On the Way to Jerusalem

171:3.1For more than two weeks Je­sus and the twelve, fol­lowed by a crowd of sev­eral hun­dred dis­ci­ples, jour­neyed about in south­ern Perea, vis­it­ing all of the towns wherein the sev­enty la­bored. Many gen­tiles lived in this re­gion, and since few were go­ing up to the Pass­over feast at Je­ru­sa­lem, the mes­sen­gers of the king­dom went right on with their work of teach­ing and preach­ing.

171:3.2Je­sus met Ab­ner at Hes­h­bon, and An­drew di­rected that the labors of the sev­enty should not be in­ter­rupted by the Pass­over feast; Je­sus ad­vised that the mes­sen­gers should go for­ward with their work in com­plete dis­re­gard of what was about to hap­pen at Je­ru­sa­lem. He also coun­seled Ab­ner to per­mit the women’s corps, at least such as de­sired, to go to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. And this was the last time Ab­ner ever saw Je­sus in the flesh. His farewell to Ab­ner was: “My son, I know you will be true to the king­dom, and I pray the Fa­ther to grant you wis­dom that you may love and un­der­stand your breth­ren.”

171:3.3As they trav­eled from city to city, large num­bers of their fol­low­ers de­serted to go on to Je­ru­sa­lem so that, by the time Je­sus started for the Pass­over, the num­ber of those who fol­lowed along with him day by day had dwin­dled to less than two hun­dred.

171:3.4The apos­tles un­der­stood that Je­sus was go­ing to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over. They knew that the San­hedrin had broad­cast a mes­sage to all Is­rael that he had been con­demned to die and di­rect­ing that any­one know­ing his where­abouts should in­form the San­hedrin; and yet, de­spite all this, they were not so alarmed as they had been when he had an­nounced to them in Phil­a­del­phia that he was go­ing to Beth­any to see Laz­a­rus. This change of at­ti­tude from that of in­tense fear to a state of hushed ex­pectancy was mostly be­cause of Laz­a­rus’s res­ur­rec­tion. They had reached the con­clu­sion that Je­sus might, in an emer­gency, as­sert his di­vine power and put to shame his en­e­mies. This hope, cou­pled with their more pro­found and ma­ture faith in the spir­i­tual su­prem­acy of their Mas­ter, ac­counted for the out­ward cour­age dis­played by his im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers, who now made ready to fol­low him into Je­ru­sa­lem in the very face of the open dec­la­ra­tion of the San­hedrin that he must die.

171:3.5The ma­jor­ity of the apos­tles and many of his in­ner dis­ci­ples did not be­lieve it pos­si­ble for Je­sus to die; they, be­liev­ing that he was “the res­ur­rec­tion and the life,” re­garded him as im­mor­tal and al­ready tri­umphant over death.