233. Why Christ died in Jerusalem
233. WHY CHRIST DIED IN JERUSALEM
How is the place as well as the time of Christ’s death and resurrection significant?
Christ died most appropriately in Jerusalem. First of all, because Jerusalem was God’s chosen place of the offering of sacrifices to Himself; and these figurative sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s Passion, which is the true sacrifice. . . . [T]o Jerusalem He came five days before the Pasch, just as, according to the legal precept, the Paschal lamb was led to the place of immolation five days before the Pasch, which is the tenth day of the moon.
Secondly, because the virtue of His Passion was to be spread over the whole world, He wished to suffer in the center of the habitable world, that is, in Jerusalem . . . which is called the navel of the earth (III,46,10).
Once again, we find that in God’s providential plan nothing is accidental, that everything is perfect, and that God’s gift of Himself is maximal.
Christ fulfilled everything in Judaism, the one and only directly and divinely revealed religion in the world, including the place of His death and Resurrection. Jerusalem was the divinely appointed site of the one and only Temple at which all the sacrifices commanded by God in Leviticus were offered. All of them without exception in some way pointed to Christ as their fulfillment. No detail is accidental, not even the numbers of days, as St. Thomas mentions. Christ fulfills everything: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).
Second, not only is Jerusalem the center of Judaism but it is also the center of the world, and Christ came not only for the Chosen People, but also for all their students, for He chose them to teach the whole world. Jerusalem is the spiritual center not only of Judaism but of the world because the world’s Creator lived and died there; but it is also in a real sense the literal, physical, geographical center of the world, exactly at the crossroads of East and West, North and South geographically, culturally and historically, then as now. All three continents of the Old World touch and meet there: Asia, Europe, and Africa. World events still center there today. If there is to be a global nuclear war, very likely it will be provoked by Israel’s enemies’ envy of the existence of Israel and especially of Jerusalem.
Many different ancient tribal peoples, by themselves and independently, conceived the idea that their central place of worship, wherever it was, was at “the navel of the earth”, the center of all things. Once this place is (supposedly) discovered, they erect their tent there, sticking its central pole into the very navel of the earth, literally as well as symbolically, so that they can move around it and do everything that they do in relation to it as the Absolute, as the whole solar system moves around the Sun (or around the earth, according to the old geocentric model).
And it was not only the center but the “navel”, i.e., the birth-center, the center of new life, new birth (Cf Jn 3:3). Pagan religions too have a prophetic and apocalyptic dimension.
Thus Christ fulfilled not only the authoritative Jewish prophecies but also the confused but profound dreams of pagan religions, which He had whispered into their imaginations and hearts, which Jungians call the “collective unconscious”. (How significantly similar they are throughout place and time!) That is why He commanded His gospel to be preached in concentric circles, first in Jerusalem, then in all Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He was harvesting His seeds.