Throughout history, nations and empires have been identified by their capital city. In 2 Samuel 5, the king of Israel, David, makes Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Israel, as a nation and as a people, has a special relationship with God. When the people of Israel agreed to become God’s chosen people (Exodus 19:7-8, Deuteronomy 26:17-19), they agreed to follow God’s commandments. The primary commandment was to remain faithful to God alone. Over the centuries, Israel departed from God and fell into idol worship. In response to this behavior, God punished the nation with periods of disfavor. These periods of disfavor generally involved Israel being conquered and subjugated by other nations. As a result of one of these punishments, Israel fell under the domination of the Roman Empire. While Israel was under Rome’s control, Jesus was born.
Due to its location, Jerusalem remained an important city to the Roman Empire. Many Jewish people remained in Jerusalem, which helped to keep the worship of God alive in the hearts of many of the people who lived there. The Roman empire allowed the people of its conquered territories, such as Jerusalem, to retain their worship practices, as long as peace was maintained and taxes were paid on time. The Temple, which served as a central place of worship to God by the Jewish people, was rebuilt in Jerusalem and served to reinforce the city’s importance to the people. As Jesus grew to adulthood and began his ministry, Jerusalem was under the control of Pontius Pilate, a prefect of the Roman Empire. Pilate, however, largely left the actual running of the city to the Jewish high priest. As a result of this situation, the high priest and much of the other Jewish religious leadership of the time enjoyed a great deal of power and privilege in the eyes of the Empire and the people.
The Jewish people in general, especially the religious leadership, understood the scriptures extremely well. Some of these scriptures referred to the coming of a Messiah. Some of these prophecies mentioned Jerusalem as well. One such prophecy is Zechariah 9:9. Jesus understood this prophecy, and that by entering into Jerusalem in the manner referred to in it, he would be announcing himself as the long-awaited Messiah. He also understood that this act would not be favorably accepted by the religious leadership of the time.
During his ministry, Jesus had been highly critical of the hypocrisy and emptiness he saw among the religious leadership. Having had generations under God’s law and favor to develop hearts and minds pleasing to God, Jesus instead found a people who loved their earthly positions and worldly respect more than they loved God and the true spirit of His commandments (Luke 11:37-54). This hardness of heart amongst the people would lead to the opening of God’s calling to the Gentile people as well as any from Israel who would respond to God’s calling (Acts 10, Romans 10). Sometime after Jesus’s death, both the Temple and Jerusalem itself were destroyed by the Romans after an unsuccessful rebellion by the Jewish people. Jerusalem today has been re-established and remains the capital of present Israel. As such, Jerusalem remains inextricably linked to the nation it represents, as well as the people who live there.
The history of Jerusalem and its people remain a special interest to many who seek to follow God today. The religious leadership during Jesus’s time were well-acquainted with the Scriptures, God’s laws and God’s prophecies. However, through accepting positions of trust and power with the Roman empire, the leaders developed prideful opinions of themselves. The maintaining of their position and authority became an end unto itself. One of God’s first laws and commandments stresses the importance of placing Him first in one’s life, and that the worship of idols would not be tolerated. When something is worshipped, it is treated with an extreme degree of reverence and importance in one’s life. A thing that is worshipped demands perpetual attention and resources from the worshipper. From this perspective, an idol does not have to be a “graven image” of a false god, as is perhaps traditionally thought of when considering this commandment. One of the greatest resources any person has is time. Each person has a finite amount of this resource, and once it is “spent,” it is forever gone. By any definition, time, then, is a precious resource. The religious leadership of Jesus’s day spent their time pursuing the holding of their prestige and authority. In this, as Jesus said in Matthew 6:2, they found their reward. They maintained their power, at least for a time, but in doing so, missed their own long-awaited Messiah, as well as his invitation to a reward beyond imagination. Each servant of God benefits from this lesson, and is best-served in quickly putting aside anything that may divert one’s heart from their all-loving heavenly Father.