Tags
Citizenship, Decapolis, Faithfulness, Gerasa, Hebrews 13:4, Jerash, Mercy, New Creation, New Jerusalem, The age to come, Truth
Day 35: Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent
Hebrews 13:14
Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
Two thousand years ago Gerasa, now Jerash, was a thriving city. The Cardo Maximus, the colonnaded half-mile long central road, was lined on either side with shops from the city gate to the Forum. It was one of the ten city-states of the Decapolis, prosperous free cities tied to Rome that were a center of Greek and Roman culture in the region. Its ruins are among the most visited in Jordan. By the time of Jesus, the city was at least three hundred years old, though evidence of human habitation goes back to the Neolithic Age.
The cities of the Middle East reach back thousands of years. They were great centers of art and architecture, thriving communities of commerce, connected as far as modern China, India, Africa and Japan and sending goods on to Greece and Rome for centuries if not millennia. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are famous. Everyone knows of the pyramids of Egypt. Before Jesus was born, Rome was 750 years old and already called ‘the eternal city’.
To be a Roman citizen was a great honor, and citizenship was passed down from generation to generation. Citizenship was conveyed by the state; it did not arise from residency. The apostle Paul never lived in Rome but for his imprisonment; still, he possessed the citizenship with its dignity and privileges. Nevertheless, “here we have no lasting city.” Our identity isn’t found in an earthly citizenship. Our deepest allegiance isn’t to a city or state. We seek “the city that is to come.”
We seek the New Jerusalem, born of heaven. We seek the country where fidelity reigns. We seek the land of mercy and truth. We are citizens of the age to come.
Gracious and ever-present God,
whose mercy knows no bounds,
and whose arms are ever open to your world:
Call us forth from all that binds
And make us joyful in your service.
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Image. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_Jerash_(223)_(13252078063).jpg xorge / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)