Going into Jerusalem

172:0.1Je­sus and the apos­tles ar­rived at Beth­any shortly af­ter four o’clock on Fri­day af­ter­noon, March 31, A.D. 30. Laz­a­rus, his sis­ters, and their friends were ex­pect­ing them; and since so many peo­ple came ev­ery day to talk with Laz­a­rus about his res­ur­rec­tion, Je­sus was in­formed that ar­range­ments had been made for him to stay with a neigh­bor­ing be­liever, one Si­mon, the lead­ing cit­i­zen of the lit­tle vil­lage since the death of Laz­a­rus’s fa­ther.

172:0.2That evening, Je­sus re­ceived many vis­i­tors, and the com­mon folks of Beth­any and Beth­page did their best to make him feel wel­come. Al­though many thought Je­sus was now go­ing into Je­ru­sa­lem, in ut­ter de­fi­ance of the San­hedrin’s de­cree of death, to pro­claim him­self king of the Jews, the Beth­any fam­ily—Laz­a­rus, Martha, and Mary—more fully re­al­ized that the Mas­ter was not that kind of a king; they dimly felt that this might be his last visit to Je­ru­sa­lem and Beth­any.

172:0.3The chief priests were in­formed that Je­sus lodged at Beth­any, but they thought best not to at­tempt to seize him among his friends; they de­cided to await his com­ing on into Je­ru­sa­lem. Je­sus knew about all this, but he was ma­jes­ti­cally calm; his friends had never seen him more com­posed and con­ge­nial; even the apos­tles were as­tounded that he should be so un­con­cerned when the San­hedrin had called upon all Jewry to de­liver him into their hands. While the Mas­ter slept that night, the apos­tles watched over him by twos, and many of them were girded with swords. Early the next morn­ing they were awak­ened by hun­dreds of pil­grims who came out from Je­ru­sa­lem, even on the Sab­bath day, to see Je­sus and Laz­a­rus, whom he had raised from the dead.