No Place on Earth

Keeping our sights on the Jerusalem above

10/29/2020

Luke 13:31-35 Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you.” He replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I accomplish my purpose. Yet I must continue on my way today, tomorrow, and the following day, for it is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem.’ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned. But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

If you could visit any city in the world, which one would definitely make your bucket list? Would you go to Paris, called the “City of Lights”? Maybe you would set your sights on Rome, “the Eternal City.” Perhaps you would stay in the United States and spend time in New York, the “City that never sleeps.” Or, maybe you agree with the late mayor of Fort Smith, Ray Baker, and stay put right here because as he said so often: “Life is worth living in Fort Smith, Arkansas!” Do you know which city my father always wanted to see? It was Jerusalem. After he took a pilgrimage there several years ago, he exclaimed in astonishment: “It’s like no place on earth!”

In the gospel of Luke (13:31-35), we see what city Jesus has set his sights on. Like my father, Jesus, too, deeply desires to get to Jerusalem. But unlike Mayor Baker said, Jerusalem I not where “life is worth living,” but rather for Jesus it is the place where one goes to die, especially if you are a prophet. Jesus declares: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen said we call come into this world to live, but Jesus alone came into this world to die, and the city of his death was Jerusalem. That is the one city Jesus was born to visit.

Now if you were to ask the main actors of the Bible what city they most wanted to visit, they, too, would answer “Jerusalem.” Let me trace briefly how Jerusalem is the most desirable city and the city of destiny in the Old and New Testament by looking at the travel itinerary of Abraham, David, St. Paul and St. John. Abraham wanted to go to Jerusalem even before a city was built on the site; it was just a bare mountaintop. In Gen. 22:2, we read: “Then God said, Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go up to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights I will point out to you.” And which height did God point out to Abraham? A little later in 2 Chron. 3:1 we are told Mt. Moriah is in Jerusalem. In other words, Abraham goes to the future site of Jerusalem, not because it is where “life is worth living” but because it is where his son’s “life is worth sacrificing.”

If we skip ahead 800 years after Abraham, roughly to the year 1000 B.C., we see what city David desires to visit most, it is even called “the city of David,” namely, Jerusalem. We read in 2 Sam. 6:13: “David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the City of David with joy.” The ark of the covenant was David’s most prized possession, and he brought it into his own beloved city, just like we move our families, our most prized possession, into the city where we hope to find God’s blessing.

Moving from the Old Testament to the New Testament, St. Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians what city he desires to visit. The Apostle to the Gentiles explains that there are actually two Jerusalem’s, one on earth and one in heaven. See if you can follow St. Paul’s allegory. He writes: “The present Jerusalem…is in slavery along with her children. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother.”

When my father visited Jerusalem on a pilgrimage he remarked, “It is like no place on earth.” Because my father is a man of faith, when he visited Jerusalem, I believe he had one foot on the earthly Jerusalem and the other foot in the “Jerusalem above” like Paul described. In the earthly Jerusalem we will experience slavery to our sins, and only in the Jerusalem above will we enjoy true freedom forever.

Finally, St. John gives us a glimpse of the city he wants to see, and you guessed it, it is Jerusalem. In the last book of the bible, Revelation 21, we read: “I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down our of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” John seems to mix his metaphors a little by calling Jerusalem both a “city” and a “bride.” Which is it? But I believe he wants to emphasize that the joy of being in Jerusalem is the joy of a bride on her wedding day. Have you noticed how a bride tries to pick the perfect venue for her wedding because she wants it to represent everything she’s living for? So, for John, Jerusalem is the city of the Bride, the Church, longing for the wedding of the Lamb, and being one with her Bridegroom, Jesus.

My friends, as you travel from city to city, here on earth – between Paris, Rome, the Big Apple, and Fort Smith – keep in mind the city of destiny for the people in the Scripture: Jerusalem, and ultimately, the Jerusalem above. Only in the Jerusalem above will life truly be worth living. And even Mayor Ray Baker would agree with that today.

Praised be Jesus Christ!