Holy Lands and the Holy City

“[Moses] came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.— God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Come no closer! Remove your sandals…for the place where you are standing is holy ground’” (Exodus 3:2-5)

The Bible has produced three great religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity, with differing relationships to space. And the differences impact upon the United States. At enormous cost in money and effort including sacrifice of human life our nation has set Iraq free of an oppressive dictator, yet the very people who have been delivered from tyranny have offered nearly no signs of gratitude, not even from those driven into exile and who now return to their native land. Rather, they chant, demonstrate and hold up signs insisting that the coalition forces, mainly England and the USA, leave immediately.

One cause of aggression against our nation is that we have our armed forces in Saudi Arabia, a land sacred to Muslims. They resent our proximity to Mecca and Medina, considered holy to their faith. Worse, our military includes women in equal rank with men, and dressed unacceptably according to their standards. That had been a key element in bin Laden’s harangues to Muslims in general and al Qaida members in particular.

Another great religion, Judaism, claims all of Palestine as the land of Israel entrusted to them by the Almighty Lord. Well-meaning Christians, at least some of those considered Fundamentalists, concur in understanding sacred scriptures. They believe that the time of Christ is close at hand, and the signs of the end of the world include a period when Hebrews will reclaim the Holy Land as their inheritance, followed by their conversion to Jesus as the true Messiah. The first part of that version of the future is nearly achieved—or will be, if the hardliners in Israel get their way. We’ll see whether our government facilitates their aspirations, or whether world opinion will insist that the Palestinians be given their share of that territory as originally envisioned by the United Nations in the 1940’s, when the issue was first deliberated. Hardly noticed is the irony that the state of Israel came about only after arm-twisting by its prime supporter, the USA, in the corridors of the UN headquarters. Like present-day Iraq, the Jews hardly thanked its sponsor, but immediately went about expanding its presence at the expense of the indigenous Arab Palestinians in the land.

The third great religion, Christianity, considers all the earth as sacred. Mt. Sinai-Horeb is not Mecca, Medina or even Jerusalem. The most sacred sites on earth are the hearts of human beings. Mark Twain once answered a man who boasted that he had traveled to the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments: “It would profit you more had you stayed home and kept the Ten Commandments.”

As recorded in the penultimate chapter of Revelation (21:2):
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away…and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven”
And we are not only waiting for that to occur; instead, we know that God does not live in human habitations, but is everywhere present and filling all things. And where He enjoys dwelling most of all is in the hearts of those who live to be united with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, awaiting His Kingdom while sharing it already in anticipation each moment of their lives here on earth.