The Ridge Where The Gospel Begins And Ends Its Most Important Week
The Mount of Olives is the long limestone ridge running north-to-south directly east of Jerusalem, separated from the city by the Kidron Valley. Its summit reaches about 2,700 feet — roughly 200 feet higher than the Temple Mount across the ravine. From the top you can see the Dome of the Rock platform laid out below you, the Old City walls to the west, and the desert dropping away east toward Jericho and the Dead Sea. Almost every important event of Jesus' final week happens here, and the New Testament treats the ridge as one of the most theologically charged places in the Gospel narrative.
What Happened On It
The Mount of Olives is the staging ground for the triumphal entry — Jesus descends its western slope on a donkey while crowds spread cloaks and branches before him (Lk 19:28–40). It is the vantage from which he weeps over Jerusalem and predicts its destruction (Lk 19:41–44). It is where he sits with his disciples and delivers the Olivet Discourse on the end of the age (Mt 24; Mk 13). It is where, just below the summit on the western slope, the olive grove called Gethsemane waits for the night of his arrest. And in Acts 1, after the forty days of resurrection appearances, it is from the Mount of Olives that he ascends — "and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9). Two men in white robes promise the disciples that *this same Jesus will so come in like manner as you saw him go.*
Zechariah 14 — The Eschatological Crack
The one Old Testament passage that places the Mount of Olives at center stage is Zechariah 14:4: *His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward.* The prophecy is read in Jewish tradition as describing the day of the LORD; in Christian tradition it is most often read as referring to the second coming of Christ. The Acts 1 promise of return *in like manner* echoes the Zechariah image — same place, same direction, same Lord.
What Sits On It Today
The western slope (facing Jerusalem) is densely built up with churches: the Church of All Nations at Gethsemane; the Russian Orthodox Mary Magdalene Church above it with seven golden onion domes; the Dominus Flevit chapel where Jesus is said to have wept over the city; the Pater Noster church where Christ taught the disciples to pray; the Church of the Ascension at the summit. The eastern slope drops toward Bethphage and Bethany. The ridge has held a major Jewish cemetery for at least three thousand years — based on the tradition that Zechariah's resurrection-day reading begins here, many devout Jews have asked to be buried on the western slope so as to be among the first raised when the Messiah comes.
How The Traditions Remember It
Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican calendars all commemorate the Ascension on the Thursday forty days after Easter, and Palm Sunday on the Sunday preceding Holy Week. Reformation Protestant traditions typically observe Palm Sunday and (often) Ascension Day in their liturgies. Beneath the calendar differences, the shared reading is that the Mount of Olives is the geography of *arrival and departure* — the place where Jesus entered Jerusalem to die, the place where he ascended to reign, and the place where his return is expected.
Read Alongside
Related entries: Gethsemane, Kidron Valley, Mount Moriah / Temple Mount.