A reflection for those who love this city, as Holy Week approaches
Stand on the Mount of Olives and look west.
Jerusalem rises before you across the Kidron Valley, the Old City walls catching the morning light, the gold of the Dome of the Rock unmistakable against the pale stone of the hillside. It is a view that has stopped pilgrims cold for centuries. It is the kind of view that makes you reach for words and find none.
Every year, in the days before Palm Sunday, pilgrims from around the world walk down this hill to say their Jerusalem faith prayers. The same road. The same direction. Toward the city.
This year, that walk carries something different.
What Jesus knew on this road
The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Jesus came near Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept.
Not in joy. In grief.
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace. But now it is hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42)
He could see what was coming. The tension in the city. The weight of what the week ahead would hold. And he came anyway. He did not stop at the top of the hill, take in the view, and turn around. He descended. He entered. He went toward the city.
The entry that we call triumphant, the palms and the crowds and the shouts of Hosanna, was made by a man who was weeping over the place he was entering.
This is the paradox at the heart of Palm Sunday: the same road holds celebration and grief at once.
Jerusalem todayÂ
Thirteen days before Palm Sunday 2026, Jerusalem is again a city carrying weight.
The conflict that began in late February, with US and Israeli military operations against Iran, has brought new tension to a region that knows tension well. Church leaders from across the Holy Land have issued public calls for prayer and peace. Accompaniers and ministry workers have been evacuated from their posts. The people of this city, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim alike, are living through another season of uncertainty.
This is not distant news for those who pray for Israel.
It is the very thing you have been called to stand in the gap for.
The same invitation, more urgentÂ
Palm Sunday is coming. And with it, an invitation that is not merely liturgical this year.
The question Palm Sunday always asks is: will you turn toward Jerusalem, or away from it?
For the crowds on that first Palm Sunday, the question was literal. They either lined the road or they stayed home. They either shouted or fell silent. They either welcomed what was coming or they did not.
For those of us far from Jerusalem, the question is a prayer question. Not whether we will walk down the Mount of Olives, but whether we will, in our hearts, face the city. Whether we will let the reality of what is happening there be something we carry before God rather than something we scroll past.
Psalm 122:6 has been the call of intercessors for three thousand years: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”
There is no better week to answer that call than this one.
A prayer for Jerusalem before Holy WeekÂ
Lord of this ancient city,
you have watched Jerusalem for longer than memory holds.
You know its stones and its streets,
its people and their prayers,
its grief and its stubborn hope.
This Holy Week, we do not come to Jerusalem with easy answers.
We come the way Jesus came: with open eyes,
and with hearts that will not look away.
We pray for the people of Jerusalem, for those who are afraid,
for those in authority, for those working for peace in quiet ways.
We pray for the Christian communities still present in the Holy Land,
holding vigil in churches that have stood for fifteen centuries.
We pray for the Jewish people, the people of the covenant,
whose city this is and has always been.
Let your peace, the peace this city has been promised,
come closer.
And until it does: help us not to be silent.
Amen.
The road is still there
The road down from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem is still there. Pilgrims will walk it again this Palm Sunday to offer their Mount of Olives prayer requests, as they have for two thousand years.
Most of us will not be among them this year. But our prayers can go where our feet cannot.
Pilgrim Prayers carries your intercession to Jerusalem and submits it at the holy sites on your behalf. If the city is on your heart this week, as Holy Week draws near, we would be honored to bring your biblical site prayers there. Send your online prayer request today and let us help you deliver it in the Land of the Bible.
The city is real. The need is real. Your prayer matters here.
