Closing Days

We have noted in our study how fragmentary the records of Jesus' life are. The opening events are reported quite fully, perhaps because they occurred at Capernaum, the home of Peter and other disciples. For the long period of his wanderings after leaving Galilee there is little that can be definitely placed. Now, in the last week of his life, the accounts suddenly become very full again. In the four Gospels about one third of the space is given to these events, inclusive of the resurrection stories. There are several reasons for this. The events took place in a great city before many eyes. The city was the home of John Mark, probably the first writer of a complete gospel story. More important, however, is the fact that these were days of intensest interest to the disciples, and these events became central for the faith of the church. What happened at this time sank deep into their hearts. Moreover, the days were crowded with teaching and incident.

Three outstanding features mark Jesus' work: First, he asserts quietly but unmistakably his Messianic claim. Second, he speaks a final and urgent message of warning. Third, he openly enters into conflict with the leaders of the people, scribes, Pharisees, and priests. By the first and third steps in this course, instead of shunning the danger, he himself helps to hasten the end.

The journey from Jericho was probably made in the early morning before the heat of the day came on. It was a steep road, rising some thirty-five hundred feet in the fifteen miles of distance. There must have been a score or more in Jesus' company. Besides the twelve there were a number of women (Luke 8:1-3; Matt 20:20); and there were probably other disciples accompanying. Jerusalem was not a strange city to Jesus. Whatever may be the case as to the ministry in Jerusalem, recorded by the fourth Gospel, as a loyal Jew Jesus would have made at least an annual trip thither to one of the feasts, such a trip as that taken when he was twelve years of age. A couple of miles outside the city lay the village of Bethany. According to John II. 1, it was here that Mary and Martha lived, and at their house the company probably now waited till preparations could be made for the entry into the city.

There is a passage in Zech. 9:9 which describes the entry of the Messianic King into Jerusalem: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass." With evident purpose Jesus sends to a nearby village and has brought to him an ass. On this a coat is spread and, mounting it, he rides into the city. For those who might understand, it was the first public assertion of his Messiahship. At the same time it set forth the manner of Messiah that he was, coming humble, unarmed, upon a lowly beast.

How far the multitudes perceived this we do not know. John says (12:16) that even the disciples did not understand this at first. So much at least they understood, that this was their Master's entrance into the city of which he was to be King. Meanwhile the people that filled the city in thronging crowds at the passover time, coming not only from Judæa and Galilee but from parts far beyond, had heard of Jesus' presence and came out to meet him. Whatever else was present, the dominant note was enthusiasm. They joined the disciples in spreading garments and branches in the way, and raising the cry: "Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed is the kingdom that cometh, the kingdom of our father David: Hosanna in the highest" (Mark 11:1-11). Before this he had charged with silence any who would have greeted him as Messiah. Now. he had no word to say, except to respond to the displeasure of the Pharisees at this demonstration by declaring, "If these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out" (Luke 19:39, 40).

Unwilling as yet to trust himself to his foes, Jesus withdrew for the night to the quiet and safety of Bethany. Apparently, his first visit on the next day was to the temple. Here he saw again what had probably often stirred his soul. His work now brought him into contact with the priestly party, and the opposition is as sharp as with the Pharisees. If religion was a matter of form and pride with the Pharisees, it was a matter of position and power and profit with the priests. To retain its place, the priestly party had shown itself quite ready to enter into bargains with the Romans. One of their sources of profit was the cause of what now met Jesus' eyes. In kindly consideration for the poor, the law provided that a pair of doves would be acceptable as an offering from these (Lev 5:5-10). The temple party found this a chance for profitable traffic. Still another chance came with the required payment of the temple tax. For this only the coins were accepted that Israel herself had once minted, and Roman money had to be exchanged for these. So the temple courts were filled with the money-changers and sellers of doves, all this being a monopoly of the priests. Stirred with anger, Jesus drove them out. "Is it not written," he said, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But ye have made it a den for robbers" (Mark 11:17). Apparently, his righteous anger joined to the approval of the multitudes left them no desire for resistance, nor did they dare to call the temple officers. "They could not find what they might do for the people all hung upon him, listening" (Luke 19:47, 48; Mark 11.

The second aspect of these last days of Jesus' ministry is the note of warning. It appears in the double lament over Jerusalem. The first of these Luke gives us as spoken by Jesus at the time of the triumphal entry. As he drew nigh the city, he wept over it. He was about to make his last appeal, but the city did not recognize its day of visitation. Soon the day of warfare would come, and its foes would overthrow it (Luke 19:41-44). The other is placed by Matthew after the woes against the Pharisees. Its beautiful words show his distress for the city and his confidence as to his ultimate triumph: "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate! For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt 23:37-39).

The same message is given in several parables. The first of these is placed by Luke on the last journey to Jerusalem (19:11-27). Matthew's parable of the talents may be simply a variant of the same (25:14-30). Luke's story of the nobleman who went to get his kingdom is the history of Archelaus. At his death Herod had bequeathed Judæa and Samaria to his son Archelaus. The latter had to go to Rome to have his title to the realm confirmed. There he was opposed by an embassy from Judæa, against whom, however, he was successful. All this Jesus uses to enforce his lesson of stewardship. He is the King who is to depart and leave the interests of the Kingdom in their trust. And they are to answer for the use they make of their pounds.

The parable of the fig tree is a similar warning, addressed not to the disciples but to the nation. Israel was the unfruitful fig tree having its last opportunity. "Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it; and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; but if not, thou shalt cut it down" (Luke 13:1-9). The story of the cursing of the fig tree is nothing more than this same parable acted instead of spoken (Mark II. 12-14, 20-23). Jesus sees a fig tree in full leaf, but finds no fruit as he comes in search. He pronounces a curse upon it, and they find it withered as they pass the next day. As a mere act of petulance this is inconceivable. Some have thought that the whole story as found in Matthew and Mark grew out of Luke's parable just noted. The other alternative would be to conceive it as the same parable put into action, as the old prophets were wont to do. The parable of the Lord's vineyard is more a parable of judgment than of warning. The figure was familiar (Isa 5:1; Psa 80:8). Israel was like a vineyard intrusted by its master to the care of husbandmen who were to make some return of its fruits. Jehovah had been sending his servants, the prophets, and looking to Israel for fruitage. Instead they had beaten and slain them. Now he had sent his Son, and they would put him to death. There could be but one end—that the vineyard should be taken from them and given to others. Here again, with the warning, is the assertion of Jesus' own Messiahship (Mark 12:1-12).

The third outstanding aspect of these last days was Jesus' open conflicts with his enemies. Again and again they tried to entrap him. "By what authority doest thou these things?" they asked him (Mark 11:27-33). He met them with another question: "The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?" His own authority, he felt, was like that of John, from God himself. But they dared not answer his simple question. To say from God was to condemn themselves, for they had not believed John; to say from men would stir against them the people who held John a prophet.

Their second question seemed more cleverly planned: "Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar or not?" (Mark 12:.13-17). To say yes would arouse the people; to say no would give them ground for lodging charges with the Romans. Jesus' action was as simple as it was unanswerable. He called for a coin and asked them what image it bore. They answered, "Cæsar's." "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's," was his reply. His answer was not an effort to divide matters between churchy and state, nor yet a mere clever device to confound them. They were quibbling; his whole passion was to have men yield to God the things that were God's.

The incident with the Sadducees shows how Jesus could take a trifling, absurd query and lift it to moral and spiritual heights (Mark 12:18-27). They brought him the impossible and foolish case of a woman who, in accordance with the old law (Deut 25:5-10), had been married in turn to seven brothers. "In the resurrection whose wife shall she be of them?" they asked. It was their effort to laugh out of court the doctrine of the resurrection, in which they did not believe. Jesus left their absurdities to one side. He simply replied: "You do not know the Scriptures or the power of God: and as to the life to come, have you not read the word, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

The climax of his controversy was reached in the seven woes in which he denounced the Pharisees (Matt 23:13-36). Matthew, who gives them most fully, is probably right in placing them here. Here, at the close of his ministry, he shows forth the inner spirit of that whole system of rules and formalism into which the religion of his people had degenerated. These words could have only one result—an open enmity that should end in his death.

No passage in the Gospels is more difficult to interpret than the thirteenth chapter of Mark and its parallels. Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple, the splendid building which was the pride of all the Jews. Deeply impressed, one of them said to him, "Teacher, behold, what manner of stones and what manner of building." Then Jesus made the startling answer which was the basis of one of the charges made against him in his trial: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down." A double thought was probably in Jesus' mind: first, that city and temple were doomed to destruction at the hands of Israel's enemies; second, that the temple and what it stood for was to make place for a truer faith. The natural question of the disciples was, "When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are all about to be accomplished?" Then follows a discourse, different from the customary direct and simple teachings of the Master, describing the woes that are to come and the strange signs that are to herald them.

The whole passage resembles strongly a class of writings well known among the Jews at this time, called apocalyptic. An apocalypse is an uncovering of secret things, especially of the future. The books of Daniel and Revelation are examples within our Bible. The minds of the people were filled with apocalyptic ideas at this time. The writings were generally marked by three features: (1) a certain circle of ideas including those of judgment, resurrection, the overthrow of the devil and his angels, the destruction of the earth, and the appearance of a new heaven and a new earth; (2) the discussion of times and seasons and the signs of these events; (3) imaginative descriptions of the glories of the new age.

If we are to judge Jesus' relation to all this, we must look at his teaching as a whole, remembering how easily in individual cases his teachings might be unconsciously changed by those who handed them down in the years before they were written out. In his clear and definite teaching he shows some agreement with this apocalyptic thought and some differences. (1) Jesus believed with these writers that the rule of God was coming and that there was to be a new earth. That was his teaching of the kingdom of God. (2) Jesus believed that he was to come again, and that he was to judge men. When he knew that suffering and death were before him, he began at the same time to declare that he should come in glory and that he was to be the judge of men (Mark 8:38; Matt 25:31-46; 26:64). (3) He believed that this coming was near at hand (Matt 10:23; Mark 9:1). But (4) the whole spirit and tone of Jesus' teaching was different. Although, like the early church and Paul, he thought that the coming was near at hand, yet he did not deal in figures and calculations. "But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark 13:32). (5) His interest was not in drawing pictures of physical glories. A fragment from an ancient writer shows us what some of these dreams were. In this Jesus is reported as having said: "The days will come in which vines shall grow having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine." Jesus did not talk of the future to bring such visions to men, but to strengthen them against coming trial and to call them to watchfulness and earnestness.

Many scholars believe that these words of Mark 13 belong only in part to Jesus. It may very well be that the question of the disciples led Jesus to speak of the future, to tell them of the days of trial that he foresaw, that he might forewarn and prepare, as well as to declare his own confidence in the future. With their own minds full of these apocalyptic hopes, the changes may easily have crept in, or even teachings have been added which they assumed to represent his thought. In the end we must fall back upon the body of Jesus' teachings and their unmistakable moral and spiritual emphasis, so different from the apocalyptic dreams that filled men's minds at that time.

It was probably at this time that Jesus drew the great judgment scene given in Matt 25:31-46. Here, as in the other picture teaching of Jesus, it is a mistake to seek a special meaning in every detail. Two great truths stand out. The first is the fact of judgment. The second is the principle of judgment. Here nothing is said of nationality, Jewish or Greek, nothing of creeds or forms of practice; men are judged by the spirit of love and helpfulness, and the service done to the needy Jesus accounts as a service rendered to himself.

Directions for Reading and Study

The Messianic King. Read Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:39, 40; Mark 11:15-19.

Words of warning: Read Luke 19:41-44; Matt 23:37-39; Luke 19:11-27; Matt 25:14-30; Luke 13:1-9; Mark 11:12-14, 20-23; Mark 12:1-12.

Conflicts: Read Mark 11:27-33; 12:13-27; Matt 23:1-36.

The future: Read Mark 13; Matt 25:31-46.

State in your own language Jesus' charges against the Pharisees as given in Matt 23:1-36.