Early this morning, while perusing Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (hey, what else does one do while waiting for the Times to arrive?), I came upon the entry for "Jebus." Jebus was the town David captured from the Jebusites and then built Jerusalem on the site. The article claims that David sagely chose it as a place where the fractious tribes of the North and South might meet on neutral ground. And then in a providential misprint it declares:

The site of Jesus was free of any tribal traditions or jealousies.

This happy fault brought to mind one of the most striking passages of the New Testament: chapter two of the Letter to the Ephesians. There we read:

But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.

The site is his body, and we the reconciled, yet still fractious, tribes. Happy solstice!