For the peace of Jerusalem pray

The name Jerusalem is said to mean, City of Peace... It is home to the three great monotheistic religions who hold their belief in the God but sadly this has divided the city and this continues today with the  political and religious being not woven together but rather tying people up in knots. 

We began our morning prayer reflecting on Jesus weeping over Jerusalem as he prophesied its destruction, a prophecy that came true when the Romans destroyed it in the year 70.

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem and came in sight of the city he shed tears over it and said, 'If you in your turn had only understood on this day the message of peace! But, alas, it is hidden from your eyes! Yes, a time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications all round you, when they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone standing on another within you - and all because you did not recognise your opportunity when God offered it!'
- Luke 19:41-44

'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused! So be it! Your house will be left to you desolate, for I promise you, you shall not see me till the time comes when you say: Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!'
- Matthew 23:37-39

We particularly reflected on this maternal image of God, that Jesus describes as a hen that gathers her brood under her wings. As we reflected on the divisions within the holy city we thought about our God who doesn't want to lose any of the people created in his image and likeness.

Our first visit was to meet Islam on the Temple Mount. This incredibly important site is significant for the Jews and Muslims. It was on this site, Mount Moriah, that Abraham, the father in faith of all Jews, Christians and Muslims. was asked by God to sacrifice his Son Isaac. As he was about to do this the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven. Abraham, Abraham he said. I am here, he replied. Do not raise your hand against the boy the angel said. Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your son, your only son. Then looking up, Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. Abraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt-offering in place of his son.

The angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven. I swear by my own self - it is the Lord who speaks - because you have done this, because you have not refused me your son, your only son, I will shower blessings on you, I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants shall gain possession of the gates of their enemies. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, as a reward for your obedience.

On the site was built the first Jewish Temple. The Holy of Holies of the Temple was built about the rock where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. And in the Holy of Holies was placed the Ark of the Covenant, the box that contained the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments and according to the Letter to the Hebrews, it also contained Aaron's staff and a pot of manna, and it was here that God dwelt amongst his people. The Babylonians destroyed this Temple after capturing Jerusalem in 587 BC. Then it was rebuilt by Herod the Great in 20-18 BC. This Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

When the Muslims invaded a mosque was built on the site. They believe that Muhammad travelled from Mecca to the mosque, from where he subsequently ascended to Heaven making this site the third most holy site for Muslims. After the Crusaders retook Jerusalem in 1099 the Dome of the Rock was turned into a church. In 1187 the Muslims again retook Jerusalem.

Today there are two important sites for Muslims... The Al-Aqsa Mosque where Muhammad prayed after arriving from Mecca...

And the Dome of the Rock from where is ascended into heaven...

And the Dome of the Rock from where Muslims believe he ascended into heaven.

We then went to the Wailing Wall, the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount and the only remains of the Jewish Temple. This is the holiest site for the Jewish people.

Note the small boxes called tefillin attached to the head and forearms... The following was our first reading from Mass today from the book of Deuteronomy...  

Moses said to the people: If you fear the Lord your God all the days of your life and if you keep all his laws and commandments which I lay on you, you will have a long life, you and your children and your grandchildren. Listen then, Israel, keep and observe what will make you prosper and give you great increase, as the Lord God of your forbears has promised you, giving you a land where milk and honey flow.

"Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength."

Let these words be written on your heart.  You shall repeat them to your children and say them over to them whether at rest in your house or walking abroad, at your lying down or at your rising; you shall fasten them on your hands as a sign and on your forehead as a circlet; you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:2-9

There were also an number of bar mitzvah celebrations occurring. This is a coming-of-age ritual in Judaism. According to Jewish law, before children reach a certain age, the parents are responsible for their child's actions. Reaching the age of bar or bat mitzvah signifies becoming a full-fledged member of the Jewish community with the responsibilities that come with it. These include moral responsibility for one's own actions; eligibility to be called to read from the Torah and the right to possess personal property and to legally marry on one's own according to Jewish law; the duty to follow the 613 laws of the Torah and keep the halakha - the totality of the Jewish laws. 

Jewish law dictates that a man is required to cover his head during prayer so a kippah or yarmulk is  worn. Some believe it is to be worn all the time.

From there we made our way through the old city to the church of St Anne and the adjacent "Sheep Pool" called the Pool of Bethesda

The incredible depths of the Sheep Pool after successive rebuildings of Jerusalem

There was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  now at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem there is a building, called Bethzatha in Hebrew, consisting of five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people - blind, lame, paralysed. 

At this point in the reading we paused and called to mind those we know who are sick and who we promised to pray for.

One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in this condition for a long time, he said, 'Do you want to be well again?' 'Sir,' replied the sick man 'I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I and still on the way, someone else gets there before me.'  Jesus said 'Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk.'  The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and walked away.

Now that day happened to be the sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who had been cured, 'It is the sabbath; you are not allowed to carry your sleeping-mat.' He replied, 'But the man who cured me told me, "Pick up your mat and walk." 'They asked, 'Who is the man who said to you, "Pick up your mat and walk"?' The man had no idea who it was since Jesus had disappeared into the crowd that filled the place.  After a while Jesus met him in the Temple and said, 'Now you are will again, be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.'  The man went back and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had cured him.  It was because he did things like this on the sabbath that the Jews began to persecute Jesus.

- John 5:1-3.5-16

Our group has been very conscious of the religious tensions within the city. I wasn't allowed to wear my pounamu cross, nor carry it in my backpack up to the Temple Mount. I was also not allowed to carry my bible in my backpack. Jesus too knew the religious tensions.  

Tradition has it that the parents of Mary were Anne and Joachim... 

A genealogy of Jesus Christ son of Davis, son of Abraham:

Abraham is the son of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob,

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, Tamar being their mother,

Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram,

Ram was the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab was the father of Nahsohon,

Nahsohon the father of  Salmon,

Salmon was the father of Boaz, Raheb being his mother,

Boaz was the father of Obed, Ruth being his mother,

Obed was the father of Jesse; and Jesse was the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife,

Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam was the father of Abijah,

Abijah was the father of Asa, Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat was the father of Joram, Joram was the father of Azariah,

Azariah was the father of Jotham, Jotham was the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah, Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh was the father of Amon, Amon was the father of Josiah,

and Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers.

Then the deportation to Babylon took place. After the deportation to Babylon:

Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, Abiub the father of Eliakim,

Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor was the father of Zodok,

Zadok the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eluid,

Eluid was the father of Eleazer, Eleazer the father of Matthan,

Matthan the father of Jacob; 

and Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary;

of her was born Jesus who is Christ.

The sum generations is therefore : fourteen from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation; and fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Christ.

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins." Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son

and they will call him Emmanuel,

a name which means " God-is-with-us" . 

When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord told him to do : he took his wife to his home and, though he had not had intercourse with her, she gave birth to a son; and he named him Jesus.

Matthew 1:1-25

Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son or Mary,

announced the coming of the Kingdom and preached his Gospel.

One man who heard Jesus was John who became an apostle.

John too preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One man who heard John was Polycarp who became a bishop in Smyrna, in modern day Turkey.

Polycarp too preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One man who heard Polycarp was Irenaeus who became a bishop in Lyons, in modern day France.

Irenaeus too preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

1600 years exactly after Irenaeus was martyred in Lyons

a child was born, Jean-Baptiste Pompallier who became a bishop, the first bishop for Aotearoa New Zealand.

We are the fruit of this whakapapa, this genealogy, and it is a true genealogy because faith is just not an intellectual truth someone assents to, faith dwells in the heart and is passed down from generation to generation.

And along the long way there are great men and women of faith and those men and women in our family who struggle with faith but God never loses sight of us and is faithful throughout the generations.

Instead of prayers of the faithful today we simply named our parents.

We then drove along the edge of the city overlooking the Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives which we will visit over the weekend.

The Church of All Nations

The Russian Orthodox church of St Mary Magdalene

Jewish writings (midrash) state that the resurrection of the dead will start on the Mount of Olives when the Messiah arrives. The risen dead will then cross Kidron Valley to Temple Mount hence the size of the cemeteries here

The south wall of the Temple... below the bricked up walls were steps and it may have been there that Jesus was in dialogue with the Teachers of the Law

A model of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in Jesus' time.

The steps on the southern wall

The western wall... where the Wailing Wall is today

The Pool of Bethesda

Then to the Shrine of the Book which recounts the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

One of the jars containing a scroll... they were hidden as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and surrounding areas after the failed rebellion of 66AD

A poignant day exploring this ancient holy but divided city... For the peace of Jerusalem pray

Today's concluding prayer is from the General Intercessions from the Good Friday Commemoration of the Lord's Passion

For the unity of Christians
Let us pray also for all our brothers and sisters who believe in Christ,
that our God and Lord may be pleased,
as they live the truth,
to gather them together and keep them in his one Church.

Almighty ever-living God,
who gather what is scattered and keep together what you have gathered,
look kindly on the flock of your Son,
that those whom one Baptism has consecrated
may be joined together by integrity of faith and united in the bond of charity.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Jewish people
Let us pray also for the Jewish people,
to whom the Lord our God spoke first,
that he may grant them to advance in love of his name
and in faithfulness to his covenant.

Almighty ever-living God,
who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants,
graciously hear the prayers of your Church,
that the people you first made your own
may attain the fullness of redemption.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For those who do not believe in Christ
Let us pray also for those who do not believe in Christ,
that, enlightened by the Holy Spirit,
they, too, may enter on the way of salvation.

Almighty ever-living God,
grant to those who do not confess Christ
that, by walking before you with a sincere heart,
they may find the truth and that we ourselves, being constant in mutual love
and striving to understand more fully the mystery of your life,
may be made more perfect witnesses to your love in the world.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

For those who do not believe in God
Let us pray also for those who do not acknowledge God,
that, following what is right in sincerity of heart,
they may find the way to God himself.

Almighty ever-living God,
who created all people to seek you always by desiring you
and, by finding you, come to rest, 
grant, we pray, that, despite every harmful obstacle,
all may recognize the signs of your fatherly love
and the witness of the good works done by those who believe in you,
and so in gladness confess you, the one true God and Father of our human race.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.