Christians who have the privilege of touring Jerusalem are profoundly moved by the experience. A personal highlight for me was to visit the Wailing Wall, a section of the ancient retaining wall of the Temple Mount. This is where Jewish people still come to pray, mourn, and remember the destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD 70. It is the closest one can come today to the site of the original Holy of Holies, where God dwelled among His people. Standing beside the Wall, I could have said with the writer of Psalm 122, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the LORD!’” (v 1). This is the third of the “Songs of Ascent.” In Psalm 120, the singers are in a foreign land, just beginning to turn their faces toward Jerusalem. In Psalm 121, they seem to have sighted the city, or at least they are very near it, as they lift up their eyes to the hills surrounding Jerusalem. But in this psalm, the travelers reflect on their joy to be actually standing within the city gates. As James Boice points out, “The psalm may be looked at in three different ways, all with good Biblical warrant. Literally, it is about earthly Jerusalem... Symbolically, it can be applied to the church, as the author of Hebrews applies it... And prophetically, Psalm 122 can direct our thinking to the new Jerusalem, of which the earthly city is but an incomplete type.” When the pilgrims arrive after their long journey, they marvel at the massive walls and stately buildings, noting the tight structure and physical compactness of the city. To the psalmist, this image conveyed a sense of unity that was not merely political. When David chose Jerusalem as the nation’s capital, he envisioned a place where tribal rivalries would be set aside and all of Israel would come together to worship the one true God of the nations (v 2-4). But Jerusalem was also the center of Israel’s government, the designated place for legal justice to be dispensed for the people (v 5). Realizing how challenging it can be to provide genuine justice in a fallen world, the psalmist then composes a prayer. He knows there can be no lasting justice without peace, so he calls his readers to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (v 6-9). Over the centuries and to this very day, no city has seen such fierce military fighting as this city. And the church of Jesus Christ is for us what Jerusalem was for ancient Israel. Jesus has established a new temple by the sacrifice of Himself. It too is a unifying place, where people of diverse backgrounds come together for worship. Yet it too is under attack, and conflicts can arise even within the church. Should we not pray for its peace and seek its good? For further meditation: