Bethany literally means “house of affliction.” Jesus was constantly walking into various states of affliction. I just handed people the bread, crying, wordlessly. At his funeral, I could not even muster the words “body of Christ” for communicants as they made their way forward. We’d backpacked together on numerous Appalachian Trail hikes. But the death of my friend, Bill, after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer, left me weeping at traffic lights and breaking into tears at unpredictable moments. I was a pastor for over three decades and presided over hundreds of funerals. He knows Mary, Martha, and their brother better than many other characters described in the Gospels.Īnd if the man was indeed fully human, then some deaths must have affected him more than others. He seems to have spent time dining in the home of these three siblings, maybe just hanging out for a while in a setting where he could let his hair down. I’ve no doubt that Jesus loved his friend. ![]() Some neighbors say, “See how he loved him!” (11:36). When Jesus arrives in Bethany after the death of Lazarus, he famously weeps. Surely they tired of hearing from their pastor/father how even Jesus cried when he was sad. When my three children were young, sometimes they were embarrassed by their own tears in a school setting-following athletic loss, settling for understudy instead of a starring role in a theater production, or lamenting the death of a beloved fourth-grade mascot (a hamster named Furball). ![]() Why? Because the majority of them rejected their own Messiah, they even crucified Him on a cross.Read our latest issue or browse back issues. Jesus knew the Temple would be destroyed, he knew Jerusalem would be destroyed, and he also knew the Jewish people were going to be persecuted. The point is Jerusalem is the center of all Gods prophecy, and when Jesus rose from the dead, it changed everything and the evidence is still present, even today While I am a partial Preterist and believe there were fulfillments there, I don’t believe all of the Tribulation was fulfilled, something to read and ponder. Many believe that the “Great Tribulation” Jesus talked about in Matthew 24, was actually the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Immanuel, God is with Us, and then the Holy Spirit was poured down upon us at Pentecost and living inside of us now (Acts 2) But God became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14) Jesus is now our High Priest, Jesus is now our sacrifice for sin, Jesus is now our Temple. The old system has been fulfilled, the priest line, the sacrificial system, ect none of these are possible without a TempleĪs I stated, before Christ, the only place on Earth where God dwelled on Earth was The Temple. The New Covenant was established by the blood of Christ. Because Jesus fulfilled The Law at the cross (Matthew 5:17) and the Temple was destroyed after than in 70 A.D. This is significant because you can’t keep “The Law” or Torah without the Temple. Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple, and even today the Temple was never rebuilt again. In fact all of prophecy is based around Jerusalem, and there will be a New Jerusalem in the New Heavens and Earth So what happened to Jerusalem and why was it so important? Well first you need to understand that Jerusalem is the City of God, it was the only place on Earth where the presence of God dwelled with people before Christ came. Often we hear people talk about how Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus, however Jesus also wept over the city of Jerusalem. Luke 19:41-44ĭuring the event of “ Palm Sunday”, Jesus made a prophetic statement that still holds true, even today. ![]() For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
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