On the Way to Jerusalem

171:4.1On Wednes­day evening, March 29, Je­sus and his fol­low­ers en­camped at Livias on their way to Je­ru­sa­lem, af­ter hav­ing com­pleted their tour of the cities of south­ern Perea. It was dur­ing this night at Livias that Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and Si­mon Pe­ter, hav­ing con­spired to have de­liv­ered into their hands at this place more than one hun­dred swords, re­ceived and dis­tributed these arms to all who would ac­cept them and wear them con­cealed be­neath their cloaks. Si­mon Pe­ter was still wear­ing his sword on the night of the Mas­ter’s be­trayal in the gar­den.

171:4.2Early on Thurs­day morn­ing be­fore the oth­ers were awake, Je­sus called An­drew and said: “Awaken your breth­ren! I have some­thing to say to them.” Je­sus knew about the swords and which of his apos­tles had re­ceived and were wear­ing these weapons, but he never dis­closed to them that he knew such things. When An­drew had aroused his as­so­ciates, and they had as­sem­bled off by them­selves, Je­sus said: “My chil­dren, you have been with me a long while, and I have taught you much that is need­ful for this time, but I would now warn you not to put your trust in the un­cer­tain­ties of the flesh nor in the frail­ties of man’s de­fense against the tri­als and test­ing which lie ahead of us. I have called you apart here by your­selves that I may once more plainly tell you that we are go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem, where you know the Son of Man has al­ready been con­demned to death. Again am I telling you that the Son of Man will be de­liv­ered into the hands of the chief priests and the re­li­gious rulers; that they will con­demn him and then de­liver him into the hands of the gen­tiles. And so will they mock the Son of Man, even spit upon him and scourge him, and they will de­liver him up to death. And when they kill the Son of Man, be not dis­mayed, for I de­clare that on the third day he shall rise. Take heed to your­selves and re­mem­ber that I have fore­warned you.”

171:4.3Again were the apos­tles amazed, stunned; but they could not bring them­selves to re­gard his words as lit­eral; they could not com­pre­hend that the Mas­ter meant just what he said. They were so blinded by their per­sis­tent be­lief in the tem­po­ral king­dom on earth, with head­quar­ters at Je­ru­sa­lem, that they sim­ply could not—would not—per­mit them­selves to ac­cept Je­sus’ words as lit­eral. They pon­dered all that day as to what the Mas­ter could mean by such strange pro­nounce­ments. But none of them dared to ask him a ques­tion con­cern­ing these state­ments. Not un­til af­ter his death did these be­wil­dered apos­tles wake up to the re­al­iza­tion that the Mas­ter had spo­ken to them plainly and di­rectly in an­tic­i­pa­tion of his cru­ci­fix­ion.

171:4.4It was here at Livias, just af­ter break­fast, that cer­tain friendly Phar­isees came to Je­sus and said: “Flee in haste from these parts, for Herod, just as he sought John, now seeks to kill you. He fears an up­ris­ing of the peo­ple and has de­cided to kill you. We bring you this warn­ing that you may es­cape.”

171:4.5And this was partly true. The res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus fright­ened and alarmed Herod, and know­ing that the San­hedrin had dared to con­demn Je­sus, even in ad­vance of a trial, Herod made up his mind ei­ther to kill Je­sus or to drive him out of his do­mains. He re­ally de­sired to do the lat­ter since he so feared him that he hoped he would not be com­pelled to ex­e­cute him.

171:4.6When Je­sus heard what the Phar­isees had to say, he replied: “I well know about Herod and his fear of this gospel of the king­dom. But, mis­take not, he would much pre­fer that the Son of Man go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to suf­fer and die at the hands of the chief priests; he is not anx­ious, hav­ing stained his hands with the blood of John, to be­come re­spon­si­ble for the death of the Son of Man. Go you and tell that fox that the Son of Man preaches in Perea to­day, to­mor­row goes into Judea, and af­ter a few days, will be per­fected in his mis­sion on earth and pre­pared to as­cend to the Fa­ther.”

171:4.7Then turn­ing to his apos­tles, Je­sus said: “From olden times the proph­ets have per­ished in Je­ru­sa­lem, and it is only be­fit­ting that the Son of Man should go up to the city of the Fa­ther’s house to be of­fered up as the price of hu­man big­otry and as the re­sult of re­li­gious prej­u­dice and spir­i­tual blind­ness. O Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­ru­sa­lem, which kills the proph­ets and stones the teach­ers of truth! How of­ten would I have gath­ered your chil­dren to­gether even as a hen gath­ers her own brood un­der her wings, but you would not let me do it! Be­hold, your house is about to be left to you des­o­late! You will many times de­sire to see me, but you shall not. You will then seek but not find me.” And when he had spo­ken, he turned to those around him and said: “Nev­er­the­less, let us go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to at­tend the Pass­over and do that which be­comes us in ful­fill­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven.”

171:4.8It was a con­fused and be­wil­dered group of be­liev­ers who this day fol­lowed Je­sus into Jeri­cho. The apos­tles could dis­cern only the cer­tain note of fi­nal tri­umph in Je­sus’ dec­la­ra­tions re­gard­ing the king­dom; they just could not bring them­selves to that place where they were will­ing to grasp the warn­ings of the im­pend­ing set­back. When Je­sus spoke of “ris­ing on the third day,” they seized upon this state­ment as sig­ni­fy­ing a sure tri­umph of the king­dom im­me­di­ately fol­low­ing an un­pleas­ant pre­lim­i­nary skir­mish with the Jew­ish re­li­gious lead­ers. The “third day” was a com­mon Jew­ish ex­pres­sion sig­ni­fy­ing “pres­ently” or “soon there­after.” When Je­sus spoke of “ris­ing,” they thought he re­ferred to the “ris­ing of the king­dom.”

171:4.9Je­sus had been ac­cepted by these be­liev­ers as the Mes­siah, and the Jews knew lit­tle or noth­ing about a suf­fer­ing Mes­siah. They did not un­der­stand that Je­sus was to ac­com­plish many things by his death which could never have been achieved by his life. While it was the res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus that nerved the apos­tles to en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem, it was the mem­ory of the trans­fig­u­ra­tion that sus­tained the Mas­ter at this try­ing pe­riod of his be­stowal.