Jesus has finally arrived in Jerusalem. After a journey of 120 miles, he sees the city for the first time. On a hill, called the Mount of Olives, he encounters the place where his destiny – and ours – is about to be fulfilled.

A somewhat similar viewpoint for us in our landscape, would be like coming over the Horseshoe Bend hill and seeing below the city of Boise. On a clear day.

When Jesus sees Jerusalem, with the Temple directly in his view, he begins to cry. In the parallel verse to today’s gospel, he says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chickens, but you would not.”

In today’s gospel section, he says “If this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

There’s a play on words here. Shalom in Hebrew means peace. Jerushalaim in Hebrew means “City of Peace.”

But, Jerusalem has hardly ever been a city of peace. To this day, we hear of nearly daily and often deadly stabbings. Both Jews and Muslims claim the site of the former temple as sacred. The Muslims own the site and over a thousand six hundred years ago built the Al-Aksa Mosque and the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock glows with sunlight. It is literally plated with solid gold tiles.

Extremist Jews (every religion has its extremists) want that mosque destroyed. They want to rebuild the Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans 1,925 years ago. In the Middle East, a thousand years is like yesterday. They do not forget.

The first Reading today from the 1^st Book Maccabees, recounts events in the Temple which happened some 2,135 years ago. It started a revolt of the Jews against their Greek occupiers. As the story will continue, the event which is commemorated as the Feast of Hanukah would take place. The oil in the sacred lamp inside the Holy of Holies – where God lived – would last 9 days. Thus, we have the 9 day Feast of Lights, celebrated this year beginning the evening of December 7^th.

I am a priest of the Church of Jerusalem. I know many people who live there – all of them Palestinians and all of them Christians. My sentiments are similar to those of Jesus, moved to tears by what he saw.

Christians have never been interested in the Holy Mountain of Moriah, where the Jewish temple once stood and now stands the Muslim Mosque. Our sacred place is to the north of the former Temple site.    It’s the church of the Holy Sepulcher which enclosures both the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection. The Muslims and the Jews couldn’t care less about that church.

There are men and women of intelligence and tolerance who could resolve the entangled mess of Jerusalem today. But they will not. It is the ignorant and extremist leaders, both Jewish and Muslim who continue a fight begun generations ago.

Unless and until someone leads the effort to let reason rule, Jerusalem will continue to be the flash point of what is so misunderstood in the United States. The Jews and Muslims don’t listen to one another, but they blame us. And we, to use a term offensive to both groups, do not have a dog in this fight.

The politicians running for president have yet to demonstrate that they know either history or theology. With that kind of potential leadership, we might as well weep with Jesus and cry “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.”

Let us hope that someday reasonable people will prevail. The current direction has only one tragic consequence. And it is going on as we continue to be unaware and appearing to be uncaring.

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