O Jerusalem!
What can one say? It has so much history with its own beauty and attraction. What a city! Yet it lies in the middle of a desert. After being there and seeing the harsh conditions of the countryside, I wonder why they chose to build a city in the middle of nowhere. It must have been divinely inspired, especially after it has survived the tumultuous history it has endured.
My first impressions as I explored and tried to picture the place in Jesus' time were that it was quite a small place where everywhere was close to everywhere else and where only a small population would have lived. It struck me then that everybody would have known everybody else and so it would have been hard to get away with anything. Nothing or no one could lie hidden, I would say.
Then along comes the stranger, Jesus, from Galilee up in the fertile north and locals would question:
Who is he?
Who is he to tell us what to do?
Whom does he think he is coming here and acting as if he is our leader?
I could see why Jesus, or any character like him, would come under the radar of the Jerusalem population and leadership and receive unwanted attention.
Jerusalem is a place that has a sesne of being superior. Once again, when you see where it is, you wonder why. Its value lies beyond what you see. It is about much more - history, religion, politics, culture. It is so rich in many ways.
Jerusalem today is nothing like it was in Jesus' time but it does lie on the same spot as it did in ancient times. Jesus' Jerusalem is but one small part of modern Jerusalem, a city with up to one million inhabitants. Still you can get some sort of picture of what it may have been like. It naturally gives you an overwhelmimg sense of something or someone other.
Definitely, O Jerusalem!
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