Monday in Jerusalem

173:5.1Af­ter the scribes and rulers had with­drawn, Je­sus ad­dressed him­self again to the as­sem­bled crowd and spoke the para­ble of the wed­ding feast. He said:

173:5.2“The king­dom of heaven may be likened to a cer­tain king who made a mar­riage feast for his son and dis­patched mes­sen­gers to call those who had pre­vi­ously been in­vited to the feast to come, say­ing, ‘Ev­ery­thing is ready for the mar­riage sup­per at the king’s palace.’ Now, many of those who had once prom­ised to at­tend, at this time re­fused to come. When the king heard of these re­jec­tions of his in­vi­ta­tion, he sent other ser­vants and mes­sen­gers, say­ing: ‘Tell all those who were bid­den, to come, for, be­hold, my din­ner is ready. My oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all is in readi­ness for the cel­e­bra­tion of the forth­com­ing mar­riage of my son.’ But again did the thought­less make light of this call of their king, and they went their ways, one to the farm, an­other to the pot­tery, and oth­ers to their mer­chan­dise. Still oth­ers were not con­tent thus to slight the king’s call, but in open re­bel­lion they laid hands on the king’s mes­sen­gers and shame­fully mis­treated them, even killing some of them. And when the king per­ceived that his cho­sen guests, even those who had ac­cepted his pre­lim­i­nary in­vi­ta­tion and had prom­ised to at­tend the wed­ding feast, had fi­nally re­jected his call and in re­bel­lion had as­saulted and slain his cho­sen mes­sen­gers, he was ex­ceed­ingly wroth. And then this in­sulted king or­dered out his armies and the armies of his al­lies and in­structed them to de­stroy these re­bel­lious mur­der­ers and to burn down their city.

173:5.3“And when he had pun­ished those who spurned his in­vi­ta­tion, he ap­pointed yet an­other day for the wed­ding feast and said to his mes­sen­gers: ‘They who were first bid­den to the wed­ding were not wor­thy; so go now into the part­ing of the ways and into the high­ways and even be­yond the bor­ders of the city, and as many as you shall find, bid even these strangers to come in and at­tend this wed­ding feast.’ And then these ser­vants went out into the high­ways and the out-of-the-way places, and they gath­ered to­gether as many as they found, good and bad, rich and poor, so that at last the wed­ding cham­ber was filled with will­ing guests. When all was ready, the king came in to view his guests, and much to his sur­prise he saw there a man with­out a wed­ding gar­ment. The king, since he had freely pro­vided wed­ding gar­ments for all his guests, ad­dress­ing this man, said: ‘Friend, how is it that you come into my guest cham­ber on this oc­ca­sion with­out a wed­ding gar­ment?’ And this un­pre­pared man was speech­less. Then said the king to his ser­vants: ‘Cast out this thought­less guest from my house to share the lot of all the oth­ers who have spurned my hos­pi­tal­ity and re­jected my call. I will have none here ex­cept those who de­light to ac­cept my in­vi­ta­tion, and who do me the honor to wear those guest gar­ments so freely pro­vided for all.’”

173:5.4Af­ter speak­ing this para­ble, Je­sus was about to dis­miss the mul­ti­tude when a sym­pa­thetic be­liever, mak­ing his way through the crowds to­ward him, asked: “But, Mas­ter, how shall we know about these things? how shall we be ready for the king’s in­vi­ta­tion? what sign will you give us whereby we shall know that you are the Son of God?” And when the Mas­ter heard this, he said, “Only one sign shall be given you.” And then, point­ing to his own body, he con­tin­ued, “De­stroy this tem­ple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But they did not un­der­stand him, and as they dis­persed, they talked among them­selves, say­ing, “Al­most fifty years has this tem­ple been in build­ing, and yet he says he will de­stroy it and raise it up in three days.” Even his own apos­tles did not com­pre­hend the sig­nif­i­cance of this ut­ter­ance, but sub­se­quently, af­ter his res­ur­rec­tion, they re­called what he had said.

173:5.5About four o’clock this af­ter­noon Je­sus beck­oned to his apos­tles and in­di­cated that he de­sired to leave the tem­ple and to go to Beth­any for their evening meal and a night of rest. On the way up Oli­vet Je­sus in­structed An­drew, Philip, and Thomas that, on the mor­row, they should es­tab­lish a camp nearer the city which they could oc­cupy dur­ing the re­main­der of the Pass­over week. In com­pli­ance with this in­struc­tion the fol­low­ing morn­ing they pitched their tents in the hill­side ravine over­look­ing the pub­lic camp­ing park of Geth­sem­ane, on a plot of ground be­long­ing to Si­mon of Beth­any.

173:5.6Again it was a silent group of Jews who made their way up the west­ern slope of Oli­vet on this Mon­day night. These twelve men, as never be­fore, were be­gin­ning to sense that some­thing tragic was about to hap­pen. While the dra­matic cleans­ing of the tem­ple dur­ing the early morn­ing had aroused their hopes of see­ing the Mas­ter as­sert him­self and man­i­fest his mighty pow­ers, the events of the en­tire af­ter­noon only op­er­ated as an an­ti­cli­max in that they all pointed to the cer­tain re­jec­tion of Je­sus’ teach­ing by the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties. The apos­tles were gripped by sus­pense and were held in the firm grasp of a ter­ri­ble un­cer­tainty. They re­al­ized that only a few short days could in­ter­vene be­tween the events of the day just passed and the crash of an im­pend­ing doom. They all felt that some­thing tremen­dous was about to hap­pen, but they knew not what to ex­pect. They went to their var­i­ous places for rest, but they slept very lit­tle. Even the Al­pheus twins were at last aroused to the re­al­iza­tion that the events of the Mas­ter’s life were mov­ing swiftly to­ward their fi­nal cul­mi­na­tion.