Mount Olivet

• Jesus › Jesus’ first view of

124:6.8By the fourth and last day’s jour­ney the road was a con­tin­u­ous pro­ces­sion of pil­grims. They now be­gan to climb the hills lead­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem. As they neared the top, they could look across the Jor­dan to the moun­tains be­yond and south over the slug­gish wa­ters of the Dead Sea. About half­way up to Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­sus gained his first view of the Mount of Olives (the re­gion to be so much a part of his sub­se­quent life), and Joseph pointed out to him that the Holy City lay just be­yond this ridge, and the lad’s heart beat fast with joy­ous an­tic­i­pa­tion of soon be­hold­ing the city and house of his heav­enly Fa­ther.

124:6.9On the east­ern slopes of Oli­vet they paused for rest in the bor­ders of a lit­tle vil­lage called Beth­any. The hos­pitable vil­lagers poured forth to min­is­ter to the pil­grims, and it hap­pened that Joseph and his fam­ily had stopped near the house of one Si­mon, who had three chil­dren about the same age as Je­sus—Mary, Martha, and Laz­a­rus. They in­vited the Naz­a­reth fam­ily in for re­fresh­ment, and a life­long friend­ship sprang up be­tween the two fam­i­lies. Many times af­ter­ward, in his event­ful life, Je­sus stopped in this home.

124:6.10They pressed on, soon stand­ing on the brink of Oli­vet, and Je­sus saw for the first time (in his mem­ory) the Holy City, the pre­ten­tious palaces, and the in­spir­ing tem­ple of his Fa­ther. At no time in his life did Je­sus ever ex­pe­ri­ence such a purely hu­man thrill as that which at this time so com­pletely en­thralled him as he stood there on this April af­ter­noon on the Mount of Olives, drink­ing in his first view of Je­ru­sa­lem. And in af­ter years, on this same spot he stood and wept over the city which was about to re­ject an­other prophet, the last and the great­est of her heav­enly teach­ers.

• Jesus › as youth, Jesus vowed to return and cleanse temple on
• Jesus › Jesus wept on

125:4.2Early next day Je­sus was up and on his way to the tem­ple. On the brow of Oli­vet he paused and wept over the sight his eyes be­held—a spir­i­tu­ally im­pov­er­ished peo­ple, tra­di­tion bound and liv­ing un­der the surveil­lance of the Ro­man le­gions. Early forenoon found him in the tem­ple with his mind made up to take part in the dis­cus­sions. Mean­while, Joseph and Mary also had arisen with the early dawn with the in­ten­tion of re­trac­ing their steps to Je­ru­sa­lem. First, they has­tened to the house of their rel­a­tives, where they had lodged as a fam­ily dur­ing the Pass­over week, but in­quiry elicited the fact that no one had seen Je­sus. Af­ter search­ing all day and find­ing no trace of him, they re­turned to their rel­a­tives for the night.

• Jesus › as youth, Jesus vowed to return and cleanse temple on

125:6.9In si­lence they started out, ar­riv­ing at Jeri­cho for the night. Only once did they pause, and that on the brow of Oli­vet, when the lad raised his staff aloft and, quiv­er­ing from head to foot un­der the surg­ing of in­tense emo­tion, said: “O Je­ru­sa­lem, Je­ru­sa­lem, and the peo­ple thereof, what slaves you are—sub­servient to the Ro­man yoke and vic­tims of your own tra­di­tions—but I will re­turn to cleanse yon­der tem­ple and de­liver my peo­ple from this bond­age!”

• Mount Olivet

127:3.5Af­ter the Pass­over sup­per Mary sat down to talk with James while Martha, Laz­a­rus, and Je­sus talked to­gether far into the night. The next day they at­tended the tem­ple ser­vices, and James was re­ceived into the com­mon­wealth of Is­rael. That morn­ing, as they paused on the brow of Oli­vet to view the tem­ple, while James ex­claimed in won­der, Je­sus gazed on Je­ru­sa­lem in si­lence. James could not com­pre­hend his brother’s de­meanor. That night they again re­turned to Beth­any and would have de­parted for home the next day, but James was in­sis­tent on their go­ing back to visit the tem­ple, ex­plain­ing that he wanted to hear the teach­ers. And while this was true, se­cretly in his heart he wanted to hear Je­sus par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions, as he had heard his mother tell about. Ac­cord­ingly, they went to the tem­ple and heard the dis­cus­sions, but Je­sus asked no ques­tions. It all seemed so puerile and in­signif­i­cant to this awak­en­ing mind of man and God—he could only pity them. James was dis­ap­pointed that Je­sus said noth­ing. To his in­quiries Je­sus only made re­ply, “My hour has not yet come.”

• Gethsemane on

142:8.4Al­though Je­sus and the apos­tles spent the en­tire month of June in or near Je­ru­sa­lem, they did no pub­lic teach­ing dur­ing this pe­riod. They lived for the most part in tents, which they pitched in a shaded park, or gar­den, known in that day as Geth­sem­ane. This park was sit­u­ated on the west­ern slope of the Mount of Olives not far from the brook Kidron. The Sab­bath week­ends they usu­ally spent with Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters at Beth­any. Je­sus en­tered within the walls of Je­ru­sa­lem only a few times, but a large num­ber of in­ter­ested in­quir­ers came out to Geth­sem­ane to visit with him. One Fri­day evening Nicode­mus and one Joseph of Ari­mathea ven­tured out to see Je­sus but turned back through fear even af­ter they were stand­ing be­fore the en­trance to the Mas­ter’s tent. And, of course, they did not per­ceive that Je­sus knew all about their do­ings.

• Mount Olivet

164:2.3When this lit­tle meet­ing broke up, all went away mys­ti­fied by the Mas­ter’s per­son­al­ity, charmed by his gra­cious man­ner, and in love with the man. They had sought to ad­vise Je­sus con­cern­ing his de­sire to win the re­main­ing mem­bers of the San­hedrin. The Mas­ter lis­tened at­ten­tively, but silently, to all their pro­pos­als. He well knew none of their plans would work. He sur­mised that the ma­jor­ity of the Jew­ish lead­ers never would ac­cept the gospel of the king­dom; nev­er­the­less, he gave them all this one more chance to choose. But when he went forth that night, with Na­than­iel and Thomas, to lodge on the Mount of Olives, he had not yet de­cided upon the method he would pur­sue in bring­ing his work once more to the no­tice of the San­hedrin.

• Mount Olivet

171:8.1They did not start from Jeri­cho un­til near noon since they sat up late the night be­fore while Je­sus taught Zac­cheus and his fam­ily the gospel of the king­dom. About half­way up the as­cend­ing road to Beth­any the party paused for lunch while the mul­ti­tude passed on to Je­ru­sa­lem, not know­ing that Je­sus and the apos­tles were go­ing to abide that night on the Mount of Olives.

• Jesus › Jesus wept on

172:3.10Je­sus was light­hearted and cheer­ful as they moved along un­til he came to the brow of Oli­vet, where the city and the tem­ple tow­ers came into full view; there the Mas­ter stopped the pro­ces­sion, and a great si­lence came upon all as they be­held him weep­ing. Look­ing down upon the vast mul­ti­tude com­ing forth from the city to greet him, the Mas­ter, with much emo­tion and with tear­ful voice, said: “O Je­ru­sa­lem, if you had only known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which be­long to your peace, and which you could so freely have had! But now are these glo­ries about to be hid from your eyes. You are about to re­ject the Son of Peace and turn your backs upon the gospel of sal­va­tion. The days will soon come upon you wherein your en­e­mies will cast a trench around about you and lay siege to you on ev­ery side; they shall ut­terly de­stroy you, in­so­much that not one stone shall be left upon an­other. And all this shall be­fall you be­cause you knew not the time of your di­vine vis­i­ta­tion. You are about to re­ject the gift of God, and all men will re­ject you.”

• sacrificial animals purchased from

173:1.1A huge com­mer­cial traf­fic had grown up in as­so­ci­a­tion with the ser­vices and cer­e­monies of the tem­ple wor­ship. There was the busi­ness of pro­vid­ing suit­able an­i­mals for the var­i­ous sac­ri­fices. Though it was per­mis­si­ble for a wor­shiper to pro­vide his own sac­ri­fice, the fact re­mained that this an­i­mal must be free from all “blem­ish” in the mean­ing of the Levit­i­cal law and as in­ter­preted by of­fi­cial in­spec­tors of the tem­ple. Many a wor­shiper had ex­pe­ri­enced the hu­mil­i­a­tion of hav­ing his sup­pos­edly per­fect an­i­mal re­jected by the tem­ple ex­am­in­ers. It there­fore be­came the more gen­eral prac­tice to pur­chase sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals at the tem­ple, and al­though there were sev­eral sta­tions on near-by Oli­vet where they could be bought, it had be­come the vogue to buy these an­i­mals di­rectly from the tem­ple pens. Grad­u­ally there had grown up this cus­tom of sell­ing all kinds of sac­ri­fi­cial an­i­mals in the tem­ple courts. An ex­ten­sive busi­ness, in which enor­mous prof­its were made, had thus been brought into ex­is­tence. Part of these gains was re­served for the tem­ple trea­sury, but the larger part went in­di­rectly into the hands of the rul­ing high-priestly fam­i­lies.

• Mount Olivet

174:0.3And when he had con­cluded these greet­ings, he de­parted for Je­ru­sa­lem with An­drew, Pe­ter, James, and John as the other apos­tles set about the es­tab­lish­ment of the Geth­sem­ane camp, where they were to go that night, and where they made their head­quar­ters for the re­main­der of the Mas­ter’s life in the flesh. About half­way down the slope of Oli­vet Je­sus paused and vis­ited more than an hour with the four apos­tles.

• Mount Olivet
• last group prayer on

182:1.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he led the way a short dis­tance up on Oli­vet, and in full view of Je­ru­sa­lem he bade them kneel on a large flat rock in a cir­cle about him as they had done on the day of their or­di­na­tion; and then, as he stood there in the midst of them glo­ri­fied in the mel­low moon­light, he lifted up his eyes to­ward heaven and prayed:

• palace of Annas on

184:0.3Je­sus spent about three hours at the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet, not far from the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane, where they ar­rested him. John Zeb­e­dee was free and safe in the palace of An­nas not only be­cause of the word of the Ro­man cap­tain, but also be­cause he and his brother James were well known to the older ser­vants, hav­ing many times been guests at the palace as the for­mer high priest was a dis­tant rel­a­tive of their mother, Sa­lome.

• Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb on

188:1.2A cru­ci­fied per­son could not be buried in a Jew­ish ceme­tery; there was a strict law against such a pro­ce­dure. Joseph and Nicode­mus knew this law, and on the way out to Gol­go­tha they had de­cided to bury Je­sus in Joseph’s new fam­ily tomb, hewn out of solid rock, lo­cated a short dis­tance north of Gol­go­tha and across the road lead­ing to Samaria. No one had ever lain in this tomb, and they thought it ap­pro­pri­ate that the Mas­ter should rest there. Joseph re­ally be­lieved that Je­sus would rise from the dead, but Nicode­mus was very doubt­ful. These for­mer mem­bers of the San­hedrin had kept their faith in Je­sus more or less of a se­cret, al­though their fel­low San­hedrists had long sus­pected them, even be­fore they with­drew from the coun­cil. From now on they were the most out­spo­ken dis­ci­ples of Je­sus in all Je­ru­sa­lem.

• Jesus › ascension from

193:5.1It was al­most half past seven o’clock this Thurs­day morn­ing, May 18, when Je­sus ar­rived on the west­ern slope of Mount Oli­vet with his eleven silent and some­what be­wil­dered apos­tles. From this lo­ca­tion, about two thirds the way up the moun­tain, they could look out over Je­ru­sa­lem and down upon Geth­sem­ane. Je­sus now pre­pared to say his last farewell to the apos­tles be­fore he took leave of Uran­tia. As he stood there be­fore them, with­out be­ing di­rected they knelt about him in a cir­cle, and the Mas­ter said: