Following the Savior's Steps: The Last Week

We know more about the last week of the Savior’s mortal ministry than any other time in his life.  Of the 89 chapters that make up the Gospels, about 29 of them cover the Savior’s final week, or just about 1/3^rd.  The Passover that year was on a Thursday, and so Christ arrived in Bethany on a Friday, “six days before the passover” (John 12:1).  The next day, Saturday, was the Sabbath, and the record is silent about what the Savior did during the Sabbath.  Although the text isn’t totally clear on the day, Elder Talmage suggested that the meal at Simon the leper’s house took place on Saturday, “probably in the evening after the Sabbath had passed” (the Jewish Sabbath ends at sundown and not midnight).  It was then that Mary the sister of Lazarus with “a pound of ointment of spikenard” anointed Jesus in preparation for His death (Matt. 26:6, John 12:1-3).   If that meal was indeed on Saturday evening, then the triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem which took place “on the next day” was on the first day of the week, or Sunday.  This is why we call it Palm Sunday, when the people “took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (John 12:12-13).  It was the beginning of the most important week in history.

               The next few days of the Savior’s life was summarized this way by Luke: “He taught daily in the temple” (Luke 19:47).  On the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus taught the people, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”  He spoke of His coming death and of His Father, and the voice of the Father was heard witnessing of the Son (John 12:23-33).  At the end of this day “he went out unto Bethany with the twelve” where He retired (Mark 11:11).  The next day, Monday, as Jesus went back from Bethany to Jerusalem He cursed the fig tree which had leaves but no fruit (Mark 11:12-14).  When He arrived at the temple, for the second time He “began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers” (Mark 11:15).  In contrast to this show of divine indignation, on the same day “the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them” (Matt. 21:14).  At the end of this day He again left the city: “He left them, and went out of the city into Bethany” (Matt. 21:17).  The next day, Tuesday, He returned to Jerusalem to the temple where He taught extensively.  The “chief priests and elders” questioned Him about His authority but failed to trap Him in His words (Matt. 21:23).  He told the parables of the two sons, the wicked husbandmen, and the royal marriage feast to the hardhearted rulers of the people, letting them condemn themselves as they understood the parables’ application to their own rejection of the Savior.  This angered them all the more so that “they sought to lay hands on him” and continued to conspire as to how they could put Him to death (Matt. 21:46).  These were the last public parables He would tell, and the day of His suffering was quickly approaching.