What is the connection between Jesus and Jerusalem?

Answer 1

For some reason, the latitude and longitude of Jerusalem has held a special place in God's heart.

Some offer that Jerusalem's lat/long is where the Garden of Eden was. Some, that it's where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. Certainly, Jesus was crucified and resurrected there.

It's from the perspective and focal point of Jerusalem, that The Bible [a Middle Eastern book] sees the world.

Jesus laments [to this day] over Jerusalem for the abominations committed there:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'" (Matt.23:37-39 NIV)

It's in the streets of Jerusalem at the end of the coming Great Tribulation, that the bloody bodies of the Two Witnesses shall lie three-and-a-half days... before Jesus returns to gather His elect [the Two Witnesses of whom shall be among the "dead in Christ" who are prophesied to "rise first"].

"Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also THEIR LORD WAS CRUCIFIED... But after the three and a half days a Breath of Life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet... and they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on." (Rev.11:8-12 NIV)

Jesus... the "WORD" and Creator God of the universe in the Old Testament [John 1:3]... is prophesied to have His Kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem when He returns.

"... in that Day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered against it." (Zech.12:3)

"Behold, the Day of the Lord cometh... For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken... Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations... And His feet shall stand in that Day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east." (Zech.14:1-4)

"And it shall be in that Day, that Living Waters shall go out from Jerusalem... And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that Day shall there be One Lord..." (verses 8-9)

"The Word that Isaiah... saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the Mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains... And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob [who is Jesus Christ]; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the Word of the Lord FROM JERUSALEM." (Isa.2:1-3)

"...Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year [for a thousand years] to WORSHIP THE KING, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate th Feast of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to WORSHIP THE KING, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain." (Zech.14:16-17 NIV)