Going into Jerusalem

172:5.1This Sun­day evening as they re­turned to Beth­any, Je­sus walked in front of the apos­tles. Not a word was spo­ken un­til they sep­a­rated af­ter ar­riv­ing at Si­mon’s house. No twelve hu­man be­ings ever ex­pe­ri­enced such di­verse and in­ex­pli­ca­ble emo­tions as now surged through the minds and souls of these am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. These sturdy Galileans were con­fused and dis­con­certed; they did not know what to ex­pect next; they were too sur­prised to be much afraid. They knew noth­ing of the Mas­ter’s plans for the next day, and they asked no ques­tions. They went to their lodg­ings, though they did not sleep much, save the twins. But they did not keep armed watch over Je­sus at Si­mon’s house.

172:5.2An­drew was thor­oughly be­wil­dered, well-nigh con­fused. He was the one apos­tle who did not se­ri­ously un­der­take to eval­u­ate the pop­u­lar out­burst of ac­claim. He was too pre­oc­cu­pied with the thought of his re­spon­si­bil­ity as chief of the apos­tolic corps to give se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to the mean­ing or sig­nif­i­cance of the loud hosan­nas of the mul­ti­tude. An­drew was busy watch­ing some of his as­so­ciates who he feared might be led away by their emo­tions dur­ing the ex­cite­ment, par­tic­u­larly Pe­ter, James, John, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes. Through­out this day and those which im­me­di­ately fol­lowed, An­drew was trou­bled with se­ri­ous doubts, but he never ex­pressed any of these mis­giv­ings to his apos­tolic as­so­ciates. He was con­cerned about the at­ti­tude of some of the twelve who he knew were armed with swords; but he did not know that his own brother, Pe­ter, was car­ry­ing such a weapon. And so the pro­ces­sion into Je­ru­sa­lem made a com­par­a­tively su­per­fi­cial im­pres­sion upon An­drew; he was too busy with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of his of­fice to be oth­er­wise af­fected.

172:5.3Si­mon Pe­ter was at first al­most swept off his feet by this pop­u­lar man­i­fes­ta­tion of en­thu­si­asm; but he was con­sid­er­ably sobered by the time they re­turned to Beth­any that night. Pe­ter sim­ply could not fig­ure out what the Mas­ter was about. He was ter­ri­bly dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus did not fol­low up this wave of pop­u­lar fa­vor with some kind of a pro­nounce­ment. Pe­ter could not un­der­stand why Je­sus did not speak to the mul­ti­tude when they ar­rived at the tem­ple, or at least per­mit one of the apos­tles to ad­dress the crowd. Pe­ter was a great preacher, and he dis­liked to see such a large, re­cep­tive, and en­thu­si­as­tic au­di­ence go to waste. He would so much have liked to preach the gospel of the king­dom to that throng right there in the tem­ple; but the Mas­ter had specif­i­cally charged them that they were to do no teach­ing or preach­ing while in Je­ru­sa­lem this Pass­over week. The re­ac­tion from the spec­tac­u­lar pro­ces­sion into the city was dis­as­trous to Si­mon Pe­ter; by night he was sobered and in­ex­press­ibly sad­dened.

172:5.4To James Zeb­e­dee, this Sun­day was a day of per­plex­ity and pro­found con­fu­sion; he could not grasp the pur­port of what was go­ing on; he could not com­pre­hend the Mas­ter’s pur­pose in per­mit­ting this wild ac­claim and then in re­fus­ing to say a word to the peo­ple when they ar­rived at the tem­ple. As the pro­ces­sion moved down Oli­vet to­ward Je­ru­sa­lem, more es­pe­cially when they were met by the thou­sands of pil­grims who poured forth to wel­come the Mas­ter, James was cru­elly torn by his con­flict­ing emo­tions of ela­tion and grat­i­fi­ca­tion at what he saw and by his pro­found feel­ing of fear as to what would hap­pen when they reached the tem­ple. And then was he down­cast and over­come by dis­ap­point­ment when Je­sus climbed off the don­key and pro­ceeded to walk leisurely about the tem­ple courts. James could not un­der­stand the rea­son for throw­ing away such a mag­nif­i­cent op­por­tu­nity to pro­claim the king­dom. By night, his mind was held firmly in the grip of a dis­tress­ing and dread­ful un­cer­tainty.

172:5.5John Zeb­e­dee came some­where near un­der­stand­ing why Je­sus did this; at least he grasped in part the spir­i­tual sig­nif­i­cance of this so-called tri­umphal en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. As the mul­ti­tude moved on to­ward the tem­ple, and as John be­held his Mas­ter sit­ting there astride the colt, he re­called hear­ing Je­sus one­time quote the pas­sage of Scrip­ture, the ut­ter­ance of Zechariah, which de­scribed the com­ing of the Mes­siah as a man of peace and rid­ing into Je­ru­sa­lem on an ass. As John turned this Scrip­ture over in his mind, he be­gan to com­pre­hend the sym­bolic sig­nif­i­cance of this Sun­day-af­ter­noon pageant. At least, he grasped enough of the mean­ing of this Scrip­ture to en­able him some­what to en­joy the episode and to pre­vent his be­com­ing over­much de­pressed by the ap­par­ent pur­pose­less end­ing of the tri­umphal pro­ces­sion. John had a type of mind which nat­u­rally tended to think and feel in sym­bols.

172:5.6Philip was en­tirely un­set­tled by the sud­den­ness and spon­tane­ity of the out­burst. He could not col­lect his thoughts suf­fi­ciently while on the way down Oli­vet to ar­rive at any set­tled no­tion as to what all the dem­on­stra­tion was about. In a way, he en­joyed the per­for­mance be­cause his Mas­ter was be­ing hon­ored. By the time they reached the tem­ple, he was per­turbed by the thought that Je­sus might pos­si­bly ask him to feed the mul­ti­tude, so that the con­duct of Je­sus in turn­ing leisurely away from the crowds, which so sorely dis­ap­pointed the ma­jor­ity of the apos­tles, was a great re­lief to Philip. Mul­ti­tudes had some­times been a great trial to the stew­ard of the twelve. Af­ter he was re­lieved of these per­sonal fears re­gard­ing the ma­te­rial needs of the crowds, Philip joined with Pe­ter in the ex­pres­sion of dis­ap­point­ment that noth­ing was done to teach the mul­ti­tude. That night Philip got to think­ing over these ex­pe­ri­ences and was tempted to doubt the whole idea of the king­dom; he hon­estly won­dered what all these things could mean, but he ex­pressed his doubts to no one; he loved Je­sus too much. He had great per­sonal faith in the Mas­ter.

172:5.7Na­than­iel, aside from the sym­bolic and pro­phetic as­pects, came the near­est to un­der­stand­ing the Mas­ter’s rea­son for en­list­ing the pop­u­lar sup­port of the Pass­over pil­grims. He rea­soned it out, be­fore they reached the tem­ple, that with­out such a demon­stra­tive en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem Je­sus would have been ar­rested by the San­hedrin of­fi­cials and cast into prison the mo­ment he pre­sumed to en­ter the city. He was not, there­fore, in the least sur­prised that the Mas­ter made no fur­ther use of the cheer­ing crowds when he had once got in­side the walls of the city and had thus so forcibly im­pressed the Jew­ish lead­ers that they would re­frain from plac­ing him un­der im­me­di­ate ar­rest. Un­der­stand­ing the real rea­son for the Mas­ter’s en­ter­ing the city in this man­ner, Na­than­iel nat­u­rally fol­lowed along with more poise and was less per­turbed and dis­ap­pointed by Je­sus’ sub­se­quent con­duct than were the other apos­tles. Na­than­iel had great con­fi­dence in Je­sus’ un­der­stand­ing of men as well as in his sagac­ity and clev­er­ness in han­dling dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions.

172:5.8Mat­thew was at first non­plused by this pageant per­for­mance. He did not grasp the mean­ing of what his eyes were see­ing un­til he also re­called the Scrip­ture in Zechariah where the prophet had al­luded to the re­joic­ing of Je­ru­sa­lem be­cause her king had come bring­ing sal­va­tion and rid­ing upon the colt of an ass. As the pro­ces­sion moved in the di­rec­tion of the city and then drew on to­ward the tem­ple, Mat­thew be­came ec­static; he was cer­tain that some­thing ex­traor­di­nary would hap­pen when the Mas­ter ar­rived at the tem­ple at the head of this shout­ing mul­ti­tude. When one of the Phar­isees mocked Je­sus, say­ing, “Look, ev­ery­body, see who comes here, the king of the Jews rid­ing on an ass!” Mat­thew kept his hands off of him only by ex­er­cis­ing great re­straint. None of the twelve was more de­pressed on the way back to Beth­any that evening. Next to Si­mon Pe­ter and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, he ex­pe­ri­enced the high­est ner­vous ten­sion and was in a state of ex­haus­tion by night. But by morn­ing Mat­thew was much cheered; he was, af­ter all, a cheer­ful loser.

172:5.9Thomas was the most be­wil­dered and puz­zled man of all the twelve. Most of the time he just fol­lowed along, gaz­ing at the spec­ta­cle and hon­estly won­der­ing what could be the Mas­ter’s mo­tive for par­tic­i­pat­ing in such a pe­cu­liar dem­on­stra­tion. Down deep in his heart he re­garded the whole per­for­mance as a lit­tle child­ish, if not down­right fool­ish. He had never seen Je­sus do any­thing like this and was at a loss to ac­count for his strange con­duct on this Sun­day af­ter­noon. By the time they reached the tem­ple, Thomas had de­duced that the pur­pose of this pop­u­lar dem­on­stra­tion was so to frighten the San­hedrin that they would not dare im­me­di­ately to ar­rest the Mas­ter. On the way back to Beth­any Thomas thought much but said noth­ing. By bed­time the Mas­ter’s clev­er­ness in stag­ing the tu­mul­tuous en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem had be­gun to make a some­what hu­mor­ous ap­peal, and he was much cheered up by this re­ac­tion.

172:5.10This Sun­day started off as a great day for Si­mon Ze­lo­tes. He saw vi­sions of won­der­ful do­ings in Je­ru­sa­lem the next few days, and in that he was right, but Si­mon dreamed of the es­tab­lish­ment of the new na­tional rule of the Jews, with Je­sus on the throne of David. Si­mon saw the na­tion­al­ists spring­ing into ac­tion as soon as the king­dom was an­nounced, and him­self in su­preme com­mand of the as­sem­bling mil­i­tary forces of the new king­dom. On the way down Oli­vet he even en­vis­aged the San­hedrin and all of their sym­pa­thiz­ers dead be­fore sun­set of that day. He re­ally be­lieved some­thing great was go­ing to hap­pen. He was the nois­i­est man in the whole mul­ti­tude. By five o’clock that af­ter­noon he was a silent, crushed, and dis­il­lu­sioned apos­tle. He never fully re­cov­ered from the de­pres­sion which set­tled down on him as a re­sult of this day’s shock; at least not un­til long af­ter the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion.

172:5.11To the Al­pheus twins this was a per­fect day. They re­ally en­joyed it all the way through, and not be­ing pres­ent dur­ing the time of quiet vis­i­ta­tion about the tem­ple, they es­caped much of the an­ti­cli­max of the pop­u­lar up­heaval. They could not pos­si­bly un­der­stand the down­cast be­hav­ior of the apos­tles when they came back to Beth­any that evening. In the mem­ory of the twins this was al­ways their day of be­ing near­est heaven on earth. This day was the sat­is­fy­ing cli­max of their whole ca­reer as apos­tles. And the mem­ory of the ela­tion of this Sun­day af­ter­noon car­ried them on through all of the tragedy of this event­ful week, right up to the hour of the cru­ci­fix­ion. It was the most be­fit­ting en­try of the king the twins could con­ceive; they en­joyed ev­ery mo­ment of the whole pageant. They fully ap­proved of all they saw and long cher­ished the mem­ory.

172:5.12Of all the apos­tles, Ju­das Is­car­iot was the most ad­versely af­fected by this pro­ces­sional en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem. His mind was in a dis­agree­able fer­ment be­cause of the Mas­ter’s re­buke the pre­ced­ing day in con­nec­tion with Mary’s anoint­ing at the feast in Si­mon’s house. Ju­das was dis­gusted with the whole spec­ta­cle. To him it seemed child­ish, if not in­deed ridicu­lous. As this venge­ful apos­tle looked upon the pro­ceed­ings of this Sun­day af­ter­noon, Je­sus seemed to him more to re­sem­ble a clown than a king. He heart­ily re­sented the whole per­for­mance. He shared the views of the Greeks and Ro­mans, who looked down upon any­one who would con­sent to ride upon an ass or the colt of an ass. By the time the tri­umphal pro­ces­sion had en­tered the city, Ju­das had about made up his mind to aban­don the whole idea of such a king­dom; he was al­most re­solved to for­sake all such far­ci­cal at­tempts to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven. And then he thought of the res­ur­rec­tion of Laz­a­rus, and many other things, and de­cided to stay on with the twelve, at least for an­other day. Be­sides, he car­ried the bag, and he would not desert with the apos­tolic funds in his pos­ses­sion. On the way back to Beth­any that night his con­duct did not seem strange since all of the apos­tles were equally down­cast and silent.

172:5.13Ju­das was tremen­dously in­flu­enced by the ridicule of his Sad­ducean friends. No other sin­gle fac­tor ex­erted such a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence on him, in his fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion to for­sake Je­sus and his fel­low apos­tles, as a cer­tain episode which oc­curred just as Je­sus reached the gate of the city: A promi­nent Sad­ducee (a friend of Ju­das’s fam­ily) rushed up to him in a spirit of glee­ful ridicule and, slap­ping him on the back, said: “Why so trou­bled of coun­te­nance, my good friend; cheer up and join us all while we ac­claim this Je­sus of Naz­a­reth the king of the Jews as he rides through the gates of Je­ru­sa­lem seated on an ass.” Ju­das had never shrunk from per­se­cu­tion, but he could not stand this sort of ridicule. With the long-nour­ished emo­tion of re­venge there was now blended this fa­tal fear of ridicule, that ter­ri­ble and fear­ful feel­ing of be­ing ashamed of his Mas­ter and his fel­low apos­tles. At heart, this or­dained am­bas­sador of the king­dom was al­ready a de­serter; it only re­mained for him to find some plau­si­ble ex­cuse for an open break with the Mas­ter.