The first month of the spring in the year 33 A.D. The last week of Jesus' stay on earth

In the meantime it had become the spring of the year 33. By the time of the Passover celebration Jesus began His last journey towards Jerusalem. For the third time He pointed out to His apostles that this time He would be handed over to the leading priests and the scribes and that He would be made fun of, spat at, flogged and killed. He again added to these words that on the third day after His death He would be resurrected.

Obviously not very aware of the things that were about to happen the brothers James and John approached Jesus, one day when the other apostles were not there, and asked Him for important positions in the government of the kingdom He was about to establish. Jesus pointed out to them that this kind of matters was not very relevant under the circumstances. He also said that in the kingdom of God someone who wanted to be great should first of all excel in servitude. And someone who wanted to be the first in this kingdom had to be the slave of everybody. He said about Himself: the Son of man has not come to be served, but to serve and to give up His soul as a ransom in exchange for many people. (Mark 10:41-45).

On His way to Jerusalem in the spring of the year 33 Jesus visited Jericho for the last time. Near this town Jesus passed by two blind people, whom He healed. Up to the end faithful to Himself and His mission He stayed the night in the house of a tax-collector, a man with a profession that was disdained by everybody.

The first month of the Jewish religious year is called Nisan. In Jesus’ time Nisan was the month in which they celebrated the Passover in memory of the exodus from Egypt. This exodus took place on 14 Nisan. This explains why the Jewish Passover feast was always celebrated on this fourteenth day of the month Nisan. In those days all the Jews tried to be Jerusalem on 14 Nisan to celebrate this great feast in and around the temple. In the month of Nisan in the year 33 also Jesus and His disciples traveled to Jerusalem, in the midst of a large crowd of people, all heading in the same direction.

Six days before the Passover celebration, on Saturday 8 Nisan, Jesus and His disciples arrived at Bethany, a village at a distance of a few kilometers from Jerusalem. In Jerusalem itself the leading priests and the Pharisees wondered in great anxiety whether Jesus would dare to come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. They had ordered their friends and acquaintances to look out for Him and, if they should find Him, to report this immediately to them. (John 11: 55-57).

In Bethany lived Lazarus and his two sisters. Of course Jesus visited His friend, whom He had raised from the dead. During a banquet in the house of a leper, where both Jesus and Lazarus were among the guests, the sister of Lazarus rubbed Jesus’ feet with a pound of great, but very expensive oil. This irritated Judas Iscariot (the apostle who was to betray Jesus a few days later). Judas thought that the sister of Lazarus had done better if she had sold the expensive oil and had deposited the money into the purse of the apostles. In fact he was the one who took care of this purse and regularly stole amounts of money from it.

In the short period that Jesus stayed in Bethany large numbers of Jews from all over the country came to Lazarus to be able to see the man, who had come back from death, with their own eyes and to speak with him. As a result of what they saw and heard many of them were moved to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday, 9 Nisan. Just before entering Jerusalem Jesus seated Himself on a young donkey which someone who lived in a village at the edge of the town had given to Him. Thus Jesus entered Jerusalem seated on a donkey. The inhabitants who believed in Him were overjoyed that, in spite of the very dangerous situation, He had had the courage to travel to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Jesus was given a triumphant entry into the town. An entry worthy of a king. The people who cheered Him on along the way took off their outer garments and spread them across the road which Jesus was to pass by on His donkey. And the people shouted words to Him, which much have touched Him very deeply: blessed is He who comes as king. Yes, as the King sent by God.

Along the road there were Pharisees who looked at the spectacle with abhorrence. Now it was clear for Jesus’ opponents that their enemy was in town.

On Monday, 10 Nisan, Jesus went to the temple. Just like three years before many people used the temple to buy and sell things. And just like three years before Jesus threw out all the tradesmen and knocked over their tables and the tables of the moneychangers. He said that the tradesmen had made a den of robbers of what should be a house of prayer.

In the meantime the leading priests and scribes wondered how they could kill Jesus during a week in which there were so many of His followers in Jerusalem.

On Tuesday, 11 Nisan, Jesus visited the temple again. This time a number of higher priests and scribes walked up to Him and asked Him who had authorized Him to preach the way He did and to do the miracles He performed. Because Jesus had already told them many times that with everything He did and said, He only obeyed the will of His Father, He did not answer them at all.

Instead He told them an illustration in which the owner of a vineyard, who stayed abroad, on a number of occasions sent his slaves to the people who worked in his vineyard to receive the money he had earned with it. But the people who worked in the vineyard beat up the slaves and sent them away empty-handed. Then the owner sent his own son to the people he employed in his vineyard. But they killed this son.

The leading priests and the scribes understood very well that they were the workers in the vineyard who were about to kill the son of the owner.

That same day the chief priests and the scribes tried to corner Jesus with some trick questions that they thought very clever. They asked Him, among other things, whether it was a good thing if the Jews paid taxes to the Roman occupying forces. Some Sadducees tried to use Jesus’ own words against Him with a trick question regarding what life would be like in God’s kingdom after the resurrection of the dead: imagine that a woman becomes a widow a number of times and every time her husband has died marries someone else, whose wife will she be in God’s kingdom? A scribe, who secretly felt admiration for the way Jesus answered all the trick questions, asked Him what was the most important commandment. Jesus answered: you must love God with all your heart, all your soul, your entire mind and your entire strength. And at once He added: and you must love your neighbor as yourself. The man who asked the question understood that Jesus had given him an excellent answer.

Then Jesus in His turn asked the scribes a question: How is it possible that the Holy Scriptures tell us that the Messiah is both David’s Son and David’s Lord? No one of the high and learned gentlemen could answer this question.

This fact caused a lot of joy among the large numbers of listeners who thought that Jesus had spoken very sensible words.

At the end of this confrontation Jesus again pronounced an extremely negative judgment on the scribes and the Pharisees. And again He used very harsh words. He blamed them for being only interested in social prestige and success. They were hypocrites who as a group would be condemned and turned away on the Day of Judgment.

When Jesus was leaving the temple on that Tuesday someone pointed out to Him how great and impressive the temple looked. In His reply Jesus foretold that both the temple and the city would soon be destroyed. (This happened in the year 70 when both were destroyed by the Romans).

Then Jesus and His disciples climbed the Mount of Olives from where they had a magnificent view of the temple. Here the disciples asked Jesus what would happen in the last days of our human history: the transitional period between the time in which people on earth could do whatever they liked and the establishment of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus said that this transitional period would be characterized by wars, great political unrest, earthquakes and famines. In addition the good news about the Kingdom would be preached all over the globe in those days. In the time of the end the good people would be hated and persecuted by the masses. It would be a period of extreme human suffering. Finally the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars would get into a condition of indescribable chaos and confusion.

But, according to Jesus’ exposition on that Tuesday, this horrible time of the end would see a good outcome: at the end Jesus would come back to earth to establish His Kingdom there.

At the end of Jesus’ lessons on the time of the end He pointed out that no one knew when that time would come. Not even He Himself. Only His Father knew this. ( people who would like to read Jesus’ exposition on the last days and the time of the end, delivered by Him on 11 Nisan of the year 33 from the Mount of Olives, can find the complete text in Mark 13, the entire chapter)

Talking about the end of our human history and the days when He would come to establish His Kingdom on earth Jesus told His listeners a number of new illustrations. This happened on the same Tuesday we were just talking about. They are: the story of the five foolish and the five wise virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13), the story about the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30) and the story about the sheep and the goats. This last illustration shows us a picture of Jesus who has returned to the earth and sits down on His throne. Then all the people who have ever lived must appear before Him and are split up into two groups, in the way in which a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus puts the “sheep” on His right hand side and the “goats” on His left hand side. He welcomes the sheep into His Kingdom that has been prepared for them since the foundation of the world. The “goats” undergo the second death: the definitive rejection, the definitive destruction. (people who want to read the illustration about the sheep and the goats in the Bible itself can find it in Mathew 25:31-46).