Going into Jerusalem

172:4.1While the Al­pheus twins re­turned the don­key to its owner, Je­sus and the ten apos­tles de­tached them­selves from their im­me­di­ate as­so­ciates and strolled about the tem­ple, view­ing the prepa­ra­tions for the Pass­over. No at­tempt was made to mo­lest Je­sus as the San­hedrin greatly feared the peo­ple, and that was, af­ter all, one of the rea­sons Je­sus had for al­low­ing the mul­ti­tude thus to ac­claim him. The apos­tles lit­tle un­der­stood that this was the only hu­man pro­ce­dure which could have been ef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing Je­sus’ im­me­di­ate ar­rest upon en­ter­ing the city. The Mas­ter de­sired to give the in­hab­i­tants of Je­ru­sa­lem, high and low, as well as the tens of thou­sands of Pass­over vis­i­tors, this one more and last chance to hear the gospel and re­ceive, if they would, the Son of Peace.

172:4.2And now, as the evening drew on and the crowds went in quest of nour­ish­ment, Je­sus and his im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers were left alone. What a strange day it had been! The apos­tles were thought­ful, but speech­less. Never, in their years of as­so­ci­a­tion with Je­sus, had they seen such a day. For a mo­ment they sat down by the trea­sury, watch­ing the peo­ple drop in their con­tri­bu­tions: the rich putting much in the re­ceiv­ing box and all giv­ing some­thing in ac­cor­dance with the ex­tent of their pos­ses­sions. At last there came along a poor widow, scant­ily at­tired, and they ob­served as she cast two mites (small cop­pers) into the trum­pet. And then said Je­sus, call­ing the at­ten­tion of the apos­tles to the widow: “Heed well what you have just seen. This poor widow cast in more than all the oth­ers, for all these oth­ers, from their su­per­fluity, cast in some tri­fle as a gift, but this poor woman, even though she is in want, gave all that she had, even her liv­ing.”

172:4.3As the evening drew on, they walked about the tem­ple courts in si­lence, and af­ter Je­sus had sur­veyed these fa­mil­iar scenes once more, re­call­ing his emo­tions in con­nec­tion with pre­vi­ous vis­its, not ex­cept­ing the ear­lier ones, he said, “Let us go up to Beth­any for our rest.” Je­sus, with Pe­ter and John, went to the home of Si­mon, while the other apos­tles lodged among their friends in Beth­any and Beth­page.