The Interlude Visit to Jerusalem

147:6.1The last week of April, Je­sus and the twelve de­parted from their Beth­any head­quar­ters near Je­ru­sa­lem and be­gan their jour­ney back to Ca­per­naum by way of Jeri­cho and the Jor­dan.

147:6.2The chief priests and the re­li­gious lead­ers of the Jews held many se­cret meet­ings for the pur­pose of de­cid­ing what to do with Je­sus. They were all agreed that some­thing should be done to put a stop to his teach­ing, but they could not agree on the method. They had hoped that the civil au­thor­i­ties would dis­pose of him as Herod had put an end to John, but they dis­cov­ered that Je­sus was so con­duct­ing his work that the Ro­man of­fi­cials were not much alarmed by his preach­ing. Ac­cord­ingly, at a meet­ing which was held the day be­fore Je­sus’ de­par­ture for Ca­per­naum, it was de­cided that he would have to be ap­pre­hended on a re­li­gious charge and be tried by the San­hedrin. There­fore a com­mis­sion of six se­cret spies was ap­pointed to fol­low Je­sus, to ob­serve his words and acts, and when they had amassed suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of law­break­ing and blas­phemy, to re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem with their re­port. These six Jews caught up with the apos­tolic party, num­ber­ing about thirty, at Jeri­cho and, un­der the pre­tense of de­sir­ing to be­come dis­ci­ples, at­tached them­selves to Je­sus’ fam­ily of fol­low­ers, re­main­ing with the group up to the time of the be­gin­ning of the sec­ond preach­ing tour in Gal­i­lee; where­upon three of them re­turned to Je­ru­sa­lem to sub­mit their re­port to the chief priests and the San­hedrin.

147:6.3Pe­ter preached to the as­sem­bled mul­ti­tude at the cross­ing of the Jor­dan, and the fol­low­ing morn­ing they moved up the river to­ward Am­athus. They wanted to pro­ceed straight on to Ca­per­naum, but such a crowd gath­ered here they re­mained three days, preach­ing, teach­ing, and bap­tiz­ing. They did not move to­ward home un­til early Sab­bath morn­ing, the first day of May. The Je­ru­sa­lem spies were sure they would now se­cure their first charge against Je­sus—that of Sab­bath break­ing—since he had pre­sumed to start his jour­ney on the Sab­bath day. But they were doomed to dis­ap­point­ment be­cause, just be­fore their de­par­ture, Je­sus called An­drew into his pres­ence and be­fore them all in­structed him to pro­ceed for a dis­tance of only one thou­sand yards, the le­gal Jew­ish Sab­bath day’s jour­ney.

147:6.4But the spies did not have long to wait for their op­por­tu­nity to ac­cuse Je­sus and his as­so­ciates of Sab­bath break­ing. As the com­pany passed along the nar­row road, the wav­ing wheat, which was just then ripen­ing, was near at hand on ei­ther side, and some of the apos­tles, be­ing hun­gry, plucked the ripe grain and ate it. It was cus­tom­ary for trav­el­ers to help them­selves to grain as they passed along the road, and there­fore no thought of wrong­do­ing was at­tached to such con­duct. But the spies seized upon this as a pre­text for as­sail­ing Je­sus. When they saw An­drew rub the grain in his hand, they went up to him and said: “Do you not know that it is un­law­ful to pluck and rub the grain on the Sab­bath day?” And An­drew an­swered: “But we are hun­gry and rub only suf­fi­cient for our needs; and since when did it be­come sin­ful to eat grain on the Sab­bath day?” But the Phar­isees an­swered: “You do no wrong in eat­ing, but you do break the law in pluck­ing and rub­bing out the grain be­tween your hands; surely your Mas­ter would not ap­prove of such acts.” Then said An­drew: “But if it is not wrong to eat the grain, surely the rub­bing out be­tween our hands is hardly more work than the chew­ing of the grain, which you al­low; where­fore do you quib­ble over such tri­fles?” When An­drew in­ti­mated that they were quib­blers, they were in­dig­nant, and rush­ing back to where Je­sus walked along, talk­ing to Mat­thew, they protested, say­ing: “Be­hold, Teacher, your apos­tles do that which is un­law­ful on the Sab­bath day; they pluck, rub, and eat the grain. We are sure you will com­mand them to cease.” And then said Je­sus to the ac­cusers: “You are in­deed zeal­ous for the law, and you do well to re­mem­ber the Sab­bath day to keep it holy; but did you never read in the Scrip­ture that, one day when David was hun­gry, he and they who were with him en­tered the house of God and ate the show­bread, which it was not law­ful for any­one to eat save the priests? and David also gave this bread to those who were with him. And have you not read in our law that it is law­ful to do many need­ful things on the Sab­bath day? And shall I not, be­fore the day is fin­ished, see you eat that which you have brought along for the needs of this day? My good men, you do well to be zeal­ous for the Sab­bath, but you would do bet­ter to guard the health and well-be­ing of your fel­lows. I de­clare that the Sab­bath was made for man and not man for the Sab­bath. And if you are here pres­ent with us to watch my words, then will I openly pro­claim that the Son of Man is lord even of the Sab­bath.”

147:6.5The Phar­isees were as­ton­ished and con­founded by his words of dis­cern­ment and wis­dom. For the re­main­der of the day they kept by them­selves and dared not ask any more ques­tions.

147:6.6Je­sus’ an­tag­o­nism to the Jew­ish tra­di­tions and slav­ish cer­e­mo­ni­als was al­ways pos­i­tive. It con­sisted in what he did and in what he af­firmed. The Mas­ter spent lit­tle time in neg­a­tive de­nun­ci­a­tions. He taught that those who know God can en­joy the lib­erty of liv­ing with­out de­ceiv­ing them­selves by the li­censes of sin­ning. Said Je­sus to the apos­tles: “Men, if you are en­light­ened by the truth and re­ally know what you are do­ing, you are blessed; but if you know not the di­vine way, you are un­for­tu­nate and al­ready break­ers of the law.”