A few years ago, I had the chance to go to the land of Israel just after the Feast of Tabernacles, and to visit the city of Jerusalem. In all honesty, I was pretty disappointed with Old Jerusalem. Whether it was the general seediness of many of the old buildings, the attempts at commercializing the temple mount by some of the Muslims there, or the fact that it was a lot smaller than I had always thought (for whatever reason), Old Jerusalem did not particularly strike me as a very enjoyable place to live, more like a museum or a religious quarter than an actual living and vibrant city. Sometimes cities can get trapped in the glories of the past and forget what is necessary to make a city alive in the hear and now. Old Jerusalem felt like that kind of place to me.

I say this mainly because I am in the process of getting ready to go to watch a movie about Jerusalem with some of my church friends (all of whom appear to be considerably older). Those of us who are religious, or even those who are not but have an interest in global affairs, cannot doubt that Jerusalem has throughout history been a place of immense conflict, for even though the city itself does not sit astride the major trade routes going from Egypt through the Levant, its centrality as a place of worship has long been the cause of conflict, and its position as a defensible site that is close enough to the Via Maris (the way of the Sea) has meant that at least pacifying and attempting to control the area has been vital for anyone who wishes to dominate the lands between Africa and Mesopotamia. On geopolitical grounds, the area of Jerusalem has long held importance, only being relatively quiet when there were no borders in the neighboring regions, but being a place of intense conflict whenever it became the buffer between states, as it often has been.

There are a lot of historical references to Jerusalem that are of importance as well. Whether we are looking at the history of the Egyptian empires and the reference to the powerful Canaanite kinglets there, the biblical history, or the history of the many empires who have played a role in razing or building Jerusalem in some fashion, there is a great deal of history to be seen there. For those of us who are close students of the Bible, there is also a great deal of prophetic relevance to Jerusalem in a renewed and redeemed state that is far from its present state of conflict and drama. Yet that Jerusalem remains a vision for the future, and not a reflection of either its present or its past.