Jesus in Jerusalem

The Church of All Nations in Jerusalem

For the past twenty years or so, Julie and I have walked rather than drive whenever feasible, and since she retired, we make a point of a dedicated 2 to 4 mile walk every day, which on a cool morning on the beach can be exhausting.  As such, after riding long distances on an air-conditioned tour bus through rugged desert terrain, we're quite impressed to think of these distances being covered on foot by Jesus and His contemporaries.

The Sea of Galilee 

 In the years before He walked 40 miles to the Sea of Galilee region to begin His ministry, Jesus and His family, like all Jews, were required to make several pilgrimages each year from Nazareth to Jerusalem for specific holidays and ceremonies to make sacrifices in the Temple.

According to Killing Jesus, which I read prior to this cruise, the direct route would have been too dangerous, so they had to take a somewhat circuitous route to get there, making the trek even longer.

Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

When Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for purification, as required under the Law of Moses, an old holy man, Simeon, declared upon seeing young Jesus, that he could die in peace, because he had seen "salvation."  An old prophet, Anna, upon seeing Jesus declared He would be the "redemption of Jerusalem."

Jesus was obviously no ordinary boy.

Ancient Coins at Bergama Museum near Izmir, Turkey

Joseph and Mary sacrificed “a pair of doves or two young pigeons” as required under the law, but because it would have been close to a hundred mile trip from Nazareth, they would've had to buy them at the Temple from a vendor selling sacrificial animals.

To further complicate matters, only Jewish shekels could be used in the Temple to buy the doves, but the official currency of the Roman Empire used in everyday life were Roman denarius.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

It was on these coins that Emperor Caesar August was declared "son of god," promoting the fact that he was the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who had been deified after his assassination.

The justification for the money changing in the Temple was that most coinage bore "graven images," the profiles of monarchs who saw it as a way to increase their prestige, much as current politicians use junk mail trumpeting their greatness using government funds.

The West Wall, all that remains of the Temple of Jerusalem

The money changers took a large fee for their services, and then the sacrificial animal merchants also took sizable profit margins on their wares.  In addition, the impoverished Jews also had to tithe to the Temple using shekels purchased with denarius.

Nonetheless, young Jesus loved the religious philosophizing at the Temple, and when He returned with His parents for Passover at the age of twelve, He amazed the religious scholars with His brilliant insights and deep understanding of the scriptures.

Alley Cat in Jerusalem

Being almost an adult, Jesus was allowed to wander around the big city on His own, and when it came time for their caravan to head back to Nazareth, Joseph and Mary assumed He had gone ahead.  Not seeing Him anywhere in the among their friends heading to Nazareth, they eventually panicked and doubled back to Jerusalem.  After a frantic search, they finally found the preteen boy in the Temple and, like any good parent, asked Jesus how He could treat them like that.

"Why were you searching for me?" He asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

For the first thirty or so years of His life, Jesus lived in Nazareth, apprenticing with His father and eventually becoming a carpenter, with that daily life punctuated by a day of worship on Sabbaths and long journeys to the Temple in Jerusalem for religious celebrations.

Murals Within Church of All Nations in Jerusalem

Over the years of His youth, Jesus became outraged by the commerce within the Temple, which bled what little money Jewish peasants had left for subsistence after Roman taxes.  He saw high priests, Sadducees, living large under the guise of religiosity, while the average Jew struggled to get by.  He understood those wealthy priests took cuts of the money changing and merchandise sales in God's Temple as well as being supported by the mandatory tithes (10% of everything earned) paid to the Temple.

Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Just to be clear, we didn't actually return to Jerusalem after visiting Nazareth, but this seemed too long for a preamble to a post about the River Jordan.  While here, let's jump ahead and tie up the story line of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Years later, after He had been baptized by John the Baptist and embarked on His ministry, Jesus returned to the Temple for Passover and the outrage at what He saw boiled over, motivating Him to overturn the tables of money changers, scattering stacks of coins all across the ground, and open the cages to release the sacrificial animals.

At the Church of the Holy Sepuchre

"My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

The next verse after that in Matthew states, "And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple; and He healed them."  No doubt He was shaking up the status quo.

Of course, eventually Jesus would enter Jerusalem on a young donkey, share the Last Supper with His disciples, be betrayed by Judas, and endure a moment of doubt in the Garden of Gethsemane, after which He would be tried, tormented and crucified.

Upon arising from death, Jesus would become known throughout the world.