The Mount of Olives is home to a number of significant religious sites and one of the largest and oldest Jewish cemeteries.

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES The Place of God's Coming, Going, and Coming

ZECHARIAH 14

 THE MOUNT OF OLIVES rises 330 feet above the Old City and runs along a ridge of peaks on the east side of Jerusalem. This watershed of the hill country offers beautiful views of Jerusalem to the west as well as of the wilderness of Judah and the Jordan Valley to the east.

The Mount of Olives has a long and significant history in the life of Israel. Perhaps its high elevation gave rise to the worship of God on the summit before Solomon's Temple was built (2 Sam. 15:32). Regrettably, Solomon also constructed pagan shrines on the Mount of Olives "the Mount of Corruption" opposite the City of David in modern-day Silwan (2 Kgs. 23:13). The Roman Tenth Legion camped on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple Mount, when they destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. Today, the cemeteries that dot the slopes of the Mount of Olives reveal the hopes of many Jews, while the many Christian churches built there reflect the hopes of our faith.

How fitting that the first mention of the Mount of Olives in the Bible foreshadows the events that would occur on its slopes throughout the centuries. In King David's day, the summit of the Mount of Olives held a place "where people worshipped God" (2 Sam. 15:324). Yet that same story reveals the people's rejection of God's chosen king, David, who crossed the Kidron Valley and ascended the slope weeping as he fled from his rebellious son (2 Sam. 15:30). David's mournful exit as Jerusalem's rejected king offers an ominous foreshadowing of the ultimate Son of David's rejection on those same slopes a thousand years later.

Jesus cried twice on the Mount of Olives during His passion week. On Sunday, He wept during His triumphant entry because of those who would reject Him (Luke 19:41-44). On Thursday, He wept in the garden of Gethsemane because He knew what redeeming sinners would cost Him (Matt. 26:37-38).

Christ's gracious surrender to the Father at Gethsemane leading to His crucifixion and resurrection has made our redemption possible. When Jesus returns to earth again at His second coming, "his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives" (Zech. 14:4). Perhaps then more than ever before will the Mount of Olives be a place where people worship God.