This is a continuation of last week's beginning.
____________________________
5. Then came that final week of Jesus on earth. That was the week that I met Jesus, from his glorious procession into Jerusalem to his crucifixion. I will need more papyrus for that.
We had heard stories of healings and exorcisms in the north, in Galilee. My family too had gone out to see the Baptizer. We had also been baptized. Could Jesus be the one that John had foretold?
So, we were there when he came into Jerusalem, on a donkey. We knew this was a prophet act. We shouted, "Hoshi'ah na" from the psalm, "Save us, O Lord." We expected the heavens to open and for angels to descend, decimating the Romans and the leaders of Jerusalem.
That was not the plan. I heard Peter say it repeatedly in his sermons. He was constantly beating himself up for not getting it, for not understanding. He especially was hard on himself for his denials of Jesus.
But it did not happen the way we all expected. We expected vindication when we arrived at the temple. We were confused that nothing happened.
It was then that I met Jesus. In all the confusion, Jesus saw me. "Thank you for marching with us today," he said. The crowd was preoccupied with its questions, but Jesus saw me. What was I? Fifteen?
6. I was not there the next day for the big event. On Sunday, Jesus seemed to just evaporate. Only later did I hear that he had gone back to Bethany. He was staying there with a friend of the movement, Simon the leper. I would get to know all these people later on.
But when Jesus returned on Monday, something about the scene really angered him. I could sense the frustration in my house as well. The leaders of the city were so corrupt. Pilate was so ungodly and yet they collaborated with him without a second thought. My family had money, but they all used their money on themselves. They couldn't care less about the people.
As I look back, I suspect it was just too much, seeing those greedy moneychangers cheating people for an extra shekel--and in the place set aside to worship Adonai. It did not last long, but for a good minute he wreaked havoc there, overturning tables, driving sheep away. The Romans didn't seem to pay much attention, but I'm sure the temple leaders were ticked.
When he came back, he started preaching judgment. He spoke boldly from Isaiah that God's house was supposed to be a house of prayer. Then he shifted to Jeremiah--they had made the temple into a den of thieves. His words from Jeremiah were particularly bold. Like Jeremiah, he warned the Jerusalemites that they should not think that God would spare the city just because it was the place of God's house.
Peter wondered if God did not come then because Israel was not repentant. After all, wasn't that the message of the Baptist, that Israel needed to repent in preparation for the Lord? We would eventually come to see Jesus death as a kind of ransom for the sins of Israel, like the Maccabees before us but so much more powerful.
7. Jesus would preach the message of Jeremiah more and more as the week went on. He ruffled a lot of feathers. And he did it right there in the temple, not like the Baptizer, who was outside the city by the river Jordan. It made us all nervous. How long would the Jerusalem leaders let such prophecy continue before they did something really bad?
"There was a fig tree that didn't bear fruit," Jesus preached. "Because it had withered, the farmer eventually cut it down and planted a different tree. Let the one with ears to hear, hear."
I heard a prophecy from the Lord a decade later. It circulated widely in the church in the days of Emperor Caligula, not long after he tried to set up an image of himself in the temple precincts. It was a prophecy based in Daniel about a sacrilege that would defile the temple.
The prophecy spoke of intense persecution for the church, the true Israel. It foretold that we would be beaten in synagogues. We would be betrayed by our families. There would be apocalyptic signs as the creation groaned in longing for its redemption.
Then the temple would be defiled. The prophecy ended with the prediction that this would happen within our generation. And then Jesus would return...
