Jerusalem - EP (Summer Series) - Trinity XIV, 2016

Jerusalem - EP (Summer Series) - Trinity XIV, 2016

Lesson 1: 1 Kings 8:22-30

Lesson 2: Luke 13:31-end

O Lord God of Israel, have regard to your servant’s prayer and her plea: that the words on her lips and the meditations of all our hearts may be acceptable in your sight, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

This evening’s sermon is the final one in our summer series during which we have travelled through places of the Bible, tracing the footsteps of Jesus from Bethlehem, onwards through Capernaum, Jericho, Bethany and other places, until this evening we arrive in Jerusalem.

My fellow preachers have spoken of these places as they exist today, as well as how they appear in the relevant Bible passages. For those lucky enough to have visited the holy land, these places - even today, long after the Bible stories written about them - can offer life-changing experience and (as in my case) faith-changing experience, and I don’t think I am alone in that. The sheer historicity of Israel, of its experience of God in this land, of Jesus of Nazareth himself, is unavoidable there, and very powerful. And at the very centre of this experience lies Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has been described as the house of the one God, the capital of two peoples, the temple of three religions, and the only city to exist twice - in heaven and on earth. Jerusalem means so many things to so many different people, of different times, of different cultures, of different faiths. It is a place of such delicacy that it is described in Jewish sacred literature in the feminine - always a sensual, living woman, always a beauty, but sometimes a shameless harlot, and sometimes a wounded princess whose lovers have forsaken her.

But, as any visitor to Holy Land will know, the physical contemporary reality of these places, both in biblical times and today, can bear little relation to what is written about them. The relationship between history and the Biblical account is not always straightforward. Those visitors who may have stood under the very tree in which Zacchaeus hid in Jericho, as have I, or visited the two authentic sites of the one transfiguration, will understand what I mean! However, to look for a direct historical relationship can sometimes be to miss the point of what the theological biblical account is trying to say. I am tempted to say that this dilemma, if I can call it that, is more true of Jerusalem than of any other place mentioned in the Bible.

But physical localised experience is not the only experience to be had of these places, much less of Jerusalem, as those of us who are Christians and have not visited the Holy Land also know well. The city of God (as Jerusalem has been famously called by St Augustine and others before him and since) has multiple dimensions to it and associations with it. As our hymn says, manyglorious things have been spoken, written - and indeed thought - about this city of Zion, the place where, in the words of Solomon, God indeed dwells on earth.

In the face of this, it is difficult to know where to start in this sermon. Simon Sebag Montefiore says in his magnificent ‘biography’of Jerusalem, that ‘the history of Jerusalem is the history of the world’- and we haven’t got time (or probably the mental capacity!) for all that this evening. Jerusalem is a city once regarded as the centreof the world, and is still central to all the Abrahamic religions, and an ongoing focus of struggle between them. Alongside the glorious things spoken, as we with our history of the Crusades know only too well, many inglorious and vainglorious deeds have been committed there, not least by people of faith.

So to make this manageable, and bearing in mind our overall trajectory following Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, I have elected to highlight three aspects of Jerusalem from a vast array of possibilities: firstly the Temple, secondly its replacement (at least in Christian eyes) in Jesus Christ, and thirdly the heavenly Salem, a counterpart of the earthly Jerusalem and a place where we might end our journey. I hope this will serve to highlight something of the essence of Jerusalem in its various dimensions: as the holiest of places on earth, the place of great tension even in Jesus’day, the place that can be experienced deeply without visiting it, and the place where we may all in our turn, God willing, reside at peace for eternity.

Aspect 1 - TEMPLE

Our first reading was taken from the first book of Kings, and was the prayer of Solomon as he dedicated the magnificent temple he had built to house the presence of God. You will remember that his father, King David had danced before the ark on its way into Jerusalem, the city of David, bringing the physical presence of God to the city. David had thought to build something more than a tent for the Lord to dwell in , but the Lord had seemed to require a different kind of house; a dynasty that was the House of David that would ‘be made sure for ever before God’. As God says to David, Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel….saying why have you not built me a house of cedar? What God requires is a place for his chosen people to be planted and nurtured.

But now David’s son Solomon has built a magnificent Temple to the Lord and is dedicating it to God. He remembers the exchange between God and David, and recognises that even the highest heaven cannot contain God, much less this house that he has built. And yet his plea is that the eyes of God may be open night and day towards this house, this temple, the place of which God has said‘My name shall be there’. He prays that God will hear the prayers of his people Israel, when they are made towards this place.

There is here a mixture of recognition that the Temple both is and is not the place where God resides. And later in the history of salvation we hear of the devastating consequences when the presence of God abandons the Temple. It is this aspect of the place of presence of the living God that is so precious, and yet so contentious, even today in Jerusalem.

Aspect 2 - ITS REPLACEMENT, JESUS

For Christians, but of course not for Jews, that Temple, that place of presence of the living God, has been replaced in Jesus Christ. There is no need to make sacrifice to God on the altar of the old Temple according to the old covenant since a new covenant exists and the ultimate sacrifice has been made not on the Temple’s altar but on a cross without the city walls of Jerusalem, once and for all.

On his way to that cross and in the Lament over Jerusalem, which we heard in our second reading, Jesus recognises Jerusalem both for what it is and is not: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. Here the city is more the shameless harlot than the beautiful, sensual woman who bears children to be a people for God. ‘How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.’ How readily did those words spring to my mind, as they will have done to others, as we stood in the Dominus Flevit Church and looked over Jerusalem in all its beauty, just a few years ago! The pain of Jesus’s lament rings out over Jerusalem as true today as in his time.

For the Jewish Jesus, Jerusalem was of course supremely important because it contained the Temple. His sacrifice of himself had to be made there, as close as possible to the Temple’s altar. And yet his lament suggests that he knew full well that the days of the physical Temple were numbered, perhaps not in historical terms (although that was also true), but in theological terms. And perhaps his lament looks even further ahead - to rejection of himself by his Jewish brethren. See, he says, your house is left to you. And I tell you you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ The old Temple is being replaced by the New, and the division of the two oldest Abrahamic faiths is on the horizon. With hindsight we can’t help but lament too over the seemingly endless division that has plagued Jerusalem ever since.

Aspect 3 - HEAVENLY SALEM

These two aspects of Jerusalem, firstly the Temple, and secondly its replacement (in Christian eyes) in Jesus Christ, can lead us finally to the third aspect, the heavenly Salem, a counterpart of the earthly Jerusalem.

To return to Simon Sebag Montefiore and his biography of Jerusalem, he says it is the only city to exist twice, once on earth and once in heaven. The very fact that Jerusalem is both terrestrial and celestial means, he says, that the city can exist anywhere: new Jerusalems have been founded all over the world, and everyone has their own vision of Jerusalem. It is often tempting to discern many an earthly reflection in these so-called heavenly places. But one vision that has gripped the Christian imagination is that of the 12th century monk, Bernard of Cluny, expressed in the well-loved hymn, Jerusalem The Golden, which we shall sing together in a moment.

In this Christian vision of the heavenly Salem, redolent with Jewish imagery and references to their story of promise and salvation, Jerusalem is golden, blest with milk and honey - once more a place, if not a nursing woman, of great beauty. There is the throne of David still present as God had promised, and there are the prophets and those martyrs stoned to death in the earthly Jerusalem. And there amongst them is ever the Prince of peace, risen for all eternity from that cross without the walls of the earthly Jerusalem, who has won for us too a place in this wondrous city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

It is the most beautiful vision and one that can be held on to in all sorts of times of difficulty, and of rejoicing, because of its promise. It is a vision to hold before us as we continue our pilgrimage on this earth, in preparation for journey’s end in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Conclusion

And so at the end of our summer journey through the places of the holy land, tracing the footsteps of Christ from his birth in Bethlehem to his death and wondrous resurrection in Jerusalem, let us pray, in the words of Bernard of Cluny:

Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,

O sweet and blessed country that eager hearts expect!

Jesu, in mercy bring us to that dear land of rest;

who art, with God the Father and Spirit, ever blest.

Lord in your mercy,

Hear our prayer.