Jerusalem

Last night I was relaxing on a rooftop looking out at the city of Jerusalem. It almost seems like I can't really possibly be here.

There is so much history here. It is overwhelming and hard to fully appreciate--well, hard to adequately appreciate and impossible to fully appreciate. I find it interesting how a place can help us see our connection to the past. A shared location gives us a glimpse of how we are connected to people of another era, of ages gone by.

My location is a youth hostel in the Old City of Jerusalem. The last few days I have gotten used to walking through the Old City: the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian Quarters and passing in and out through Jaffa Gate, Zion Gate, Damascus Gate, etc. I have even walked along the top of this great, ancient wall. Funny that this wall was only built in 1538, not really very old for Jerusalem.

There has been so much history here over the past 2000 years and many changes. Straight ahead of me I see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which marks the spots were Jesus was most likely killed, buried, and resurrected. I look over a little ways and see the Temple Mount were he turned over the tables of the money changers and where as a child his parents finally found him. I can look over to the Mount of Olives. I can see the Garden of Gethsemane. Right here was the climax of the life of the one I claim to follow.

I walked around on the Temple Mount on Monday. This is where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque now stand. The third holiest place in Islam, said to be from where Gabriel took Muhammed up to heaven to meet with God and the prophets. The Western Wall from the Second Temple period still stands and is the holiest site for Jews.

Even long before the ancient temple that was destroyed in AD 70, Jerusalem was the city of David and Solomon and Solomon's original temple. In the time of Jesus it was 1000 years after the legendary King David and so much happened during that time. Even in the time of King David, though, this was a place of legend. The first temple was built on Mount Zion, previously called Mount Moriah and believed to be the very spot where Abraham prepared to offer his son.

This is where Melchizedek is said to have ruled the city once just called Salem (meaning peace), when he was a priest of God. This of course was before any of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had been born. I never really thought of this before, but it is kind of funny that all claim Jerusalem as belonging to them, when the city predates all of them.

Whether you are talking just about the time of Abraham and Melchizedek or David and Solomon or Ezra and Nehemiah or Jesus and the Apostles or Muhammed or the Crusades or the Ottoman era or the modern state of Israel, this would be quite an important city. But with thousands of years of history literally stacked on top of each other, it is simply mind-boggling.

I wonder what all the future holds for this city. I wonder what it would have been like to live here or to pass through here, say, 4000 years ago and catch a glimpse that over the coming centuries this seemingly random, insignificant hill would be considered by many the holiest and most important place in the entire world. A place where thousands would be born and thousands would die, where great buildings and monuments, temples, churches, and mosques would be built and would be destroyed, a city that would be defended, a city that would be captured, a city destroyed, a city rebuilt, a city divided, a city united, a place where monumental moments of the past repeatedly give rise to world-changing events of the present that become the legendary tales of the future...