Last Day at the Camp

178:2.1Not many of the Mas­ter’s hear­ers were able to take in even a part of his forenoon ad­dress. Of all who heard him, the Greeks com­pre­hended most. Even the eleven apos­tles were be­wil­dered by his al­lu­sions to fu­ture po­lit­i­cal king­doms and to suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of king­dom be­liev­ers. Je­sus’ most de­voted fol­low­ers could not rec­on­cile the im­pend­ing end of his earthly min­istry with these ref­er­ences to an ex­tended fu­ture of gospel ac­tiv­i­ties. Some of these Jew­ish be­liev­ers were be­gin­ning to sense that earth’s great­est tragedy was about to take place, but they could not rec­on­cile such an im­pend­ing dis­as­ter with ei­ther the Mas­ter’s cheer­fully in­dif­fer­ent per­sonal at­ti­tude or his forenoon dis­course, wherein he re­peat­edly al­luded to the fu­ture trans­ac­tions of the heav­enly king­dom, ex­tend­ing over vast stretches of time and em­brac­ing re­la­tions with many and suc­ces­sive tem­po­ral king­doms on earth.

178:2.2By noon of this day all the apos­tles and dis­ci­ples had learned about the hasty flight of Laz­a­rus from Beth­any. They be­gan to sense the grim de­ter­mi­na­tion of the Jew­ish rulers to ex­ter­mi­nate Je­sus and his teach­ings.

178:2.3David Zeb­e­dee, through the work of his se­cret agents in Je­ru­sa­lem, was fully ad­vised con­cern­ing the prog­ress of the plan to ar­rest and kill Je­sus. He knew all about the part of Ju­das in this plot, but he never dis­closed this knowl­edge to the other apos­tles nor to any of the dis­ci­ples. Shortly af­ter lunch he did lead Je­sus aside and, mak­ing bold, asked him whether he knew—but he never got fur­ther with his ques­tion. The Mas­ter, hold­ing up his hand, stopped him, say­ing: “Yes, David, I know all about it, and I know that you know, but see to it that you tell no man. Only doubt not in your own heart that the will of God will pre­vail in the end.”

178:2.4This con­ver­sa­tion with David was in­ter­rupted by the ar­rival of a mes­sen­ger from Phil­a­del­phia bring­ing word that Ab­ner had heard of the plot to kill Je­sus and ask­ing if he should de­part for Je­ru­sa­lem. This run­ner has­tened off for Phil­a­del­phia with this word for Ab­ner: “Go on with your work. If I de­part from you in the flesh, it is only that I may re­turn in the spirit. I will not for­sake you. I will be with you to the end.”

178:2.5About this time Philip came to the Mas­ter and asked: “Mas­ter, see­ing that the time of the Pass­over draws near, where would you have us pre­pare to eat it?” And when Je­sus heard Philip’s ques­tion, he an­swered: “Go and bring Pe­ter and John, and I will give you di­rec­tions con­cern­ing the sup­per we will eat to­gether this night. As for the Pass­over, that you will have to con­sider af­ter we have first done this.”

178:2.6When Ju­das heard the Mas­ter speak­ing with Philip about these mat­ters, he drew closer that he might over­hear their con­ver­sa­tion. But David Zeb­e­dee, who was stand­ing near, stepped up and en­gaged Ju­das in con­ver­sa­tion while Philip, Pe­ter, and John went to one side to talk with the Mas­ter.

178:2.7Said Je­sus to the three: “Go im­me­di­ately into Je­ru­sa­lem, and as you en­ter the gate, you will meet a man bear­ing a wa­ter pitcher. He will speak to you, and then shall you fol­low him. When he leads you to a cer­tain house, go in af­ter him and ask of the good man of that house, ‘Where is the guest cham­ber wherein the Mas­ter is to eat sup­per with his apos­tles?’ And when you have thus in­quired, this house­holder will show you a large up­per room all fur­nished and ready for us.”

178:2.8When the apos­tles reached the city, they met the man with the wa­ter pitcher near the gate and fol­lowed on af­ter him to the home of John Mark, where the lad’s fa­ther met them and showed them the up­per room in readi­ness for the evening meal.

178:2.9And all of this came to pass as the re­sult of an un­der­stand­ing ar­rived at be­tween the Mas­ter and John Mark dur­ing the af­ter­noon of the pre­ced­ing day when they were alone in the hills. Je­sus wanted to be sure he would have this one last meal undis­turbed with his apos­tles, and be­liev­ing if Ju­das knew be­fore­hand of their place of meet­ing he might ar­range with his en­e­mies to take him, he made this se­cret ar­range­ment with John Mark. In this way Ju­das did not learn of their place of meet­ing un­til later on when he ar­rived there in com­pany with Je­sus and the other apos­tles.

178:2.10David Zeb­e­dee had much busi­ness to trans­act with Ju­das so that he was eas­ily pre­vented from fol­low­ing Pe­ter, John, and Philip, as he so much de­sired to do. When Ju­das gave David a cer­tain sum of money for pro­vi­sions, David said to him: “Ju­das, might it not be well, un­der the cir­cum­stances, to pro­vide me with a lit­tle money in ad­vance of my ac­tual needs?” And af­ter Ju­das had re­flected for a mo­ment, he an­swered: “Yes, David, I think it would be wise. In fact, in view of the dis­turbed con­di­tions in Je­ru­sa­lem, I think it would be best for me to turn over all the money to you. They plot against the Mas­ter, and in case any­thing should hap­pen to me, you would not be ham­pered.”

178:2.11And so David re­ceived all the apos­tolic cash funds and re­ceipts for all money on de­posit. Not un­til the evening of the next day did the apos­tles learn of this trans­ac­tion.

178:2.12It was about half past four o’clock when the three apos­tles re­turned and in­formed Je­sus that ev­ery­thing was in readi­ness for the sup­per. The Mas­ter im­me­di­ately pre­pared to lead his twelve apos­tles over the trail to the Beth­any road and on into Je­ru­sa­lem. And this was the last jour­ney he ever made with all twelve of them.