These are Jesus' words of lamentation as he looked at the city of Jerusalem. The sad events of the last days of the life of Jesus, the greatest of all prophets, are about to take place in the city of Jerusalem. This city becomes the venue for the passion and cruel death on the Cross. Jesus, seeing all these coming events in his mind, addresses the city as one which stones and kills the prophets sent to it. He also foretells the terrible and complete destruction that would come upon it. The city of Jerusalem received, on the one hand, blessings and on the other, curses from the Son of God. Jerusalem which rejected the Saviour, was utterly devastated in 70 AD by the Romans. The temple was razed to the ground with not a stone left upon another.
Jesus knew that the last days of his public life which extended over a period of nearly three years, were fast approaching. He took his small group of disciples, bade farewell to Galilee and set out for Jerusalem. On the way he prophesied his passion, death and resurrection for the third time.
"See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death. Then they will hand him over to the gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified; and on the third day he will be raised"(Mt 20:17-19;Mk 10:32-34;Lk 18:31-34). This prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled in Jerusalem.
In this issue we shall enter Jerusalem along with Jesus. Let us walk along the way of his passion and his crucifixion. Let us go up to Golgotha and stand beneath his cross. This pilgrimage in the company of Jesus through his homeland is about to reach its sublime climax. It is only with a heart overflowing with emotion and eyes brimming with tears, that a pilgrim can follow the blood -drenched footprints of Jesus through Jerusalem.
We shall set out on this pilgrimage meditating on the salvific events that took place between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, in which part of the city of Jerusalem, where, and how they happened. Jesus and the city of Jerusalem are the focus of our meditation.
According to the account in the gospel of Luke, the opening scene of the salvific mysteries of the New Testament that are fulfilled in Jesus, is the sanctuary of the temple of Jerusalem. The message of the birth of John the Baptist, ordained to be the precursor of Jesus, was given to his father Zechariah as he stood in the sanctuary for the incense offering. The accounts in the gospel, beginning from this event, cover the Incarnation of Jesus,his hidden life in Nazareth, his public life centred round the city of Carphanaum on the shores of the lake of Galilee and the preaching spread over the villages and towns of Galilee, Samaria and Judea. With the carrying out of the great mandate entrusted to Jesus and the performance of miracles, a full circle is completed and we come back to the final events of his life that took place in Jerusalem. We shall trace our steps during the last days of Jesus' life against the background of the accounts given by the evangelists.
The description of the events of the last days of Jesus, according to St John begins in this manner: "Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead" (Jn 12:1). This Passover was the most important feast for the Jews. The feast of the Passover was the grand celebration of the saving act when the Israelites, under the leadership of Moses, sent by God, were liberated from the slavery of Egypt and were led into freedom and to the promised land. To celebrate this feast of the Passover, the Jews would gather in Jerusalem, coming in pilgrimage from various parts of Israel and abroad. Every Jew considered it the greatest privilege of his life to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Jerusalem would be teeming with pilgrims on those days (another issue will describe in detail the celebration of the Jewish feast of the Passover).
Jesus also set out with his apostles from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate the yearly feast of the Passover. As St John says, six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany. That means, Jesus started from Bethany, travelled almost 150 k m by way of Jericho and was about to enter Jerusalem. Bethany was a small town about 2 k m within reach of Jerusalem. The house of Lazarus, Mary and Martha was in Bethany. It was a household most dear to Jesus.In other words, Jesus, bound for Jerusalem six days before the Passover, that is, on Saturday (eve of Palm Sunday) reached Bethany and stayed there. (Jesus used to spend the night often in Bethany while on his way to Jerusalem and during his ministry there). Thus Jesus spent the night in Bethany. We shall start our prayerful journey, referring to the map of Jerusalem given as an appendix to this article.
John 12:12 says, "The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him".By "the next day" John certainly means Sunday.
We are now entering Palm Sunday (In the map, the grand celebration during the journey to Jerusalem is marked 1 ). Let us now turn to the accounts given by the evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke (Mt 21:1-11; Mk 11:1-11; Lk 19:28-40). On Sunday Jesus set out from Bethany to the city of Jerusalem. "... they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives ..." Soon after we leave Bethany, we have to ascend the Mount of Olives. We then have to descend into the Kedron valley. Facing the Mount of Olives, on the opposite side of the Kedron valley stands erect the city of Jerusalem. Since the Mount of Olives is slightly higher than Jerusalem, we can take in, at one glance, the whole city. It is an extraordinarily beautiful view of the city of Jerusalem.
Jesus, who ascended the Mount of Olives from Bethany, reached Bethphage situated in between Bethany and the Mount of Olives. He then sent two of his disciples to the village to fetch a donkey and a colt. The people crowded around. The excited multitude began shouting, spread their garments on the streets, cut branches from the trees and laid them on the road or waved them, singing hosanna and welcomed Jesus.
Jesus sat on the ass, in the midst of that huge concourse of people, accepting their cries of exultation and rejoicing in the kingly welcome they gave him. The procession moved forward. It reached the top of Mount Olives and then descended to the Kedron valley and went across to the opposite side. Jesus then entered the main gate of the wall on the eastern side of the city of Jerusalem. As he proceeded across the temple premises the whole city of Jerusalem resounded with the cries of "Hosanna". "When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil"(Mt 21:10).
The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem seated on an ass was the fulfillment of the prophecy of prophet Zechariah. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey"(Zech 9:9).
The procession moved across the temple premises. What then took place was the cleansing of the temple. Jesus drove out all those who were engaged in business transactions. Jesus was enraged to see the temple being used as a place for selling and buying things. He reproved the defaulters severely. The chief priests and scribes, who were looking on, became more angry. They began questioning him and scheming to find out means to do away with him. Jesus, in the meanwhile, continued his preaching of the gospel in the temple. He spent the whole of Palm Sunday in the temple.
St Mathew continues : "He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there"(21:17). In St Luke's gospel we get an account of what happened on the following days, that is, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: "Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do for all the people were spellbound by what they heard" (Lk 19:47-48).
What we understand form this passage is that on these days-Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday- Jesus spent the whole day teaching in the temple. At night he went either to Bethany and stayed there or went with his apostles to some cave on the Mount of Olives as was his wont.
We, who have begun our pilgrimage with Jesus from Jerusalem, have just gone through the events of Palm Sunday. In the next issue we shall visit the places where the events of Monday, Thursday and the following days took place.