olive press

183:4.1James Zeb­e­dee found him­self sep­a­rated from Si­mon Pe­ter and his brother John, and so he now joined the other apos­tles and their fel­low campers at the olive press to de­lib­er­ate on what should be done in view of the Mas­ter’s ar­rest.

183:4.2An­drew had been re­leased from all re­spon­si­bil­ity in the group man­age­ment of his fel­low apos­tles; ac­cord­ingly, in this great­est of all crises in their lives, he was silent. Af­ter a short in­for­mal dis­cus­sion, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes stood up on the stone wall of the olive press and, mak­ing an im­pas­sioned plea for loy­alty to the Mas­ter and the cause of the king­dom, ex­horted his fel­low apos­tles and the other dis­ci­ples to has­ten on af­ter the mob and ef­fect the res­cue of Je­sus. The ma­jor­ity of the com­pany would have been dis­posed to fol­low his ag­gres­sive lead­er­ship had it not been for the ad­vice of Na­than­iel, who stood up the mo­ment Si­mon had fin­ished speak­ing and called their at­ten­tion to Je­sus’ oft-re­peated teach­ings re­gard­ing non­re­sis­tance. He fur­ther re­minded them that Je­sus had that very night in­structed them that they should pre­serve their lives for the time when they should go forth into the world pro­claim­ing the good news of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom. And Na­than­iel was en­cour­aged in this stand by James Zeb­e­dee, who now told how Pe­ter and oth­ers drew their swords to de­fend the Mas­ter against ar­rest, and that Je­sus bade Si­mon Pe­ter and his fel­low swords­men sheathe their blades. Mat­thew and Philip also made speeches, but noth­ing def­i­nite came of this dis­cus­sion un­til Thomas, call­ing their at­ten­tion to the fact that Je­sus had coun­seled Laz­a­rus against ex­pos­ing him­self to death, pointed out that they could do noth­ing to save their Mas­ter inas­much as he re­fused to al­low his friends to de­fend him, and since he per­sisted in re­frain­ing from the use of his di­vine pow­ers to frus­trate his hu­man en­e­mies. Thomas per­suaded them to scat­ter, ev­ery man for him­self, with the un­der­stand­ing that David Zeb­e­dee would re­main at the camp to main­tain a clear­ing­house and mes­sen­ger head­quar­ters for the group. By half past two o’clock that morn­ing the camp was de­serted; only David re­mained on hand with three or four mes­sen­gers, the oth­ers hav­ing been dis­patched to se­cure in­for­ma­tion as to where Je­sus had been taken, and what was go­ing to be done with him.

183:4.3Five of the apos­tles, Na­than­iel, Mat­thew, Philip, and the twins, went into hid­ing at Beth­page and Beth­any. Thomas, An­drew, James, and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes were hid­ing in the city. Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee fol­lowed along to the home of An­nas.

183:4.4Shortly af­ter day­break, Si­mon Pe­ter wan­dered back to the Geth­sem­ane camp, a de­jected pic­ture of deep de­spair. David sent him in charge of a mes­sen­ger to join his brother, An­drew, who was at the home of Nicode­mus in Je­ru­sa­lem.

183:4.5Un­til the very end of the cru­ci­fix­ion, John Zeb­e­dee re­mained, as Je­sus had di­rected him, al­ways near at hand, and it was he who sup­plied David’s mes­sen­gers with in­for­ma­tion from hour to hour which they car­ried to David at the gar­den camp, and which was then re­layed to the hid­ing apos­tles and to Je­sus’ fam­ily.

183:4.6Surely, the shep­herd is smit­ten and the sheep are scat­tered! While they all vaguely re­al­ize that Je­sus has fore­warned them of this very sit­u­a­tion, they are too severely shocked by the Mas­ter’s sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance to be able to use their minds nor­mally.

183:4.7It was shortly af­ter day­light and just af­ter Pe­ter had been sent to join his brother, that Jude, Je­sus’ brother in the flesh, ar­rived in the camp, al­most breath­less and in ad­vance of the rest of Je­sus’ fam­ily, only to learn that the Mas­ter had al­ready been placed un­der ar­rest; and he has­tened back down the Jeri­cho road to carry this in­for­ma­tion to his mother and to his broth­ers and sis­ters. David Zeb­e­dee sent word to Je­sus’ fam­ily, by Jude, to for­gather at the house of Martha and Mary in Beth­any and there await news which his mes­sen­gers would reg­u­larly bring them.

183:4.8This was the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the last half of Thurs­day night and the early morn­ing hours of Fri­day as re­gards the apos­tles, the chief dis­ci­ples, and the earthly fam­ily of Je­sus. And all these groups and in­di­vid­u­als were kept in touch with each other by the mes­sen­ger ser­vice which David Zeb­e­dee con­tin­ued to op­er­ate from his head­quar­ters at the Geth­sem­ane camp.

183:0.3Fail­ing to dis­perse his fol­low­ers, the Mas­ter left them and walked down to­ward the olive press near the en­trance to Geth­sem­ane Park. Al­though the three apos­tles, the Greeks, and the other mem­bers of the camp hes­i­tated im­me­di­ately to fol­low him, John Mark has­tened around through the olive trees and se­creted him­self in a small shed near the olive press. Je­sus with­drew from the camp and from his friends in or­der that his ap­pre­hend­ers, when they ar­rived, might ar­rest him with­out dis­turb­ing his apos­tles. The Mas­ter feared to have his apos­tles awake and pres­ent at the time of his ar­rest lest the spec­ta­cle of Ju­das’s be­tray­ing him should so arouse their an­i­mos­ity that they would of­fer re­sis­tance to the sol­diers and would be taken into cus­tody with him. He feared that, if they should be ar­rested with him, they might also per­ish with him.

183:0.5Je­sus sat down, alone, on the olive press, where he awaited the com­ing of the be­trayer, and he was seen at this time only by John Mark and an in­nu­mer­able host of ce­les­tial ob­servers.