Jesus’ Great Love for Jerusalem

Author: Dwight A. Pryor

FROM CHRISTENDOM’S earliest centuries, an attitude of Adversus Judaeos (“Against

the Jews”) shaped Christian theology and influenced the way we read the Bible even
today.

The Church was considered heir to the promises of the Old Testament. Jesus was viewed
as an opponent to Judaism rather than in continuity with it. And the destruction of
Jerusalem was seen as God’s final rejection of Israel. The “New Israel” (the Church) took
possession instead of a superior ‘heavenly’ Jerusalem.

St. Luke’s gospel, fortunately, portrays the historical Jesus and Jerusalem in quite a
different light. The Messiah is rooted firmly and positively within the fertile soil of
Second Temple Jewish life and values, and his love for Jerusalem is deep and abiding.

Luke informs us, for example, that every year Jesus’ devout parents took him up to
Jerusalem for Passover (2:41). What wonderment must have filled this Jewish child from
a small village of probably 200-300 people in the Galilee when he went up to the
magnificent Temple in Jerusalem! It was one of the wonders of the ancient world – but
more importantly, it was his Father’s House.

At age twelve, Luke describes a bright young Jesus sitting in the Temple courts engaged
in sophisticated rabbinic-style, question-for-question discourse with the sages (2:46-47).
He notes further that in the final week of his life Jesus again is at his beloved Father’s
House in Jerusalem, teaching daily in the Temple courts (19:47).

Before departing the Galilee for his final journey up to Jerusalem, Luke tells us that Jesus
is warned by the Pharisees that Herod Antipas is out to kill him (13:31). At the mention
of his looming destiny at Jerusalem, he breaks into heartfelt lament over the City of the
Great King: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often I would have gathered your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings …” (13:34-35). Jesus is burdened
with the foreknowledge that Jerusalem will reject his prophetic call for repentance and
forgiveness of sins, and that her house will be left desolate.

Luke reports that when Jesus approaches Jerusalem for Passover, from the Mount of
Olives he beholds the city. His disciples burst forth into Messianic praise (19:37-38), but
he breaks into tears. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem in prophetic pathos (19:41). Rather than
shalom within her walls, he grieves that the day is coming when Jerusalem will be
hemmed in on every side by enemies and “torn to the ground” (19:43-44).

Four days later Jesus is handed over to the Romans for execution as a seditionist – as
“King of the Jews”. On the way to the cross, even after extreme abuse and torture by
lawless men, Jesus cautions the women mourning his dreadful condition: “Daughters of
Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For
behold, the days are coming when … they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to
the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things to a green tree, what will happen to the
dry?” (Luke 23:28-31). The anguished Messiah alludes to prophetic texts in Hosea (10:8)
and Ezekiel (20:46ff) to forewarn Jerusalem of its coming desolation.

Forty years later, in 70 C.E., those prophetic words found painful fulfillment when the
city was “trodden down by the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). Titus sacked Jerusalem with four
legions of Roman soldiers, utterly demolishing the Temple, “leaving not one stone upon
another” (19:44). And the Jewish people were left longing for the “times of the Gentiles”
to be completed (21:24).

ON JUNE 7, 1967, for the first time in nearly two millennia Jews stood freely within the
gates of the Old City and prayed joyously at the Western Wall. Christians should
celebrate the 40th anniversary of this historic event, remembering Jesus’ great love for
Jerusalem.

Thanks to Luke’s gospel we can see our Lord in strong solidarity with the Jewish people
and with great affection for Jerusalem. His laments over the city, like the anguished cries
of the Prophet Jeremiah before him, sprang from a deep attachment to the city he loved.
The Father’s passion for His house and His people was fully embodied in His son.

© 2011 The Center for Judaic-Christian Studies.

All rights reserved.