Wednesday, the Rest Day

177:5.1Since it was Wednes­day, this evening at the camp was a so­cial hour. The Mas­ter en­deav­ored to cheer his down­cast apos­tles, but that was well-nigh im­pos­si­ble. They were all be­gin­ning to re­al­ize that dis­con­cert­ing and crush­ing events were im­pend­ing. They could not be cheer­ful, even when the Mas­ter re­counted their years of event­ful and lov­ing as­so­ci­a­tion. Je­sus made care­ful in­quiry about the fam­i­lies of all of the apos­tles and, look­ing over to­ward David Zeb­e­dee, asked if any­one had heard re­cently from his mother, his young­est sis­ter, or other mem­bers of his fam­ily. David looked down at his feet; he was afraid to an­swer.

177:5.2This was the oc­ca­sion of Je­sus’ warn­ing his fol­low­ers to be­ware of the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude. He re­counted their ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee when time and again great throngs of peo­ple en­thu­si­as­ti­cally fol­lowed them around and then just as ar­dently turned against them and re­turned to their for­mer ways of be­liev­ing and liv­ing. And then he said: “And so you must not al­low your­selves to be de­ceived by the great crowds who heard us in the tem­ple, and who seemed to be­lieve our teach­ings. These mul­ti­tudes lis­ten to the truth and be­lieve it su­per­fi­cially with their minds, but few of them per­mit the word of truth to strike down into the heart with liv­ing roots. Those who know the gospel only in the mind, and who have not ex­pe­ri­enced it in the heart, can­not be de­pended upon for sup­port when real trou­ble comes. When the rulers of the Jews reach an agree­ment to de­stroy the Son of Man, and when they strike with one ac­cord, you will see the mul­ti­tude ei­ther flee in dis­may or else stand by in silent amaze­ment while these mad­dened and blinded rulers lead the teach­ers of the gospel truth to their death. And then, when ad­ver­sity and per­se­cu­tion de­scend upon you, still oth­ers who you think love the truth will be scat­tered, and some will re­nounce the gospel and desert you. Some who have been very close to us have al­ready made up their minds to desert. You have rested to­day in prepa­ra­tion for those times which are now upon us. Watch, there­fore, and pray that on the mor­row you may be strength­ened for the days that are just ahead.”

177:5.3The at­mo­sphere of the camp was charged with an in­ex­pli­ca­ble ten­sion. Silent mes­sen­gers came and went, com­mu­ni­cat­ing with only David Zeb­e­dee. Be­fore the evening had passed, cer­tain ones knew that Laz­a­rus had taken hasty flight from Beth­any. John Mark was omi­nously silent af­ter re­turn­ing to camp, not­with­stand­ing he had spent the whole day in the Mas­ter’s com­pany. Ev­ery ef­fort to per­suade him to talk only in­di­cated clearly that Je­sus had told him not to talk.

177:5.4Even the Mas­ter’s good cheer and his un­usual so­cia­bil­ity fright­ened them. They all felt the cer­tain draw­ing upon them of the ter­ri­ble iso­la­tion which they re­al­ized was about to de­scend with crash­ing sud­den­ness and in­es­cap­able ter­ror. They vaguely sensed what was com­ing, and none felt pre­pared to face the test. The Mas­ter had been away all day; they had missed him tremen­dously.

177:5.5This Wednes­day evening was the low-tide mark of their spir­i­tual sta­tus up to the ac­tual hour of the Mas­ter’s death. Al­though the next day was one more day nearer the tragic Fri­day, still, he was with them, and they passed through its anx­ious hours more grace­fully.

177:5.6It was just be­fore mid­night when Je­sus, know­ing this would be the last night he would ever sleep through with his cho­sen fam­ily on earth, said, as he dis­persed them for the night: “Go to your sleep, my breth­ren, and peace be upon you till we rise on the mor­row, one more day to do the Fa­ther’s will and ex­pe­ri­ence the joy of know­ing that we are his sons.”