Last Days at Capernaum

154:5.1May 22 was an event­ful day in the life of Je­sus. On this Sun­day morn­ing, be­fore day­break, one of David’s mes­sen­gers ar­rived in great haste from Tiberias, bring­ing the word that Herod had au­tho­rized, or was about to au­tho­rize, the ar­rest of Je­sus by the of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin. The re­ceipt of the news of this im­pend­ing dan­ger caused David Zeb­e­dee to arouse his mes­sen­gers and send them out to all the lo­cal groups of dis­ci­ples, sum­mon­ing them for an emer­gency coun­cil at seven o’clock that morn­ing. When the sis­ter-in-law of Jude (Je­sus’ brother) heard this alarm­ing re­port, she has­tened word to all of Je­sus’ fam­ily who dwelt near by, sum­mon­ing them forth­with to as­sem­ble at Zeb­e­dee’s house. And in re­sponse to this hasty call, pres­ently there were as­sem­bled Mary, James, Joseph, Jude, and Ruth.

154:5.2At this early morn­ing meet­ing Je­sus im­parted his farewell in­struc­tions to the as­sem­bled dis­ci­ples; that is, he bade them farewell for the time be­ing, know­ing well that they would soon be dis­persed from Ca­per­naum. He di­rected them all to seek God for guid­ance and to carry on the work of the king­dom re­gard­less of con­se­quences. The evan­ge­lists were to la­bor as they saw fit un­til such time as they might be called. He se­lected twelve of the evan­ge­lists to ac­com­pany him; the twelve apos­tles he di­rected to re­main with him no mat­ter what hap­pened. The twelve women he in­structed to re­main at the Zeb­e­dee house and at Pe­ter’s house un­til he should send for them.

154:5.3Je­sus con­sented to David Zeb­e­dee’s con­tin­u­ing his coun­try­wide mes­sen­ger ser­vice, and in bid­ding the Mas­ter farewell pres­ently, David said: “Go forth to your work, Mas­ter. Don’t let the big­ots catch you, and never doubt that the mes­sen­gers will fol­low af­ter you. My men will never lose con­tact with you, and through them you shall know of the king­dom in other parts, and by them we will all know about you. Noth­ing that might hap­pen to me will in­ter­fere with this ser­vice, for I have ap­pointed first and sec­ond lead­ers, even a third. I am nei­ther a teacher nor a preacher, but it is in my heart to do this, and none can stop me.”

154:5.4About 7:30 this morn­ing Je­sus be­gan his part­ing ad­dress to al­most one hun­dred be­liev­ers who had crowded in­doors to hear him. This was a solemn oc­ca­sion for all pres­ent, but Je­sus seemed un­usu­ally cheer­ful; he was once more like his nor­mal self. The se­ri­ous­ness of weeks had gone, and he in­spired all of them with his words of faith, hope, and cour­age.