At the Feast of Tabernacles

162:1.1Long be­fore they fled from Gal­i­lee, the fol­low­ers of Je­sus had im­plored him to go to Je­ru­sa­lem to pro­claim the gospel of the king­dom in or­der that his mes­sage might have the pres­tige of hav­ing been preached at the cen­ter of Jew­ish cul­ture and learn­ing; but now that he had ac­tu­ally come to Je­ru­sa­lem to teach, they were afraid for his life. Know­ing that the San­hedrin had sought to bring Je­sus to Je­ru­sa­lem for trial and re­call­ing the Mas­ter’s re­cently re­it­er­ated dec­la­ra­tions that he must be sub­ject to death, the apos­tles had been lit­er­ally stunned by his sud­den de­ci­sion to at­tend the feast of taber­na­cles. To all their pre­vi­ous en­treaties that he go to Je­ru­sa­lem he had replied, “The hour has not yet come.” Now, to their protests of fear he an­swered only, “But the hour has come.”

162:1.2Dur­ing the feast of taber­na­cles Je­sus went boldly into Je­ru­sa­lem on sev­eral oc­ca­sions and pub­licly taught in the tem­ple. This he did in spite of the ef­forts of his apos­tles to dis­suade him. Though they had long urged him to pro­claim his mes­sage in Je­ru­sa­lem, they now feared to see him en­ter the city at this time, know­ing full well that the scribes and Phar­isees were bent on bring­ing about his death.

162:1.3Je­sus’ bold ap­pear­ance in Je­ru­sa­lem more than ever con­fused his fol­low­ers. Many of his dis­ci­ples, and even Ju­das Is­car­iot, the apos­tle, had dared to think that Je­sus had fled in haste into Phoeni­cia be­cause he feared the Jew­ish lead­ers and Herod An­tipas. They failed to com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of the Mas­ter’s move­ments. His pres­ence in Je­ru­sa­lem at the feast of taber­na­cles, even in op­po­si­tion to the ad­vice of his fol­low­ers, suf­ficed for­ever to put an end to all whis­per­ings about fear and cow­ardice.

162:1.4Dur­ing the feast of taber­na­cles, thou­sands of be­liev­ers from all parts of the Ro­man Em­pire saw Je­sus, heard him teach, and many even jour­neyed out to Beth­any to con­fer with him re­gard­ing the prog­ress of the king­dom in their home dis­tricts.

162:1.5There were many rea­sons why Je­sus was able pub­licly to preach in the tem­ple courts through­out the days of the feast, and chief of these was the fear that had come over the of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin as a re­sult of the se­cret di­vi­sion of sen­ti­ment in their own ranks. It was a fact that many of the mem­bers of the San­hedrin ei­ther se­cretly be­lieved in Je­sus or else were de­cid­edly averse to ar­rest­ing him dur­ing the feast, when such large num­bers of peo­ple were pres­ent in Je­ru­sa­lem, many of whom ei­ther be­lieved in him or were at least friendly to the spir­i­tual move­ment which he spon­sored.

162:1.6The ef­forts of Ab­ner and his as­so­ciates through­out Judea had also done much to con­sol­i­date sen­ti­ment fa­vor­able to the king­dom, so much so that the en­e­mies of Je­sus dared not be too out­spo­ken in their op­po­si­tion. This was one of the rea­sons why Je­sus could pub­licly visit Je­ru­sa­lem and live to go away. One or two months be­fore this he would cer­tainly have been put to death.

162:1.7But the au­da­cious bold­ness of Je­sus in pub­licly ap­pear­ing in Je­ru­sa­lem over­awed his en­e­mies; they were not pre­pared for such a dar­ing chal­lenge. Sev­eral times dur­ing this month the San­hedrin made fee­ble at­tempts to place the Mas­ter un­der ar­rest, but noth­ing came of these ef­forts. His en­e­mies were so taken aback by Je­sus’ un­ex­pected pub­lic ap­pear­ance in Je­ru­sa­lem that they con­jec­tured he must have been prom­ised pro­tec­tion by the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties. Know­ing that Philip (Herod An­tipas’s brother) was al­most a fol­lower of Je­sus, the mem­bers of the San­hedrin spec­u­lated that Philip had se­cured for Je­sus promises of pro­tec­tion against his en­e­mies. Je­sus had de­parted from their ju­ris­dic­tion be­fore they awak­ened to the re­al­iza­tion that they had been mis­taken in the be­lief that his sud­den and bold ap­pear­ance in Je­ru­sa­lem had been due to a se­cret un­der­stand­ing with the Ro­man of­fi­cials.

162:1.8Only the twelve apos­tles had known that Je­sus in­tended to at­tend the feast of taber­na­cles when they had de­parted from Ma­g­a­dan. The other fol­low­ers of the Mas­ter were greatly as­ton­ished when he ap­peared in the tem­ple courts and be­gan pub­licly to teach, and the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties were sur­prised be­yond ex­pres­sion when it was re­ported that he was teach­ing in the tem­ple.

162:1.9Al­though his dis­ci­ples had not ex­pected Je­sus to at­tend the feast, the vast ma­jor­ity of the pil­grims from afar who had heard of him en­ter­tained the hope that they might see him at Je­ru­sa­lem. And they were not dis­ap­pointed, for on sev­eral oc­ca­sions he taught in Sol­o­mon’s Porch and else­where in the tem­ple courts. These teach­ings were re­ally the of­fi­cial or for­mal an­nounce­ment of the di­vin­ity of Je­sus to the Jew­ish peo­ple and to the whole world.

162:1.10The mul­ti­tudes who lis­tened to the Mas­ter’s teach­ings were di­vided in their opin­ions. Some said he was a good man; some a prophet; some that he was truly the Mes­siah; oth­ers said he was a mis­chievous med­dler, that he was lead­ing the peo­ple astray with his strange doc­trines. His en­e­mies hes­i­tated to de­nounce him openly for fear of his friendly be­liev­ers, while his friends feared to ac­knowl­edge him openly for fear of the Jew­ish lead­ers, know­ing that the San­hedrin was de­ter­mined to put him to death. But even his en­e­mies mar­veled at his teach­ing, know­ing that he had not been in­structed in the schools of the rab­bis.

162:1.11Ev­ery time Je­sus went to Je­ru­sa­lem, his apos­tles were filled with ter­ror. They were the more afraid as, from day to day, they lis­tened to his in­creas­ingly bold pro­nounce­ments re­gard­ing the na­ture of his mis­sion on earth. They were un­ac­cus­tomed to hear­ing Je­sus make such pos­i­tive claims and such amaz­ing as­ser­tions even when preach­ing among his friends.