Going into Jerusalem

172:2.1On this Sun­day morn­ing, in Si­mon’s beau­ti­ful gar­den, the Mas­ter called his twelve apos­tles around him and gave them their fi­nal in­struc­tions prepara­tory to en­ter­ing Je­ru­sa­lem. He told them that he would prob­a­bly de­liver many ad­dresses and teach many lessons be­fore re­turn­ing to the Fa­ther but ad­vised the apos­tles to re­frain from do­ing any pub­lic work dur­ing this Pass­over so­journ in Je­ru­sa­lem. He in­structed them to re­main near him and to “watch and pray.” Je­sus knew that many of his apos­tles and im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers even then car­ried swords con­cealed on their per­sons, but he made no ref­er­ence to this fact.

172:2.2This morn­ing’s in­struc­tions em­braced a brief re­view of their min­istry from the day of their or­di­na­tion near Ca­per­naum down to this day when they were prepar­ing to en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem. The apos­tles lis­tened in si­lence; they asked no ques­tions.

172:2.3Early that morn­ing David Zeb­e­dee had turned over to Ju­das the funds re­al­ized from the sale of the equip­ment of the Pella en­camp­ment, and Ju­das, in turn, had placed the greater part of this money in the hands of Si­mon, their host, for safe­keep­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the ex­i­gen­cies of their en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem.

172:2.4Af­ter the con­fer­ence with the apos­tles Je­sus held con­verse with Laz­a­rus and in­structed him to avoid the sac­ri­fice of his life to the venge­ful­ness of the San­hedrin. It was in obe­di­ence to this ad­mo­ni­tion that Laz­a­rus, a few days later, fled to Phil­a­del­phia when the of­fi­cers of the San­hedrin sent men to ar­rest him.

172:2.5In a way, all of Je­sus’ fol­low­ers sensed the im­pend­ing cri­sis, but they were pre­vented from fully re­al­iz­ing its se­ri­ous­ness by the un­usual cheer­ful­ness and ex­cep­tional good hu­mor of the Mas­ter.