A few years ago, my wife and I had the incredible experience of traveling to Israel on a two-week tour with a group of pastors of various denominations from across the U.S. For our last three days in country, we traveled up from the Dead Sea, at 1,400 feet below sea level, to the city of Jerusalem, over 2,500 feet above sea level.
Entering Jerusalem, the tour bus took us to the Mount of Olives, looking down over the Kidron Valley to the Old City of Jerusalem. The old city situated in the middle of greater Jerusalem, is surrounded by high walls. Within the walls are four “quarters;” the Jewish quarter, the Christian quarter, the Muslim quarter and the Arminian quarter.
Overlooking the Old City, from the Mount of Olives, we were about to walk down the Mount of Olives, via Palm Sunday Road. This is the road Jesus would have ridden down on a donkey the Sunday before he was crucified. On that particular day, the people lined the narrow street and waved palm branches and laid down their cloaks, praising him and all the wonders he had done.
As we walked down Palm Sunday road, I pondered about that day Jesus road into town. We stopped at an overlook. And it was at that time of day I heard sounds like I had never heard before. The Muslim call to prayer was echoing across the valley from the Dome of the Rock in the Old City. At the same time, the Jewish call to worship sounded from a shofar not far away. Church bells began to ring in Christian churches. It was a cacophony of sounds competing for dominance and attention.
It was at that moment, standing there overlooking this amazing historic city, reflecting on Jesus’ presence there on that same road 2,000 earlier, I recalled reading about him stopping, overlooking the city and, in the midst of all the people’s celebration, began weeping. He said, as quoted from the New Testament gospel of Luke 19:41-42, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.’” Jesus predicted, with weeping and, I believe a broken heart, that because they didn’t hear God coming to them, their city would be destroyed. In 70 A.D., that prophecy was fulfilled.
But, what struck me on that day, listening to the three religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity and their loud, confusing noise echoing across the city, competing for the attention of the people, was sadness. For it might not have been that much different in Jesus’s day. It wasn’t the same competing religions, but the noise of the world’s religion, philosophy, politics, commerce, etc., all trying to outdo each other for the attention of the people. “Buy me! Follow Me! Hey, over here! Choose this way!”
Jesus wept, mourning over the confusion and lostness of the people. Yesterday and today, I believe Jesus still weeps over people who are looking for peace in all the wrong places. Jesus said, “If you had only known what would bring you peace.” Jesus, Himself, is the source of our peace. It is not in religion, it is in knowing and believing and following Jesus, God’s son, who came that we might know God and walk with Him. He came as a sacrifice for the sins that bring confusion, hopelessness and lostness into our lives.
Later, that week, Jesus would gather his disciples and tell them he would soon be betrayed, crucified, but on the third day, be raised to life. The disciples heard crucifixion, and were distraught over the events that were about to take place. Jesus said to them in John’s Gospel, 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” In the midst of the world’s chaos, we can know the peace of Jesus. Our longing for peace is not in religion, but in a relationship with Jesus, who loves us and gave himself as a sacrifice for us. And he, who lives again, offers us peace and hope!
• Dan Wiese is the pastor of the Church of the Nazarene.
