what does jesus compare himself to in his lament over jerusalem?
We practise well to ponder the whys and wherefores of the Passion of Our Lord. We engaged in a like exercise in Dec relative to Christ's nascency. St. Thomas Aquinas presents the premise that God does nothing in an capricious way, merely rather equally Lord of History sets forth everything in fitting ways and at advisable places and times. Every detail has something to teach us.
Allow's consider why Christ suffered in Jerusalem (but exterior its walls) in a place called "the skull." St. Thomas covered these matters in his Summa Theologiae, Part III, Question 46, Commodity 10. His words are in bold, blackness italics ; my inferior comments are shown in plain cherry text.
Christ died nigh appropriately in Jerusalem. Outset of all, because Jerusalem was God'south called place for the offer of sacrifices to Himself: and these figurative sacrifices foreshadowed Christ'southward Passion
For the Jewish people of that time, there was but i place to offer sacrifices to the Lord: Jerusalem. Although towns had synagogues, just Jerusalem had the Temple, and one had to go there to offer sacrifices to the Lord.
This rule had become quite house. Indeed, even when Temple sacrifices were interrupted during the Babylonian captivity (the Temple was destroyed in in 587 B.C. and not rebuilt until nearly seventy years later), rather than relocate the identify for cede, the people lamented, We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no burnt offer, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you (Daniel 3:38).
Therefore, considering conservancy is from the Jews (Jn four:22), it was fitting that Christ, our Paschal Lamb and perfect, once-for-all sacrifice, was sacrificed in the but acceptable identify.
Secondly, because the virtue of His Passion was to be spread over the whole world, He wished to endure in the center of the habitable world–that is, in Jerusalem. Appropriately, it is written, "But God is our King before ages: He hath wrought salvation in the midst of the world" (Psalm 73:12)—that is, in Jerusalem, which is called "the umbilicus of the earth."
A glimpse at a map shows that Jerusalem is arguably at the very intersection of iii continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. Psalm 48:two reads, Mount Zion, true pole of the earth, the Great King's city!
Thirdly, because it was specially in keeping with His humility: that, as He chose the most shameful fashion of death, and then as well it was office of His humility that He did non decline to suffer in and then celebrated a identify.
Not merely was Christ'southward humiliation very public, information technology occurred when Jerusalem was packed for the Passover banquet!
Fourthly, He willed to suffer in Jerusalem, where the chief priests dwelt, to evidence that the wickedness of His slayers arose from the chiefs of the Jewish people.
Jerusalem had the reputation of being the place where prophets suffered the nearly and where most of them went to dice. This is likely because it was at that place that religion and power intersected. Human beings seldom negotiate that intersection well and the scale is tipped more to ability than to faith.
- Jesus said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I take longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks nether her wings, only you were unwilling. Look, your firm is left to you desolate. And I tell you, you will not encounter Me again until you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord" (Luke 13:34-35).
- Jesus said, Woe to you lot, because yous build tombs for the prophets, and information technology was your ancestors who killed them. So y'all testify that yous corroborate of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, "I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute." Therefore, this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the earth, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the chantry and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you lot, this generation volition be held responsible for it all. (Luke 11:47-51).
- Stephen added, You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, y'all always resist the Holy Spirit. Every bit your fathers did, and so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who appear beforehand the coming of the Righteous Ane, whom you have at present betrayed and murdered, you who received the police force as delivered by angels and did non proceed it (Acts 7:51-53).
These teachings, fitting though they are, give rise to these questions: If Jerusalem was the appropriate identify, why was Jesus non sacrificed on the Temple mount, inside the city? Why was He instead sacrificed exterior the city gates? St. Thomas answers this as follows:
For three reasons Christ suffered outside the gate, and not in the Temple nor in the city. First of all, that the truth might stand for with the figure. For the calf and the goat which were offered in about solemn sacrifice for expiation on behalf of the entire multitude were burnt outside the military camp, as commanded in Leviticus 16:27.
Annotation the distinction between the sacrifice of an individual family (which was offered at the temple and burnt on the altar there) and the sacrifice offered on behalf of all the people on the Day of Amende. Leviticus 16:27 says, The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose claret was brought into the Nearly Holy Identify to brand atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned upwardly. Therefore, information technology is fitting that Christ, who died for all, should be sacrificed outside the gate ("outside the military camp," every bit information technology were).
Secondly, to set the states the case of shunning worldly conversation. Accordingly, the passage continues: "Allow us become along therefore to Him without the camp, begetting His reproach."
Out worldly categories and notions cannot incorporate Christ. In His fourth dimension in that location were at least three political and religious groups: the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Zealots. Jesus walked with none of them; neither did He simply parrot their views. There was only one thing the groups could agree on—Jesus had to go. Thus, fitting nowhere, Christ was crucified exterior the army camp.
Thirdly, as Chrysostom says in a sermon on the Passion (Hom. i De Cruce et Latrone): "The Lord was not willing to suffer under a roof, nor in the Jewish Temple…lest y'all might recollect He was offered for that people simply. Consequently, it was beyond the city and exterior the walls, that yous may learn it was a universal sacrifice, an oblation for the whole world, a cleansing for all."
He suffered in one case and for all. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, A time is coming when you lot volition worship the Male parent neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; nosotros worship what we do know, for conservancy is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth (Jn 4:21-24).
St. Thomas presents 2 additional reasons that Jesus was crucified where He was, noting specially the proper name of the place: Golgotha. Although Aquinas described both reasons, he ended that merely one is right.
According to Jerome, in his commentary on Matthew 27:33, someone explained "the identify of Calvary" equally being the place where Adam was buried; and that it was so chosen because the skull of the first man was cached there. A pleasing estimation indeed, and 1 suited to grab the ear of the people, but, still, not the truthful one. … [For] Adam was cached close by Hebron and Arbe, as we read in the book of Jesus Ben Nave.
To this mean solar day, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher at that place is a pocket-size opening or cave at the base of Golgotha that is venerated by some as the tomb of Adam. One tin can stop in there prior to climbing the stairs to Calvary. Fable has it that the Blood of Christ dripped though the opening and touched the bones of Adam, causing him to get up and dance a jig.
St. Thomas was not impressed with such legends or fifty-fifty with the didactics of St. Jerome; instead, he offered another interpretation.
For the spots where the condemned are beheaded are outside the city and beyond the gates, deriving thence the proper name of Calvary—that is, of the beheaded. Jesus, accordingly, was crucified there, that the standards of martyrdom might exist uplifted over what was formerly the place of the condemned. … [So] Jesus was to be crucified in the mutual spot of the condemned rather than beside Adam's sepulcher, to brand it manifest that Christ's cross was the remedy, not only for Adam'southward personal sin, only also for the sin of the entire world.
Martyrs dice for Christ, not as mere condemned criminals. And though Christ did die for all, not just for Adam, the primordial sin was Adam's.
It is curious to me that St. Thomas, writing in a style somewhat out of keeping with his commonly reserved way, so forcefully set bated St. Jerome's interpretation. Perhaps we can learn something from both views! This is especially the instance because the location of Adam'south burying remains a matter of dispute to this day, with many continuing to venerate the site below Calvary.
Source: https://blog.adw.org/2017/04/christ-die-jerusalem/