Abstract: “Think not,” said the Savior at Matthew 10:34, “that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And this has in fact been the case — too often literally, but certainly figuratively. In the Old Testament, the Lord accurately foretold the situation that we commonly see: “I will take you one of a city,” he explained, “and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion” (Jeremiah 3:14). Unfortunately, those who aren’t so “taken” are often not entirely happy with the beliefs and practices of those who are. “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?” Jesus told his audience at Luke 12:51–52. “I tell you, Nay; but rather division.” But is Jesus not the Prince of Peace? Has he not also commanded us “That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39)? Jude 1:3 tells us that we “should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,” but we are also told not to be contentious in carrying out that assignment. Doing both simultaneously can be an extraordinarily great challenge. But it is the Lord’s challenge to us.

Barring an unforeseen disaster, I’ll be back by the time you read or hear this introductory essay. (In fact, sadly, I’ll probably already be gone again to someplace else — thus illustrating one of my mother’s favorite principles: “There’s no rest for the wicked.”) At the moment, though, I’m writing it while sitting in Jerusalem. I’m sitting not far from the “green line” that essentially divides the eastern and predominantly Arab part of the city from its western and almost entirely Jewish section.

Originally, the name Jerusalem — which, in Hebrew, is Yerushaláyim — probably comes from a root yry’ (“to found,” or “to lay a cornerstone”) and Shalem, which was the personal name of the Canaanite god of “twilight” or “dusk” in the Bronze Age. But, since the Hebrew word ir is the equivalent of English city, and since Shalem comes from the same [Page viii]root (s-l-m) as that standing behind the Hebrew and Arabic words for “peace” (respectively, shalom and salaam), Jerusalem has often, and not incorrectly, been interpreted as “City of Peace.”

And, indeed, that is exactly what Jerusalem should be. Far too often, though, it hasn’t been. According to a commonly accepted reckoning, the city has been attacked 52 times, besieged 23 times, captured or recaptured 44 times, and altogether destroyed twice. Moreover, even today, although the city has been under the unified political control of Israel since the Israelis took East Jerusalem in the Six Day War of June 1967, it remains divided. Even its name suggests division: The ending -áyim is a Hebrew dual, which may simply indicate that Yerushaláyim originally sat on two distinct hills — the area is extremely hilly1 — but which also seems sadly prophetic.

When I visit here, I never fail to remember an experience from the first of my many stays in Jerusalem. It occurred back when I lived in the city as a student from January to June of 1978.

One day, I was sitting alone in the traditional Garden of Gethsemane, just north of the beautiful Roman Catholic Church of All Nations. I was looking across the Kidron Valley — the King James Bible’s “brook Cedron” (at, for example, John 18:1, but “the brook Kidron” at 2 Samuel 15:23) — toward the ancient Temple Mount and the beautiful late-seventh-century Muslim Dome of the Rock. It is one of the greatest views in the world. Suddenly,