Jerusalem through the Eyes of Jesus: Reflecting on Palm Sunday in the Light of the Present Conflict in the Holy Land
It was Saturday, October 14 last year. The BBC Radio was about to play a pre-recorded interview with a spokesman for Hamas and needed to explain to listeners something in advance: “the reference you will hear in a moment, stating that one of the causes of the Gaza conflict is the desire to preserve the freedom of ‘Al Aqsa’, is a reference to the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem—regarded as the third holiest site in the Muslim world”.
That was it in a nutshell. The Hamas spokesman was making it plain that, behind all the many political causes of the conflict erupting so tragically in the Holy Land, there was an essentially theological issue. Yes, as in other conflicts around the world, there are the strong human desires in both the Israeli and Palestinian communities to be able to live in a place of security and to have their aspirations for some political independence to be adequately met, but here in the Holy Land there is an irreducible ‘God-component’ to the conflict.
The heart of the conflict
It is not just that the conflict is predominantly between two major monotheistic religions—Judaism and Islam. It is that those two world religions have conflicting theological views—derived from their respective scriptures, the Hebrew Bible and the Quran—about physical places in the Holy land. And, even more particularly, they have contradictory views about the piece of land which Christians now often refer to as the ‘Temple Mount’: namely, the place where the former Jewish Temple stood. However, Muslims refer to this same piece of land as Haram Esh Sharif (‘the noble sanctuary’), because it is now the site both of the Dome of the Rock and the above-mentioned Al Aqsa Mosque.
This is indeed the most contested piece of real estate on the planet. The same site is, on the one hand, revered by Jews as the site of Solomon’s temple centred on the ‘holy of holies’ and, on the other, is revered by Muslims as the place from which Muhammed went on his mysterious ‘night journey’ up to heaven and back (Sura 17:1). So, for both religions, the site is not just of historical interest, but rather is invested with theological weight—as a place associated with the activity of God.
The Hamas spokesman was thus laying bare the irreducible theological crux at the root. Hamas has many other agendas, which are brutal, political, and have little to do with ‘theology’, but this issue of the Al Aqsa mosque cannot be brushed aside so easily. So secular politicians and humanitarian agencies might want to take this ‘God-component’ out of the equation, but it will not go away. For this conflict has—deep down within its foundations—these essentially contradictory views about how God connects to this area of the Temple Mount.
Enter Jesus
The Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, Gustav Ferdinand König, 1841. Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/385244
The story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is told in each of the four Gospels and, for each Evangelist, it is an event which has layers upon layers of meaning. In later categories, we often speak of Jesus as being a new Prophet, Priest and King; and each of these roles fulfilled by Jesus come to the surface at this dramatic moment.
The crowds proclaim Jesus as the ‘prophet from Galilee’ (Matt. 21:11), for he has indeed come to proclaim the word of the Lord to the national leaders.
His ‘cleansing of the Temple’ is a prophetic sign, indicating that the old system, based on Temple sacrifices administered by priests, is about to be done away with—to be replaced by something new which Jesus will do a few days later at Golgotha.
And his riding on a donkey is seen by both Matthew and John as fulfilment of a prophecy from Zechariah 9 about the ‘King of Zion’ (Zech. 9:9 in Matt. 21:5 and John 12:15).
Yet, great as these titles are for Jesus, there is yet more to be discovered in this Palm Sunday event: for Jesus is coming as the human embodiment of God himself.
This is seen when we understand that, in biblical thought, the true ‘king of Zion’ is not one of David’s successors, but actually the Lord himself: Jerusalem is, after all, the ‘city of the great King’ (Psalm 48:2; Matt.5:35) and Israel was fundamentally conceived of as a ‘theocracy’ (‘we have no king but God!’).
According to Jesus, if the disciples are quiet, “even the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40), because they know that their Creator is passing by at just that moment!
And, above all, Jesus’ coming over the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem can be seen as the return of the Lord’s Shekinah glory into the Temple. In a highly significant passage, the prophet Ezekiel, writing from exile in Babylon, had seen a vision about the ‘glory of the God of Israel’: “the glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain to the east of it [i.e., the Mount of Olives]” (Ezek. 11:22-23).
Now Jesus comes over the Mount of Olives and storms into the Temple: this is Ezekiel’s vision, but now in reverse. He is embodying the return of the Lord’s glory; he is the personal presence of Israel’s God; he is indeed, as predicted by Malachi (3:1) ‘the Lord himself coming into his Temple.’
So Jesus is advancing his claim to be a new Temple, or more truly, the personal presence of the Lord who had previously made the Temple to be the ‘dwelling-place of the Name’. (Deut. 12:5, 11). And when he announces in Matt. 23:38 that ‘your house is left desolate’, he is making it clear that that divine presence, that had genuinely filled he Temple back in the days of Solomon, has now been removed once and for all.
Two verses later (Matt. 24:1) he leaves the Temple precincts himself—a clear sign for Matthew that Jesus is taking the divine presence with him out of the building— and a few weeks later that divine presence ascended back to the Father’s right hand in the event of the Ascension.
Jesus has thus confirmed the ‘de-secration’ of the Temple, and made it clear that he alone is now where God’s presence is to be found.
Back to the present
Coming back to the present day, then, there is a profound sense in which those who associate the former Temple Mount with a doctrine of divine presence are chasing after ‘thin air’. The Temple once upon a time had housed the presence of God, but it does so no longer—it is an ‘empty pot of gold’. “The Glory has departed” —in Jesus. (ref. 1 Sam. 4:21-22)
If so, this major source of tension in the contemporary Middle East—the conflicting theologies of Judaism and Islam concerning the sanctity of the Temple Mount and its historic connection to God’s presence—can only be resolved by a recognition that Jesus has decisively changed all this.
As God incarnate (something clearly not recognised in Judaism and Islam), Jesus alone has the authority to take the ‘God-component’ out of the equation and to bring to an end the elevated status that so many give to the Temple.
The Temple, properly understood, now points in God’s purposes to the far greater reality of Jesus Christ who alone embodies the true presence of God in human form. He himself said that ‘one greater than the Temple is here’ (Matt. 12:6). But, tragically, the overwhelming majority of those who live in the Holy Land today are committed to religious systems which deny these and other New Testament claims for Jesus.
The Lord revealing his glory
There is a profound sense, then, that the only solution to the tragic conflict in the Holy Land is a fuller manifestation of the glory of Jesus Christ—as more people come to recognise that He alone is the answer to their religious aspirations and their deepest needs.
The New Testament looks forward, of course, to that day when the full personal presence (or ‘parousia’) of the Lord Jesus will indeed be publicly manifest—at which point these conflicts in the Holy Land will be seen in their true light—in the light of Jesus’ glory. “Come, Lord Jesus!”
In the meantime, until that Day, our goal must be to proclaim the fullness of who Jesus truly is, so that people of ‘all nations’—both Jew and Gentile, both ‘near’ and ‘far’, both ‘first-world’ and ‘majority-world’—come to put their trust in him.
Wouldn’t it be good if in this upcoming season of Easter 2024, as believers around the world proclaim his mighty resurrection, we would hear stories of the Risen Jesus revealing himself to many who, till now, have not seen his glory? He might do this in many ways—perhaps through speaking to individuals in their dreams or, more openly, through using his people’s testimony to his risen power.
For the one hailed on Palm Sunday as the ‘King of Glory’ was—one week later—proved to be exactly that, when he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. May the glory of the Risen Lord shine forth during this Easter Season, as the Good News of his Resurrection flows out ‘from Jerusalem, through Samaria to the ends of the earth’!
Taking this further
If you would like to discuss this in more detail, I will be leading a Zoom Seminar at 7:30am ET on Thursday 21 March, designed to help those celebrating Palm Sunday and Holy Week to do so with greater understanding of the significance of what Jesus was doing in and for Jerusalem.
Alternatively, you might like to take advantage of a special discount code (NW20) giving those in the New Wineskins network 20% off a suite of resources for Holy Week. Take your pick from:
The Holy Week Experience – a video series filmed in Jerusalem that will take you on an immersive journey from the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Week that Changed the World – a series of audio recordings that will enable you to follow the story and drama of Jesus’ movements through Jerusalem, from Palm Sunday to the empty tomb.
Immersed in the Passion – an attractive guide to one of the most remarkable phenomena in our modern world —the world's longest-running Play based on the world’s most pivotal story.
Don’t delay – the NW20 discount code expires Monday, April 1.
The Rev. Dr. Peter Walker taught for many years at Wycliffe Hall, the evangelical Anglican seminary in Oxford, and for five years was Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry (near Pittsburgh, PA, USA). He is now the Rector of the Itchen Valleys Parish near Winchester, UK, and runs a small publishing company, Walkway Books, designed to provide ‘trusted resources for followers of Jesus today.’ Go to walkwaybooks.com and use the NW20 discount code for 20% off!