Zion's Gate

Psalm 87

On the holy mount stands the city he founded;

    the Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
Glorious things of you are spoken,
    O city of God. 

As part of my Sabbatical I have spent some days in Jerusalem.  Previous days in Jerusalem had been hurried pilgrimages but due to a combination of plans and unexpected circumstantial changes this time I was had days to explore.  

Here is Zion's Gate.  Like many things in Jerusalem it is not what you first assume it to be - or perhaps more accurately want it to be.  For this gate is, as might be expected by the name, next to Zion's hill but the hill is outside the Old City wall, not inside it.

Walls are human constructs and cause confusion in many ways.  Today's international political hot potato a couple of miles from here is the wall (you can see it from this wall) built between Israel and the West Bank.

This Old City wall had many stories but until 50 years ago this year it had, since the modern founding of the State of Israel, formed the border between that State and Jordan.  The marks in the wall are not the result of weather but of bullets.  The Israelis were outside on Zion's hill and the Jordanians inside on the Old City wall, a tense stand off that in other places nearby required the UN to intervene to rescue, for example, stray footballs and family pets caught between the two sides.

It is ironic and thought-provoking that having (joyfully) dispensed with this wall as a barrier the Israelis have felt it necessary in this century to build another one between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  It is a metaphor of the human condition - a metaphor written into the First Story when Adam and Eve are walled out of the garden.

God loves the gates.

This is because he IS a gate (John 10).