‘JESUS steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ These words in Luke are well chosen. They mark the purposefulness with which the gallant Galilean now proceeded towards the spiritual and political capital of the Jewish nation. Here, and here alone, the messianic drama must be acted out. The city was by no means unfamiliar to Jesus; but for him it was not merely a busy metropolis with crowded noisy streets, with men and merchandise from many lands, magnificent buildings and squalid hovels: it was the Holy City, the place of God's House, the preordained centre of the Kingdom of God reaching out to redeem and bless all nations. Jerusalem and the Messiah, both were the subjects of mighty prophecies and inspired visions. Their destinies were interwoven while the earth endured, until all things that were written should be accomplished.
Today Jerusalem was under a cloud. The heathen ruled there. Roman troops in Fort Antonia kept surveillance over the Temple courts. There was unseemly haggling and huckstering in the sacred enclosure, and evil was wrought in high places. Unless there was a penitent turning to the Lord from the highest to the lowest the present city would perish in anguish. The suffering which the Messiah was required to undergo at Jerusalem would be infinitely multiplied in the doom which would overtake the city. But Jerusalem, like the Messiah, would rise again in newness of life as the City of God where his anointed king would reign in peace and in righteousness. At the first there would be the Passover: at the last there would be Tabernacles, the feast of ingathering.
It was the season of Tabernacles now, in the fall of the year, an opportunity to make a bid to reclaim the soul of Israel before it should be too late. If this failed, then . . . ‘Jesus steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ His mission there was to occupy three months from October to January. A parable quoted only by Luke comes in aptly in this connection.
‘A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he came in quest of fruit on it, but found none. “For three years now,” he told the gardener, “I have come in quest of fruit on this fig tree, but I have never found any. Cut it down. Why should it take up ground-space?” “Let it be for this year, sir,” replied the gardener, “to give me a chance to dig round it and manure it. If it should bear fruit next year—well, you can still cut it down if it doesn't.”’
Jesus followed a route from Galilee which would take him through Samaria. The Samaritans, to whom the Temple at Jerusalem was a false sanctuary, the true one where they worshipped being on Mount Gerizim, were hostile to Jews from the north passing through their territory on the way to Jerusalem for the festivals, and sometimes attacked them. But Jesus must have felt that the risk just now was considerably less than if he travelled by the alternative route through Perea on the east of the Jordan, where he was liable to encounter the forces of Herod Antipas. He had no intention of falling into the hands of ‘that fox’.
Luke's narrative seems to tie in here with John's report of the secret journey of Jesus to Jerusalem at the time of the feast of Tabernacles.1 According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus had been challenged by his sceptical brothers to go up to Jerusalem for the festival and bring himself to public attention. He had refused to join the Galilean caravan, which would be taking the Perean road, because of the world's (Herod's?) enmity towards him. ‘Go ye up unto this feast,’ he told his brothers. ‘I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.’ Jesus stayed on in Galilee, ‘but when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret’.
We have to be very guarded in our use of the Fourth Gospel because what is left in it of the reminiscences of the unnamed Judean disciple whom Jesus loved has been so overworked, strained and subordinated to the theological interests of the Greek elder at Ephesus who fathered the Gospel in support of his own ideas. But to pursue the activities of Jesus in the south at this period we have largely to utilise this Gospel since, except in some matters introduced by Luke, the Markan (Galilean) tradition does not deal with the Judean ministry. It is not difficult to understand this omission, as we shall see; but it is most unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that we do not have the unnamed disciple's evidence intact. However, as regards the movements of Jesus during the Judean ministry and certain other features which reflect local conditions and circumstances it is probable that the Greek author has retained a good deal of what was in his source.
The movements of Jesus may then be traced approximately as follows. He arrived at Jerusalem in October during the feast of Tabernacles, and remained there for about three months, until shortly after the feast of Dedication in late December.2 Then he went east to the Jordan to the ford of the river (Beth-abara), not far north of its exit into the Dead Sea, where John had preached.3 He returned hastily to Bethany near Jerusalem on learning of the serious illness of his friend Lazarus. After this he retired again to a Judean town called Ephraim at the edge of the wilderness near the Jordan a good many miles north-east of Jerusalem.4 Mark, followed by Matthew, omits altogether the stay of Jesus at Jerusalem and the visit to Bethabara, but possibly jumps to his sojourn at Ephraim, when it is said: ‘And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the farther side of Jordan.’5 Luke, as we have indicated, preserves some trace of the beginning of the Judean ministry, since he makes Jesus set out for Jerusalem via Samaria, and his next point of locality is the arrival of Jesus at a certain village (Bethany) where he is welcomed by a woman called Martha, who had a sister Mary.6 Luke does not mention their brother Lazarus, though he makes Jesus tell a story of the death of a beggar of that name which may have a connection with the tradition peculiar to John of the raising of Lazarus.7 Luke too has no reference to the activities of Jesus in Jerusalem, but he brings in uniquely how Jesus was informed of Pilate's slaughter of Galileans in the city. But these omissions of the first three Gospels do not mean that the tradition behind Mark was altogether ignorant of the ministry of Jesus at Jerusalem. When Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane we have the saying; ‘I was daily with you in the Temple teaching, and ye took me not.’8 This would hardly refer to the day or two when Jesus was in the Temple in Passion week, but rather to his daily teaching in the previous autumn, when, as the Fourth Gospel states, attempts were made to take him, ‘but no man laid hands on him’.
Briefly here we should consider the reasons why a consequential part of the life of Jesus is passed over by the synoptic Gospels. In the first place these Gospels are related to the early Christian Testimony Book, where the prophecies from the Old Testament were most heavily massed at the climax of the story which was the hardest to explain to Jewish audiences. There was a leading up to the moment when Jesus entered Jerusalem as the King Messiah, and from then on the testimonies dealt with his rejection, betrayal, suffering and resurrection. The Testimony Book was not a biography, though it offered a roughly biographical outline of the ministry. It was not concerned, therefore, with any experiences of Jesus in Jerusalem before Palm Sunday. It was only needed to bring him to Jerusalem for the events of Passion Week. When Mark was composed the narrative was fitted to the testimony outline, followed in turn by Matthew and Luke, though with greater difficulty because of their additional material, especially the teaching document ‘Q’.9 An account of the three months Jesus spent at Jerusalem could have got into Mark, if the Petrine tradition had spoken of it. But evidently it did not. The Galilean disciples of Jesus were not at home or happy in the atmosphere of Judea and Jerusalem, where their provincialisms of speech and manners caused comment, and where they felt their intimacy with Jesus weakened by his friendship and regard for others, notably Lazarus and the unnamed Beloved Disciple. There is no direct reference to either in the synoptic Gospels.
Without the Fourth Gospel we could not know that Peter was not only well acquainted with the unnamed disciple, but was also jealous of the affection Jesus had for him. Their first meeting was perhaps after the baptism of Jesus. The Gospel speaks of two disciples of John the Baptist who followed Jesus. One of them was Andrew, Peter's brother, and it is to be inferred that the other was the Beloved Disciple, who there is reason to believe was a young Jewish priest from Jerusalem.10 He would have met Peter when Andrew brought his brother to Jesus. We do not encounter the young man again until the scene shifts to Jerusalem in Passion Week. But unless he was often in the company of Jesus during the three months with which we are at present concerned there would have been almost no record of this period at all. Four times we find him linked with Peter. At the Last Supper he occupies a place of honour, leaning on the breast of Jesus, and Peter invites him to ask Jesus to identify the one who will betray him. After the arrest of Jesus the disciple effects Peter's entry into the palace of Annas where Jesus had first been taken. When it is reported that the body of Jesus has been removed from the tomb, the disciple runs with Peter to the sepulchre and outdistances him. The final reference is where Peter asks the risen Jesus about the young man's future role, and exhibits jealousy of him. In the circumstances we would hardly expect the devoted Peter to be forthcoming about the part played by the Judean disciple who was so close to Jesus.
This digression has been necessary to explain the silence of the synoptic Gospels concerning the activities of Jesus at Jerusalem at the close of the year before his death. We can forgive the author of the Fourth Gospel a great deal in our gratitude to him for having preserved information which is vital to our understanding of how Jesus laid his plans. Unwittingly this Gospel furnishes the key to what transpired in Passion Week. It does not simply supplement the story of the first three Gospels: it compels us to read that story quite differently and in a much more revealing light.
The events of Passion Week, still some months away, had their origin in what happened now in Jerusalem. Jesus had three things to accomplish, first to deliver his prophetic call to national repentance in the very heart of Jewish life and worship where it would reach the greatest number and command the most attention, second to bring himself personally to the notice of the highest Jewish authorities, who previously had only certain reports of his activities in Galilee, and third, with the help of his friends, to set the stage for the revelation of himself as the Messiah and the accomplishment of his destiny. Jesus had to an extent discerned how the prophecies would have their fulfilment; but he did not imagine that everything would come about automatically at a time and in a manner unknown to him. To the contrary, he appreciated fully that what must come to pass would demand of him the most careful timing, planning and organisation. Throughout his ministry he had acted purposefully and with decision, in conscious command of his affairs and exhibiting remarkable capacity for exploiting situations. It is quite unthinkable that at this advanced and crucial stage of his mission he was proposing to play a passive part and leave everything to fate.
In going up to Jerusalem Jesus was deliberately embarking on the most difficult and dangerous of all his enterprises, where a false move could wreck everything. He was not among his own Galileans now, but in more critical Judea, where even his accent was against him. Who would heed a prophet who spoke the outlandish tongue of the north? Many would make fun of him or treat him as a madman. Moreover, he would have to contend with powers and forces alien to his experience. Never before had he had to pit his wits against the subtle political brains of the supreme Jewish and Roman authorities. Yet he was quite sure he would not fail, because the Spirit of God was working in him and through him. But this would be the supreme test of his faith, and the ultimate proof that he was indeed the Messiah.
Whatever view we may take of the chronology of the life of Jesus, it is not to be doubted that the atmosphere in Jerusalem at this time was tense and anxious, though on the surface things might appear fairly normal. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate was detested, and the lordly family of Annas, which held the sacred office of high priest in fee with gold from its well-filled coffers, was feared and resented. But lately the ire both of the Sanhedrin and the people had been concentrated on the blundering and high-handed Pilate, who had laid impious hands on the dedicated treasure of the Temple (the Corban) to construct a conduit to bring additional water to the city. There had been a demonstration against him, which the governor broke up by dressing a number of his soldiers in civilian clothes, but carrying weapons under their cloaks, who at a given signal fell upon the crowd and killed and wounded many. The populace may have been more threatening than the first-century Jewish historian Josephus reports, and some may have risen in arms and struck back. Luke refers to Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and Mark speaks of a certain Barabbas and others with him held prisoners for their part in the insurrection.11
The chief priests, as a consequence of the outbreak, were at this juncture in no enviable position. Antagonistic to Pilate, they had to dissimulate and maintain courteous diplomatic relations with him as Caesar's representative, while scheming to get him so discredited that Tiberius would be forced to recall him. If they were to succeed, it was imperative that there should be no further anti-Roman riots in Jerusalem, which would only play into the governor's hands, and enable him to plead complete justification for his actions on the ground of the continual rebelliousness of the Jews. What the chief priests wanted to show was that while they were loyal to the emperor, Pilate's personal conduct was fomenting disaffection by wilful aggression and violation of legitimate religious customs.
With this top-level struggle in progress, a struggle on the Jewish side for the survival of what was left of spiritual and political autonomy, Jesus by his coming to Jerusalem was adding a fresh complication. The last thing that was wanted by the Sanhedrin at the moment was the appearance of a would-be prophet, especially one of those fiery and unpredictable Galileans, capable of rousing the masses and inviting strong Roman punitive measures. That other agitator John the Baptist was dead, and at least he had operated in the territory of Antipas on the far side of the Jordan. But this Jesus who had sprung up to take his place had not kept to his own country of Galilee, and daringly and most inconveniently he had now come to the capital and was making himself heard in the Temple itself. He must be zealously watched and at all costs prevented from stirring up trouble.
The new difficulties had started when at the close of the feast of Tabernacles, on the great day of the feast, Jesus had entered the Temple and had begun to preach in the outer court. He was perfectly entitled to do this; but it was quite evident that he was not simply imparting religious instruction, he was declaiming with the voice of authority like one of the ancient prophets, crying aloud so that he could not fail to be heard. It was reported to the authorities that he was attracting excited crowds, some of the people debating dangerously whether he could be the expected Prophet or the Messiah himself. If nothing was done there might be serious developments, and the Roman commander at Fort Antonia would want to know why the Temple police were failing in their duty to keep the peace. Officers were therefore sent to bring Jesus in for interrogation. They returned empty-handed, according to the Fourth Gospel, explaining that ‘never man spake like this man’. There may have been other good reasons for their failure, that Jesus was saying nothing subversive or inflammatory, that he was surrounded by tough Galileans capable of offering resistance, that intervention instead of calming the crowd might provoke an outbreak of violence. Evidently the police were satisfied that no present trouble was threatened, and that it was best to leave well alone.
So far as Jesus was concerned he was attaining two immediate objectives: he was proclaiming his message where it would have the maximum effect, in the centre of Jewish worship, and he was bringing himself prominently to the attention both of rulers and people. By confining his preaching to the cloisters of the Temple, where it was customary to hold religious debate, and by refraining from giving any support to contentions that he was the Messiah, he avoided undue personal risk. There is no record that he ever addressed the people in the streets of the city, and there were no grounds on which serious proceedings could be taken against him. Some members of his audience in the Temple might be hostile to him, but the presence of his sturdy Galilean disciples was an adequate deterrent to any effective attack. In the event, no man laid hands on him. Jesus had no intention of meeting with any other end than had been prophesied. We do not hear of him spending a single night in Jerusalem. It was wiser that he should not pass through the narrow streets after dark, or lodge in any house in the city. To be spirited away to rot in a dungeon, or die by the dagger thrust of an assassin, would completely defeat the prophecies. As he is reported to have said: ‘Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.’
Jesus did not stumble or put a foot wrong. Carefully he matured the plans which would secure his objectives.
As the base for his operations Jesus had found a most convenient haven in the village of Bethany on the far side of the Mount of Olives east of Jerusalem. He had been welcomed there by a woman called Martha, who had a sister Mary and also a brother Lazarus. A strong bond of affection was forged between Jesus and this family.
The advantage to Jesus of having this home at Bethany was that he had somewhere he could relax, where he could not readily be taken by surprise, and where he was within comfortable walking distance of Jerusalem. As he constantly made his way to the city over the Mount of Olives there was before him a panoramic view of Jerusalem with its massive walls and noble buildings, and particularly of the Temple crowned with the snowy marble majesty of the Holy House, topped with its roofs of glittering gold. As he descended into the valley of the brook Kedron, he passed close to the olive orchard, the Garden of Gethsemane, to which he sometimes resorted with his disciples, and down to the left were the ornate mausoleums of noble families, whited sepulchres. Almost every stone of the road must have become familiar.
Entering Jerusalem by the Valley Gate, in proximity to the Pool of Siloam, Jesus followed the street of the valley of cheese-makers which ran through the midst of the city and led up towards the Temple. On the left was the Akra or Lower City, the poorest quarter, and to the right the jutting spur of the Ophel which had been David's city where lived many of the priests, and where we may believe the unnamed priest, the Beloved Disciple, had his house. So he came to the Sanctuary his destination.
We take note of these topographical features, which Jesus saw almost daily at this period, because several of them helped to shape the design which was materialising in his mind. Bethany, Gethsemane, the city gate, the house on the hill, all would play their part. The whole route would be that by which Jesus would make his regal entry into Jerusalem.
It had been made clear to Jesus very quickly that there was no prospect that his message would be heeded by more than a very few in Judea and Jerusalem as had been the case in Galilee. What had been foreordained would therefore come to pass. Methodically he set about his preparations. In what he had to organise his closest Galilean associates, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, could not assist him. They would obey his orders, but he could not confide his plans to them. Their minds rejected the thought of his suffering, and were filled with expectations that in some marvellous manner he would triumph over the Romans and their satellites and forthwith inaugurate his kingdom. But there were others who could serve his purpose, local disciples on whose fidelity he could count. We know two of them for whom he had a high regard, Lazarus and the unnamed young priest whom it will be more convenient hereafter to call John. Even to them, however, Jesus could not disclose his designs. They too might not understand, and in any case he did not wish to involve them more than was absolutely essential. The greatest secrecy and circumspection was demanded, and the less they knew the better it would be for them and the safer for himself. Each would only be informed separately of the service required of him, and what was asked would not seem too strange or unreasonable in view of the physical danger in which he would stand once he was proclaimed as the Messiah.
John would be useful in another way, for contact with secret disciples and sympathisers in the Sanhedrin. Through this channel not only could messages be conveyed; but Jesus would have knowledge of any designs of the Council against him. There was one other man among his immediate followers on whom Jesus had his eye in working out his plans, Judas Iscariot, whom the Fourth Gospel calls the son of Simon, probably Simon the Zealot, another of the twelve who immediately precedes Judas in Mark's list.
By the time Jesus left Jerusalem in January his business there was very nearly finished and the stage set for the drama to be enacted at the Passover some three months later. There was every reason why he should choose this festival in particular as the season of his revelation and of his suffering. Its symbolism and associations were altogether appropriate and in keeping with the prophecies.
The Passover was celebrated in Nisan, the first month in the Jewish calendar. It was the great festival of liberation, ‘the season of our freedom’. It commemorated the wonders wrought of old in Egypt, when God delivered his people from bondage by the hand of Moses with signs and wonders, and it looked forward to the final salvation of Israel by the hand of the Messiah, the Son of David. The chief symbol of the feast was the paschal lamb offered on behalf of each household, and eaten in common by the company after being roasted whole. At the first Passover, the blood of the lamb had been sprinkled on the external door-posts and lintel of the houses of the Israelites, so that when the Angel of Death went through the land of Egypt to destroy the first-born of the oppressors he would see the sign and pass over the first-born of the oppressed.
Jesus saw himself not only as the predestined king and liberator of his people, but also at the present juncture as the instrument of their deliverance from the bondage of sin and death by an act of personal sacrifice, by offering himself as ‘a lamb brought to slaughter’. With the unleavened bread of his body and the bitter herbs of humiliation would this Passover sacrifice be accomplished in accordance with the Scriptures, with his own blood poured out like the wine of the festival.
But afterwards he would be glorified; for the Passover spoke also of resurrection in the dedication to God of the first fruits of barley on the morrow after the Passover Sabbath, and in the prayers for dew initiated on the first day. It was written: ‘The dead shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.’12 ‘I will heal their backsliding . . . I will be as the dew unto Israel.’13
Thus it was settled that at the coming Passover Jesus would reveal himself publicly to Israel as the Messiah. His hour, so long awaited, would have come.
1. Jn. vii.
2. Jn. vii–ix.
3. Jn. i. 28. x. 40–2,
4. Jn. xi. 54.
5. Mk. x. 1; Mt. xix. 1.
6. Lk. ix. 51–3, x. 38–9.
7. Lk. xvi. 19–31. According to the parable, the fate of the rich man in hell is contrasted with that of Lazarus. The rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brethren ‘lest they also come to this place of torment’. Abraham replies, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them: But the rich man insists, ‘Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.’ To which Abraham answers, ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.’ In the story we are not told whether Lazarus is raised from the dead as he is in John's Gospel; but the coincidence of the name associated with resurrection is unlikely to be fortuitous.
8. Mk. xiv. 49; Mt. xxvi. 55; Lk. xxii. 53.
9. See Part Two, Chapter 4, Gospels in the Making.
10. See Part Two, Chapter 5, The Second Phase.
11. See Lk. xiii. 1 and Mk. xv. 7.
12. Isa. xxvi. 19.
13. Hos. xiv. 4–5.