From a purely secular point of view, the Middle East must really be an enigma. There seems to be no logic there. War after war has been fought over Jerusalem in history. If someone recounted them for us, I’m sure we’d sit astonished at the blood that has been shed, the thousands of lives lost (millions, perhaps) over that city. Now, I’ve been to Jerusalem, and I saw no great beauty there. And that was disappointing after all I’d heard and read about the place. But I saw nothing there worth shedding a single drop of human blood for.

I can understand the longing of the Jewish people for Jerusalem; it’s a longing for home—of a people long displaced who have only one center on the planet. I understand the longing of Christian people to go there, because that’s our Lord suffered and died for us, and it makes it more real somehow. What on earth did the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks see in Jerusalem that made it worth fighting over?

There’s a prophecy in the Book of Zechariah that serves to illustrate the future of Jerusalem. Now, I can’t say that it is a prophecy of Jerusalem today. Many scholars see it solely in historical terms. What I can say is that the prophecy applies in principle, and that it is set in what seems like the last days. We’ll find it in Zechariah, chapter 12…