The Interlude Visit to Jerusalem

147:2.1Early on the morn­ing of Tues­day, March 30, Je­sus and the apos­tolic party started on their jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, go­ing by the route of the Jor­dan val­ley. They ar­rived on the af­ter­noon of Fri­day, April 2, and es­tab­lished their head­quar­ters, as usual, at Beth­any. Pass­ing through Jeri­cho, they paused to rest while Ju­das made a de­posit of some of their com­mon funds in the bank of a friend of his fam­ily. This was the first time Ju­das had car­ried a sur­plus of money, and this de­posit was left undis­turbed un­til they passed through Jeri­cho again when on that last and event­ful jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem just be­fore the trial and death of Je­sus.

147:2.2The party had an un­event­ful trip to Je­ru­sa­lem, but they had hardly got them­selves set­tled at Beth­any when from near and far those seek­ing heal­ing for their bod­ies, com­fort for trou­bled minds, and sal­va­tion for their souls, be­gan to con­gre­gate, so much so that Je­sus had lit­tle time for rest. There­fore they pitched tents at Geth­sem­ane, and the Mas­ter would go back and forth from Beth­any to Geth­sem­ane to avoid the crowds which so con­stantly thronged him. The apos­tolic party spent al­most three weeks at Je­ru­sa­lem, but Je­sus en­joined them to do no pub­lic preach­ing, only pri­vate teach­ing and per­sonal work.

147:2.3At Beth­any they qui­etly cel­e­brated the Pass­over. And this was the first time that Je­sus and all of the twelve par­took of the blood­less Pass­over feast. The apos­tles of John did not eat the Pass­over with Je­sus and his apos­tles; they cel­e­brated the feast with Ab­ner and many of the early be­liev­ers in John’s preach­ing. This was the sec­ond Pass­over Je­sus had ob­served with his apos­tles in Je­ru­sa­lem.

147:2.4When Je­sus and the twelve de­parted for Ca­per­naum, the apos­tles of John did not re­turn with them. Un­der the di­rec­tion of Ab­ner they re­mained in Je­ru­sa­lem and the sur­round­ing coun­try, qui­etly la­bor­ing for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom, while Je­sus and the twelve re­turned to work in Gal­i­lee. Never again were the twenty-four all to­gether un­til a short time be­fore the com­mis­sion­ing and send­ing forth of the sev­enty evan­ge­lists. But the two groups were co-op­er­a­tive, and not­with­stand­ing their dif­fer­ences of opin­ion, the best of feel­ings pre­vailed.