Without a City Wall

I was moved today as we sang in Sacrament Meeting one of my favorite hymns: “There is a green hill far away, Without a city wall, Where the dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us all” (see here).  The word “without” here does not mean that Jerusalem did not have walls but that Jesus was crucified outside of the walls around the city.  Paul taught this in his epistle to the Hebrews as he explained the significance of some of the practices of the Mosaic Law.  He said, “For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.  Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:11-12).  In the Law of Moses, sin offerings were made with “a young bullock without blemish” that was sacrificed by the priests.  The priests were to do this: “Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt” (Leviticus 4:3, 12).  So just as the unblemished animal sacrifice that was made for the sins of the people was to be taken outside the camp of the people of God and be burned, so was the Great Sacrifice that was made for the sins of all mankind taken outside of the city of the Lord’s people and killed. 

                Before coming to the earth Jesus had looked forward to being among His people: “Behold, I come unto my own, to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men from the foundation of the world” (3 Nephi 1:14).  After His rejection by His people, the Resurrected Lord told us in our dispensation, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the same that came unto mine own, and mine own received me not” (D&C 6:21).  He repeated this same statement at least six other times (see D&C 10:57, 11:29, 29:29, 39:3, 45:8, 133:66).  To me the fact that He was thrown out of the very city whose people claimed to have Him as their God and killed outside of the walls is a powerful symbol of that rejection by His people.  A week earlier He had ridden in triumphant on a donkey into the city with “multitudes that went before, and that followed,… saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9).  And then on His last day of mortality He was utterly rejected by those crying, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him “ and He was kicked out of the city (John 19:15).  He had lamented early, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,… how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt 23:37)  He showed great love to His people in Jerusalem but was ultimately rejected of them and sent out of the Holy City.  Our task today is not likewise reject Him out of our own homes but to do as the hymn invites: “Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too, And trust in his redeeming blood, And try his works to do.”