There were no dissenting votes to the plan and Caiaphas instructed Abiathar to put it into operation. What the high priest did not know, however, was that even as the Priestly Council plotted together, Jesus had already decided to leave Bethany with a great party of Galileans and others. He was coming to enter Jerusalem and to teach boldly in the temple itself.
II
Jesus’ decision to enter Jerusalem that day, the first of the Passover week, had been announced in Bethany by Lazarus and the disciples. Shortly after sunrise, people began to gather at the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus to accompany Him.
On the outskirts of Bethany beside the road leading into Jerusalem lay the small village of Bethphage, meaning “House of Figs,” a name given to both the village and the surrounding area because of the large groves of fig trees there. Peter and John had been dispatched to this village with instructions from Jesus to find an ass and its colt which had not been ridden and to bring them both to Him on the road between Bethany and Bethphage. On the way the two disciples spread the news that Jesus would enter Jerusalem that very day in defiance of the high priest and the Sanhedrin. The story traveled rapidly through the village and soon a crowd had gathered beside the road along which Jesus and His party would pass.
Word had also been sent ahead to the large group of Galileans and others who had accompanied Jesus from Peraea and who were now camped on the western slope of the Mount of Olives. According to the plan worked out by Peter and John as leaders of the disciples, this group would join the procession just before they reached the city gates, swelling its numbers so impressively that not even Caiaphas would dare molest Jesus.
Jesus was halfway between Bethany and Bethphage when Peter and John met Him with the ass and its colt. Folding their robes to make cushions upon which Jesus could ride, they placed Him upon the back of the colt. When Jesus had mounted the colt, the procession was ready to begin once more.
As he rejoined the disciples, Peter passed Mary of Magdala, walking with the other women. The tall fisherman’s face was happy and filled with pride.
“You were wrong, Mary!” he greeted her. “Do you see the colt that Jesus is riding upon?”
Mary smiled for she was very fond of the impetuous fisherman. “It shows Jesus is not afraid to go into Jerusalem. I knew that all the time.”
“Don’t you know what His entering Jerusalem on a colt means?” Peter exclaimed.
“You forget that I was almost a heathen for a long time,” Mary reminded him. “Until Jesus freed me.”
“Zechariah prophesied exactly what is happening today,” Peter said. “I know the words by heart.”
“Then tell them to me,” she prompted.
Peter scratched his beard. “Let me see. Yes, this is the way it goes:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem:
Behold your King comes to you.
He is just and having salvation;
Lowly, and riding upon an ass,
And upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”
Judas and Simon Zelotes were walking nearby, listening to Peter and Mary. Now the Zealot spoke. “You neglected the most important part, Peter, where the prophet says:
“And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim,
And the horse from Jerusalem.
The battle bow shall be cut off,
And He shall speak peace to the heathen.
His domain shall be from sea to sea,
And from the river even to the ends of the earth.”
Mary looked ahead to where Jesus rode at the head of the procession with the people going before Him, singing and shouting to announce His triumphant passage. “I hope you are right, my friends,” she said fervently. “With all my heart, I hope you are right.”
She did not remind them of another prophecy from the greatest of the prophets, Isaiah, which she remembered from her childhood, a prophecy which had applied to Jesus on other occasions, and which she hoped from her soul did not apply to Him now: “He is despised and rejected of men.”
III
The news that the prophet of Nazareth, He whose actions now seemed to declare Him the Messiah, was coming boldly into Jerusalem set the city in a ferment.
“Who is this?” people demanded of each other. “Who dares defy the will of the high priest and the Sanhedrin?”
No one knew the answer, but many wanted to see Jesus. They had all at one time or another secretly nursed the impulse to speak out against the burden of tribute levied upon them for the support of the luxury-loving priests. They had resented the even heavier burden of the Law as interpreted by the Pharisees and rabbis who worked in close cooperation with the Sadducees. Many were driven now by mere curiosity, but many others had been healed by Jesus on previous visits or had heard Him teach, and believed in Him. Still others had seen the miracles—granting sight to blind Joachim, healing the man by the pool of Bethesda, raising Lazarus from the dead—and they had come to believe that the gentle Nazarene was indeed the Son of God.
Thus for various reasons a great crowd of people streamed out through the gates on the Bethany road to meet Jesus and escort Him into the city. They were insuring for themselves a place where they would be able to see the most dramatic and exciting event of the week, the clash between Jesus with His Galilean followers and the high priest’s forces which sought to destroy Him.
Meanwhile, the head of the procession escorting Jesus from Bethany was just reaching the junction with the main caravan road between Jericho and Jerusalem. The most southerly of the three routes entering the city on this side, it was a rough but fairly broad track cut into the slope of the Mount of Olives. Washed by the winter rains, the path was rocky and filled with loose stones, making travel slow. On the left was the steep declivity of the mountainside while on the right loomed the shoulder of the Mount of Olives.
At Bethphage the road was lined with fig trees which grew in the rocky soil and produced well under the influence of the moreh. By now Bethany was out of sight behind the shoulder of the mount, and the stream of people pouring out of Bethphage to join the procession filled the rocky track and prevented anyone from passing.
At Bethphage they had already entered the outskirts of Jerusalem, although the main part of the city was still out of sight around the shoulder of the Mount of Olives on the right. Here, they began to meet the vanguard of those coming out through the gates. The Jerusalem Jews were somewhat more familiar with the ancient writings than those from the provinces, for the city abounded in teachers and synagogues where the pronouncements of the prophets were read regularly during the sacred services. The significance of the way in which the procession was organized struck some of these immediately. For Jesus had chosen to enter Jerusalem in the manner which the prophets had said would characterize the coming of the Messiah, “upon a colt, the foal of an ass.”
A shout of praise and wonder went up from these newcomers, to be caught up and echoed again and again along the line of people as word of its cause was passed back to them. And with that shout, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem became something other than the usual procession of a teacher with a considerable following.
“Hosanna to the Son of David!” someone cried.
Instantly a dozen answering cries arose. “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
These phrases were usually chanted by the people as a response in the sacred readings of the psalm which began with:
O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good:
Because His mercy endures forever.
Like a flame sweeping through a field of dry straw, a burst of fervor swept through the crowd, firing those who had come from Bethany and Bethphage with excitement over what, it seemed, had now become the triumphal entry of a king into the Holy City.
Progress was slow, for the crowd had now begun to break palm and olive branches from the groves and gardens that lined the roadway to cast them before Jesus. Some, in the sheer excess of enthusiasm, took off their robes and spread them on the rocky path to make a carpet over which He could pass.
As they marched, the people continued to cry, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” until Simon Peter, his tall form easily visible above the heads of the crowd, started to shout the verses of the psalm which, according to tradition, was chanted as a welcome to pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the feasts.
“Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord,” he intoned in a voice that carried easily along the procession and echoed from the shoulder of the mountain beside the road.
“O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity,” the people answered in unison.
“Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord,” Peter chanted.
“We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord,” the people replied.
“God is the Lord, which hath showed us the light.”
“Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar,” the people answered.
“Thou art my God and I will praise thee.”
“Thou art my God, I will exalt thee.”
Then, as was the custom, the entire body chanted in unison the concluding verse, “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good. For His mercy endures forever.”
As they rounded an outthrust crag, a breathtaking vista of the city momentarily lay before them. The temple in the northerly part of Jerusalem was still hidden behind the slope of the Mount of Olives but the sacred Mount of Zion was clearly visible in the warm spring air. Terrace upon terrace ascended the slope of the mount, surrounding the luxurious palaces of the high priest, the Maccabees, and the richer men of the city. Upon the summit was the great palace of Herod, located where the palace of David had risen almost a millennium before. Even the turreted battlements of the fortress, tangibly threatening, could not detract from the rich beauty of the gardens, the green brought forth by the spring rains for this most sacred of all seasons.
This was the real Jerusalem, the monument to a God who had made the people His very own through the ages, a place of worship and thanksgiving for His mercy and His divine love. Seen thus, hardly anyone could doubt that Jerusalem would endure forever, in spite of venal priests, in spite of injustices, intolerance, cruelty, in spite of the deliberate forgetting of God’s laws.
The long procession was now passing over the ridge that marked the highest part of the road before beginning the descent of the Mount of Olives to the gates of Jerusalem itself.
As it moved, it gathered new recruits, more and more people joining the throng to swell the shouting that floated across the Kedron Valley to the guards at the gate through which the procession must pass.
It was too late for Caiaphas to stop Jesus now. The entire complement of Abiathar’s guards would have been thrust aside by the sheer numbers of the throng which now accompanied the Nazarene.
As the road began to descend, the view of Jerusalem was for a moment cut off, and as if the removal of the threat posed by the momentary glimpse of Herod’s citadel had released them, the disciples led by Simon Peter cast off all restraint.
“Blessed be the King!” they shouted boldly now. “The King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some Pharisees who owned estates along the road had come out to see the cause of the clamor. Horrified that the disciples had dared to name Jesus King, an act of treason, they called out to Him: “Master, rebuke Your disciples!”
Jesus drew the animal He was riding to a halt in order to answer the Pharisees.
“If these should hold their peace,” He said, “the stones would immediately cry out.”
At His tone and His words, the Pharisees fell back in horror, but when the people heard Him thus announce His own kingship, a great shout burst from them again as they hailed Him for the Son of David so long expected by the Jews as their Savior.
“Behold, the whole world has gone after Him!” one of the Pharisees said in amazement.
Moving again, the procession followed the path as it climbed slightly, following a short but rugged section of roadway until it came out upon a broad ledge of solid rock almost like a floor. Here the full glory of Jerusalem burst before their eyes.
Seen across the deepest part of the Kedron Valley, the effect was that of a great golden city rising from an abyss, a truly spectacular and inspiring sight. Dwarfing even the beauty and magnificence of the city itself was the broad area of the sanctuary with the temple courts opened out around it like the pages of a book. The sun shone with its fullest brilliance and the great golden dome blinded the eyes like the glory of God itself. Even the plume of black smoke rising from the altars of sacrifice could not detract from the beauty of the scene as, clearly heard across the intervening depths, came the clear tone of a Levite’s trumpet, calling the devout to worship.
The breathtaking beauty of the city, bursting on them so suddenly, momentarily stilled the clamor of the crowd. In the silence only one voice was heard, a voice torn by anguish almost beyond bearing.
“O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!” Jesus cried as tears ran down His cheeks. “If you had known, at least in this day, the things which belonged to your peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. The day shall come when your enemies shall cast a trench about you and compass you around and keep you in on every side. And shall lay you even with the ground, and your children with you. They shall not leave in you one stone upon another, because you knew not the time of your visitation!”
Jesus’ voice broke on the last word and He turned His eyes away, reaching blindly for the rope as He started His colt moving again.
Chapter 28
My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a “den of thieves.”
Luke 19:46
Pontius Pilate was not in a pleasant mood. For more than six years he had ruled in Judea for the Emperor Tiberius, longer than any procurator before him, more than long enough, in his opinion, for any one man to be assigned to such an outpost of hell. It was not so much that the climate or even the country itself was bad. Caesarea on the seacoast was tolerable enough, and the winter palace of Herod Antipas in Jericho from which he had just come was quite comfortable, as was the lovely villa Herod had placed at his disposal at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. There were many good things, in fact, to be said for the land. What made life so burdensome in this part of the world was the people, their eternal contentiousness, their constant vying with each other for control, and the various contrasting shades of nationality represented among them. In fact, all Jews seemed alike in only one respect: a hatred for Rome.
Other captive peoples had shown their good judgment, in Pilate’s opinion, by accepting Roman rule for what it was, the strongest civilizing influence the world had ever known. Rome had almost finished pacifying Gaul, and great universities, population centers with a real culture of their own, were springing up all over that pleasant and prosperous land. Even the barbarians to the north occasionally had the good sense to accept Roman rule philosophically and absorb from it what they could—while, it was true, preparing for new resistance.
But at least they fought battles like soldiers and died bravely on the battlefield.
The Jews were different, and even after years as ruler of Judea, Pilate admitted that he had never come really to understand them. The priestly class, under Caiaphas and Annas, were as luxury-loving and greedy as any Roman official. Those impulses Pilate could understand, but the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and the absurd attention to ritual was another matter. Those he would never comprehend, but he had noticed that when it came to the consummation of a shrewd business deal, they were as ruthless as any, rarely practicing what was taught in their ancient writings.
&n
bsp; Then there were the fanatics, like the followers of the fellow Barabbas who was a prisoner in the dungeons of the Antonia in Jerusalem. One thing alone had saved Barabbas, the accident of Roman citizenship. Even a brigand could carry his case to Rome, though the emperor nearly always supported the decisions of his provincial governor.
If ever there was a senseless rebellion, that was it, Pilate thought as he rode from Jericho to Jerusalem this fine spring morning. Caiaphas had been angry because his own guards for the temple had not been able to handle the situation. Knowing Caiaphas, Pilate was sure that if he had been able to keep the swiftly rising revolt in hand, Barabbas would have been spirited away from the temple and the dagger of a sicarius would have found its way between his ribs before he had had a chance to demand a Roman trial. Caiaphas had handled situations like that before and Pilate admired his thoroughness—up to a point.
The forces with Barabbas had been small, only a few turbulent Galileans. Success could have come only through arousing enough people to join him once the fighting began. Considering that the city teemed with robbers and those who hated Rome, enough might easily have joined Barabbas if the affair had lasted sufficiently long to make the people believe Roman power was unable to control the situation. It was this possibility which had moved Pilate to order his small complement of Roman soldiers out of the Antonia and into the temple itself when the first outcry of revolt was raised. Revolution, he had learned by experience, was much like a forest fire. Stamp out the first blaze and nothing follows, but let the fire make only a little headway and it quickly flames out of control.
Pilate smiled now as he remembered Caiaphas’s shocked protest when the Galileans were cut down on the floor of the temple. The desecration, as they called it, had been a good lesson for Caiaphas as well as for the rebels and the rest of the population, a warning that Pontius Pilate had no intention of letting things get out of hand. Or of letting Caiaphas take too much upon himself either, lest he become too ambitious. Pilate had once, in a short-lived attempt to understand them when he had first been assigned to Judea, read a history of the Jews. He had quickly learned that there was a vast difference between many of the basic concepts of their religion and the way they had been put into effect during the history of Israel. Once he had discovered that fact, he had realized the Jews were like any other subject people, to be constantly watched and ruthlessly put down if they dared to rebel.
The Crown and the Cross: The Life of Christ Page 31