Old Jerusalem, New Jerusalem

A few weeks ago, our tour group was sitting on the steps leading up to the Temple Mound in Jerusalem. In one direction, the other pastors and wives in the group could hear the clarion call of the Muslims, calling to pray to their god who cannot hear them. In the other direction were the Jews writing their prayers on little slips of paper and sticking them into the Wailing Wall, praying to a god who cannot listen. We sat on those Temple steps and listened to a devotion filled with words coming from the true God who still speaks to us and singing a hymn to the Lord who really can listen.

We were standing in the place where Jesus taught and Peter preached at Pentecost, David’s holy city, the location of Solomon’s glorious temple, yet the Muslims and Jews who control Jerusalem have rejected the one true God. Jesus lamented, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34) Jerusalem, Jerusalem. It breaks Jesus’ heart. This is His city, His temple, His throne. Yet as it was then, so it is today –Jesus is unrecognized, unwanted, hated. “He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.” (John 1:11)

This is a reminder that salvation is always by grace, always by the mercy of God, a gift often unwanted and still constantly extended. The Son of God had to go through this city for us. For all. He spreads His wings over the city that wants Him dead, over a world that considers Him a stranger, a nuisance, an imposter, a fraud. He spreads His wings over His own – us – who still constantly run away, reject Him, and throw stones at Him. He spreads His arms wide upon the cross to embrace every sinner and every sin in the only death that saves.

If you visit Jerusalem, it is an extremely interesting city, but it is only a hollow shell, a relic of the past. For us Christians Old Jerusalem is a city of history. For us Christians the New Jerusalem is a city of the future. For in the Book of Revelation, the Holy City is pictured as coming down from heaven as radiant, spotless, glorious. This is Jerusalem redeemed, restored, raised up. Her murders have been atoned for in the death of God’s Son. The blood shed in her alleys has been washed by the blood of the Lamb. Her streets once littered with stones cast in hatred are now paved in pure gold. The prophets and apostles she killed are now her firm foundation. And Christ the Lamb, who died at her gates, is the Lamb enthroned, her Light and her Life.

This Jerusalem is our Jerusalem. It is our Holy City. You are free citizens of that city made holy by the blood of the Lamb. Your citizenship is in heaven, as Paul said. Your baptism is your citizenship papers. You will eat at the banquet feast of the Lamb. You are citizens of heavenly Jerusalem, God’s free city - redeemed in the death of Jesus, raised in His resurrection, glorified in Him and soon to be seen in glory when He appears in glory on the Last Day.

There we will be able to praise Him for an eternity, “'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

It will be "Jerusalem, the Golden!"



Please listen to the WELS High School Honor Choir singing "Jerusalem, the Golden." It is one of my new favorites from the new Christian Worship Supplement. This is the final song from the final concert at the WELS National Conference for Worship, Music, and the Arts which took place on July 31, 2008 at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter Minnesota.

How different this song is from what we experienced in Jerusalem. The Jews and Muslims are still fighting over "Old Jerusalem." We Christians are looking forward to the "New, Golden Jerusalem!"