Simon of Bethany

• Simon of Bethany

172:5.1This Sun­day evening as they re­turned to Beth­any, Je­sus walked in front of the apos­tles. Not a word was spo­ken un­til they sep­a­rated af­ter ar­riv­ing at Si­mon’s house. No twelve hu­man be­ings ever ex­pe­ri­enced such di­verse and in­ex­pli­ca­ble emo­tions as now surged through the minds and souls of these am­bas­sadors of the king­dom. These sturdy Galileans were con­fused and dis­con­certed; they did not know what to ex­pect next; they were too sur­prised to be much afraid. They knew noth­ing of the Mas­ter’s plans for the next day, and they asked no ques­tions. They went to their lodg­ings, though they did not sleep much, save the twins. But they did not keep armed watch over Je­sus at Si­mon’s house.

• Simon of Bethany

173:0.1Early on this Mon­day morn­ing, by pre­ar­range­ment, Je­sus and the apos­tles as­sem­bled at the home of Si­mon in Beth­any, and af­ter a brief con­fer­ence they set out for Je­ru­sa­lem. The twelve were strangely silent as they jour­neyed on to­ward the tem­ple; they had not re­cov­ered from the ex­pe­ri­ence of the pre­ced­ing day. They were ex­pec­tant, fear­ful, and pro­foundly af­fected by a cer­tain feel­ing of de­tach­ment grow­ing out of the Mas­ter’s sud­den change of tac­tics, cou­pled with his in­struc­tion that they were to en­gage in no pub­lic teach­ing through­out this Pass­over week.

172:1.2Six days be­fore the Pass­over, on the evening af­ter the Sab­bath, all Beth­any and Beth­page joined in cel­e­brat­ing the ar­rival of Je­sus by a pub­lic ban­quet at the home of Si­mon. This sup­per was in honor of both Je­sus and Laz­a­rus; it was ten­dered in de­fi­ance of the San­hedrin. Martha di­rected the serv­ing of the food; her sis­ter Mary was among the women on­look­ers as it was against the cus­tom of the Jews for a woman to sit at a pub­lic ban­quet. The agents of the San­hedrin were pres­ent, but they feared to ap­pre­hend Je­sus in the midst of his friends.

172:1.3Je­sus talked with Si­mon about Joshua of old, whose name­sake he was, and re­cited how Joshua and the Is­raelites had come up to Je­ru­sa­lem through Jeri­cho. In com­ment­ing on the leg­end of the walls of Jeri­cho falling down, Je­sus said: “I am not con­cerned with such walls of brick and stone; but I would cause the walls of prej­u­dice, self-righ­teous­ness, and hate to crum­ble be­fore this preach­ing of the Fa­ther’s love for all men.”

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.

174:0.1About seven o’clock on this Tues­day morn­ing Je­sus met the apos­tles, the women’s corps, and some two dozen other promi­nent dis­ci­ples at the home of Si­mon. At this meet­ing he said farewell to Laz­a­rus, giv­ing him that in­struc­tion which led him so soon to flee to Phil­a­del­phia in Perea, where he later be­came con­nected with the mis­sion­ary move­ment hav­ing its head­quar­ters in that city. Je­sus also said good-bye to the aged Si­mon, and gave his part­ing ad­vice to the women’s corps, as he never again for­mally ad­dressed them.

172:0.1Je­sus and the apos­tles ar­rived at Beth­any shortly af­ter four o’clock on Fri­day af­ter­noon, March 31, A.D. 30. Laz­a­rus, his sis­ters, and their friends were ex­pect­ing them; and since so many peo­ple came ev­ery day to talk with Laz­a­rus about his res­ur­rec­tion, Je­sus was in­formed that ar­range­ments had been made for him to stay with a neigh­bor­ing be­liever, one Si­mon, the lead­ing cit­i­zen of the lit­tle vil­lage since the death of Laz­a­rus’s fa­ther.

172:2.1On this Sun­day morn­ing, in Si­mon’s beau­ti­ful gar­den, the Mas­ter called his twelve apos­tles around him and gave them their fi­nal in­struc­tions prepara­tory to en­ter­ing Je­ru­sa­lem. He told them that he would prob­a­bly de­liver many ad­dresses and teach many lessons be­fore re­turn­ing to the Fa­ther but ad­vised the apos­tles to re­frain from do­ing any pub­lic work dur­ing this Pass­over so­journ in Je­ru­sa­lem. He in­structed them to re­main near him and to “watch and pray.” Je­sus knew that many of his apos­tles and im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers even then car­ried swords con­cealed on their per­sons, but he made no ref­er­ence to this fact.

172:2.3Early that morn­ing David Zeb­e­dee had turned over to Ju­das the funds re­al­ized from the sale of the equip­ment of the Pella en­camp­ment, and Ju­das, in turn, had placed the greater part of this money in the hands of Si­mon, their host, for safe­keep­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the ex­i­gen­cies of their en­try into Je­ru­sa­lem.

152:7.1Sun­day, April 3, Je­sus, ac­com­pa­nied only by the twelve apos­tles, started from Beth­saida on the jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem. To avoid the mul­ti­tudes and to at­tract as lit­tle at­ten­tion as pos­si­ble, they jour­neyed by way of Gerasa and Phil­a­del­phia. He for­bade them to do any pub­lic teach­ing on this trip; nei­ther did he per­mit them to teach or preach while so­journ­ing in Je­ru­sa­lem. They ar­rived at Beth­any, near Je­ru­sa­lem, late on Wednes­day evening, April 6. For this one night they stopped at the home of Laz­a­rus, Martha, and Mary, but the next day they sep­a­rated. Je­sus, with John, stayed at the home of a be­liever named Si­mon, near the house of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any. Ju­das Is­car­iot and Si­mon Ze­lo­tes stopped with friends in Je­ru­sa­lem, while the rest of the apos­tles so­journed, two and two, in dif­fer­ent homes.