What was to become of Jerusalem and of the Temple and of the priests and of the inn-keepers and of the butchers and of everybody else,if the people of the city were to take such words seriously and actually began to believe that the spirit of God could be worshipped just as well in Damascus or Alexandria as on Mount Moriah?
The town would be ruined and the priests and the inn-keepers and the butchers and everybody else would be ruined along with it.
And,ghastly to contemplate,the whole complicated fabric of Mosaic Law would come tumbling down before this terrible new slogan of “Love your neighbour.”
For that,in truth,was the gist of everything Jesus taught during the last months of his life.
He wanted he implored people to love their neighbours and to stop quarrelling among themselves.He was crushed by the cruelty and the unreasoning injustice of everything he saw around him.By nature he was cheerful and full of fun.Life was a joy to him and not a burden.He loved his mother,his family,his friends.He took part in all the simple pleasures of his village.He was not a hermit and did not encourage those who tried to save their own souls by running away from life.But the world seemed so needlessly full of waste,of pain,of violence and disorder.
In the simplicity of his great heart,Jesus offered a cure of his own for these ills.He called it love.And that one word was the sum total of his teaching.
He did not greatly interest himself in the existing order of things.
He did not argue against the Empire.
He never spoke in favour of it.
The Pharisees slyly tried to catch him in an expression of sedition when they asked him what he thought of the Emperor.But Jesus knew that all form of government is merely a compromise and he refused to commit himself.He advised his hearers to obey the law of the land and to think more of their own faults than of the virtues or the defects of their rulers.
He did not tell his pupils to keep away from the service in the Temple,but encouraged them to be faithful in the performance of their religious duties.
He had a sincere admiration for the wisdom of the Old Testament,and continually referred to it in his own conversation.
In short,he refrained from saying or preaching or advocating anything that could be construed as an open challenge of the established laws.
But from the point of view of the Pharisees,he was much more dangerous than the fiercest of all rebels.
He made the people think for themselves.
As for the last days of Jesus,they have so often been told that we can be short about them.No part of the life of the great Prophet has received so much attention from Christian chroniclers as the few days immediately preceding his death.
It was really part of the eternal struggle between those who keep their backs turned firmly upon the future and one man who courageously dared to look forward.
The last entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem was in the nature of a triumph.
This did not mean that the people really had begun to understand the new ideas which he so patiently tried to explain to them.But for ever in search of a hero whom they could worship (for however short a time)they had now begun to idolize the Nazarene prophet who had appealed to their imagination by his lovable personality and the calm courage which he displayed in the presence of the almighty Councillors.
They were willing to believe anything that was told about Jesus,provided it had a touch of the extraordinary.
Mere cures were not enough to satisfy their primitive need of excitement.
The patient was very sick when Jesus happened to come to his village?
Nay!
The patient had been on the verge of death!
Until at last the poor patient had actually been dead and buried and had been taken out of the grave to be restored to life by the man of miracles.
This last story,the famous case of Lazarus,had made an enormous impression upon the credulous peasants of Judaea.Repeated from farm to farm,it had soon acquired a wealth of lurid detail which made it a very popular subject for mediaeval legends and pictures.
When finally the cause of all this commotion was said to be in Jerusalem,every one wanted to see him,and when Jesus entered the city gate on his little donkey,the crowd lustily shouted hooray and threw flowers and generally made a great noise,as it will do whenever it finds an excuse for a celebration.
Unfortunately such public approval is like a bonfire on a rocky hill.It makes a great blaze,but it does not last very long.
Jesus knew this and he did not flatter himself that all these hosannas and hallelujahs meant anything.
He had heard them before.Other people have heard them since.
And if they have been wise,they have not taken them seriously.The wisdom of which remark the following pages will show clearly.
The first thing which Jesus did after his arrival was to look for lodgings.He did not stop in the city itself but in the suburb of Bethany which was situated upon the Mount of Olives.There in former years he had often stayed with Lazarus and his faithful sisters,Mary and Martha.
It was only a short walk to Jerusalem and as soon as he had eaten something and rested from the fatigue of the day before,he went back to the Temple and for the second time took a whip and drove the cattle dealers and the moneychangers out of the holy enclosure.
The next morning,very early,he had his answer.
The Sanhedrin had taken up his challenge.
And when Jesus appeared at the door of the Temple,he was stopped by armed guards and was asked upon whose authority he had committed the sacrilegious act of the afternoon before.
At once a mob was formed.People took sides.
Some said:“This man is right.”
Others shouted:“He ought to be lynched.”
And they argued and gesticulated and would have come to blows,when Jesus turned around and looked at them.Then they became very quiet and Jesus told them a few more stories.
Nothing else could have given such offence to the Pharisees.