Chapter 19

It had been Peter’s hope rather than his belief, as they set forth from Capernaum in the early morning of the first day of Nisan, that they might enter Jerusalem unobtrusively.

The city would be crowded with thousands of pilgrims, all of them scrambling desperately for a lodging-house within the walls or a tent-site in the suburbs. They might be so preoccupied with their own affairs that the arrival of Jesus would attract little attention. After the first half-hour on the highway, Peter wondered why he had tried to comfort himself with such a foolish delusion. He might have known better.

Everybody on the road—and they were all bound for the same destination—instantly recognized the Master, hailing him with joyous shouts, crowding about him, begging him to speak to them. It was not long before he was at the head of a procession that increased by the hour, by the mile.

James, stepping to the edge of the highway, looked backward and returned to his place between his brother and Andrew, and said, ‘Remember the day in Bethsaida when he suddenly disappeared from the people who followed him? I wish he would do that now!’

But he didn’t disappear, and the pilgrimage grew. Every side road that met the highway contributed. At night, when Jesus stopped, they all stopped, and the heavy-laden carts and the older people caught up. In the morning, when he resumed the journey, they were all ready to follow. Dozens of the well-to-do, who could afford tall camels, paid their respects and preceded the pedestrian parade. They would arrive many hours earlier than Jesus, and would have an amazing story to tell, no doubt.

When the Master’s company broke camp at Ramah, on the morning of the third day, Peter—who hadn’t wanted a crowd along—began to take pride in this astounding display of public interest…Could it be possible, he exclaimed to Philip, that Jesus intended to enter Jerusalem in triumph?

‘From the size and temper of this crowd, he could do it!’ said Philip.

‘Perhaps that has been his plan—from the first!’ said Peter in an awed voice. ‘Do you suppose he means to restore the Kingdom to Israel?’

‘I don’t think he wants to be the King of Israel,’ put in Andrew.

‘Why not?’ demanded Judas sharply. ‘Has it not been foretold by the prophets? Is not the Kingdom to be restored to Israel? Who else has the power to do it?’

Throughout the Sabbath Day they remained quietly in camp at Bethphage, with only three miles further to go on the morrow, the day the Romans called ‘Sunday.’ The village was suffocated with the enormous concentration of excited pilgrims. All manner of rumours and conjectures were in circulation through the camps. It was generally believed that Jesus of Nazareth was about to proclaim himself the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the Restorer of Israel!