I stood on the Mount of Olives and looked across at Jerusalem, the skyline a mix of old and new. The light blue dome of the Holy Sepulchre seemed to almost touch the dominant gold Dome of the Rock, and the Western Wall was invisible to my eye but present in my thoughts. I saw a crowded Mount Moriah that visibly proclaimed complexity and tragedy.
Over 150,000 graves cover the Mount of Olives, facing the city and the site of the Temple. These are Jews awaiting the resurrection of the dead, when they believe the Messiah will come and rebuild the Temple. Their feet are facing the Temple Mount, ready for his coming.
I stood there, on the spot tradition tells us Jesus wept over the city.
“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:42-44).
Jesus Christ loves his people: the Chosen People. He loves the Holy City. As he looked out across the Kidron Valley, he could see what was going to happen in less than forty years. He saw the destruction and the desecration, the loss of life and the atrocities against the sacred. He saw the siege and fall of Jerusalem. And he wept.
