Jerusalem: An Impossible Place

Tantur Ecumenical Institute

Our studies at Tantur Ecumenical Institute at Jerusalem began with a lecture entitled Living in the Middle East. The main point was that the situation in Jerusalem is, from a human standpoint, impossible to resolve. As we circuited the city the following day for an orientation tour of Jerusalem our Israeli guide described this region as sitting on a knife edge. The complexity of the political issues, the conflicts between and among religious factions and even the terrain and the climate of the area present a situation not easy, if actually impossible, to manage by human self-determination. The region presents itself as a place where only faith in God can make things work. It is thus truly a sacred place.

In their Egyptian slavery the ancient Hebrew tribes knew God only as a distant God. They did not yet know God as Yahweh; a God who is personally involved with their lives and who can and did respond to their oppression. As He delivered them out of their bondage He became a God in whom they must now trust. Slavery does not require faith in God. True freedom does. 

As we stood on various overlooks of Jerusalem I began to understand this as our guide read various passages from Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Our first stop was on a height  overlooking a beautiful and fertile land. Jerusalem is surrounded by rugged and rocky hills which do two things. It forms a sort of enclave which “channels” the rain into its fertile valleys and it protects the city from enemies. In contrast to the Nile valley which is watered by the dependable flooding of the Nile river Jerusalem is very dependent on rainfall. Thus the promise which God gave the Israelites in Deut 11:13-16 as they entered the Promised Land:

"And if you will obey my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be full…”

If the early rain or late rain does not come there is drought.

One begins to understand the fragility of the land standing on top of Mt. Scopus where desert spreads out on the side opposite of the fertile valleys and hills surrounding Jerusalem. Were it not for the protecting hills Jerusalem itself would sit in barren land.

All of this, as our lecturer on Biblical Geography emphasized, makes Jerusalem a “land in-between.” It is a place where no people group has been able to establish a permanent nation. It has been taken in by empires of which Jerusalem and the land of Judea have always been on the edges. Yet it is at the center of things because it is an important connection; a place where the world passes through but where no earthly kingdom has been able to gain a foothold. This is where God chose to bring His kingdom into the world.

It is a land divided. Here people struggle with fundamental questions of possession.  Whose land is this really? There are deep questions of faith. Why did God lead His chosen people out of a land of regular harvests which had spawned one of the world’s greatest and earliest empires into a land so dependent on “water from heaven?” Why didn’t God just make Moses Pharaoh (he did have the chance)? The very nature of this area speaks the answer. It demands dependence on the Spirit of God for life itself.

I am coming to believe that God does not mean for this region to be owned by any specific nation. I see here a spiritual focal point on this earth; a region that points to God Himself who owns everything. Here the only solution to the human situation is trust in God. That spirit, I believe, is to reach out to all nations. It brings to mind a passage in Joel 3:1-3 which I offer without interpretation:

   

"For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehosh'aphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations, and have divided up my land,…”


Jerusalem is the antidote for the self-determination that has evolved in the world; the idea that we can make our own future. It is, I believe, the developing pattern for the New Jerusalem described in Rev 21:2-3:

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."

Far from being discouraged by the “impossibility” that I find here, on the spiritual level it gives me great hope and comfort.