodshed and disputes of acquisition, but a new kind of reality, the idea, the ideal, the idyll. We want a Jerusalem which gives us hope, which proclaims that the world shall be better, that we shall study war no more.
There are two St. Augustines. The later one is the man who brought Roman Catholic Christianity to England at the beginning of the 7th century, although Celtic Christianity had already been in Britain for three centuries. The second St. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The earlier one historically is the more important. He is St. Augustine of Hippo in North Africa, the man who in many respects established normative Christian theology for all Christians from his time at the end of the 4th century until the present day.
Augustine’s most influential book was called The City of God. It was not written about the Jewish-Christian-Muslim holy city that sits atop the Temple Mount and Mt. Zion. Rather it was about a new world order which God was going to create. In it everyone would live together in true peace. The wolf would lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together. This never happens, really, but oh, how we long for it to happen! As Browning said, “A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” The City of God is always just beyond our reach, but we keep reaching anyway, hoping against hope that somehow, in a manner unknown to us and perhaps unknowable, we shall finally touch it.
We all know what Atlantis is, that mythic Greek island which disappeared beneath the sea’s surface at some point in mythic times. It symbolized the best the world could produce to the Greeks who kept alive the memory of Atlantis for many centuries. Jerusalem is more than that. We all have heard of Shangri La, that ineffable land somewhere in the Himalayas or elsewhere in the east where life is pure and noble and just. It is Brigadoon, but more. However, Jerusalem is more than all of that, infinitely more.
I was the interim pastor of the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a magnificent building of Indiana limestone designed by America’s premier Gothic architect, Ralph Adams Cram. Above the front pews, reaching across the center aisle and several feet onto both sides, is a huge chandelier. It is an artistic depiction of the City of God. It does not connote the geographical Jerusalem, but rather the spiritual Jerusalem, the theological Jerusalem. I remember preaching a sermon there in which I referred to that chandelier, with its many symbols and artistic reminders. It rises up and up and up, perhaps twelve or fifteen feet from bottom to top, and it encapsulates in metal and shapes and lights the hopes of the ages.
Jerusalem is more than Jerusalem. It is built as a city bound firmly together, but it and its peace is ever so much more than that. Jerusalem is a vision, a torch, a searchlight. It shows where we have been, but much more so, it shows where we are going, and how we can get there.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God.