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Sunday, March 17, 2024

Prelude to the Passion 1: The Road to Jerusalem

From Caesarea Philippi, Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem (see Luke 9:51; 13:22). Along the way he prepared his disciples for his coming sacrifice, death, and resurrection through three so-called "Passion Predictions."

While Latter-day Saints do not, as a rule, observe Lent, there are scriptural passages in the New Testament Gospels that they can read, alone with their families, in preparation for a more intensive study during Holy Week, the days leading up to and including Gethsemane, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. 

But there are passages from Mark and John that can help set the stage and prepare for a more intentional celebration of Holy Week itself. I call these "Preludes to the Passion," and the first set of episodes occur as Jesus concludes his Galilean Ministry and starts on the road to Jerusalem. These may be conveniently read in the week before Palm Sunday and Holy Week.

A dirt trail in the Wadi Hamam, or "Valley of the Doves," follows a path often taken by Jesus

On this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus gave some powerful teachings that help us better understand his atoning sacrifice. The earliest account of these teachings can be found in Mark, which most scholars feel was the first Gospel to have been written. Mark can be seen as a three-act drama with the first, longer act consisting of Jesus’s authoritative ministry in Galilee (1:14‒8:21); the second, a shorter act covering his journey to Jerusalem (8:22‒10:52); and the third, culminating act portraying his momentous final week in Jerusalem (11:1‒16:8).[1] These divisions are geographic and thematic, not chronological—ignoring any previous visits by Jesus to Jerusalem, Mark’s structure makes Jerusalem the culmination and focus of Jesus’s entire mortal ministry. 


While the third act provides the basic framework for our discussion of Holy Week, the relatively short second act prepares us for what Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem even as Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for what was coming. It begins with the story of Jesus’s healing of a blind man in stages, in which the healed man can represent the disciples’ imperfect understanding of who Jesus was and what he came to do. After Peter’s powerful but incomplete confession, the rest of the act is built around three important “passion predictions,” where Jesus prophesies of his coming betrayal, suffering, and death before concluding with another healing story, this time of a man whose sight is completely restored, representing coming to a fuller knowledge of Jesus and his salvific work.

Christian tradition produced customs and observances that helped believers prepare for the Passion in a similar way. One of the better known of these observances is Lent, a liturgical period common throughout much of traditional Christendom that is a time of fasting and spiritual preparation based on Jesus’s own forty-day preparation in the wilderness.  


Suggestions for Latter-day Saints

Between Christmas and two weeks before Easter, consider reading one of the accounts of Jesus’s ministry (Mark 1‒8; Matthew 3‒20; Luke 3‒18; John 1‒10). In the weeks before Palm Sunday, start decorating your home with spring flowers and prints of art depicting the ministry of Jesus, and renew your dedication to your personal prayer life, scripture study, and service to others.

Consider decorating the home further for the week before Easter, filling it with fresh flowers and potted plants and putting up Christ-centered art that matches the events of each day in Jesus’s last week.

Some families may even want to borrow from the model provided by the Christmas-season Advent wreath, which is an evergreen wreath with four candles. Each Sunday in the four weeks before Christmas a new candle is lit and a family Christmas devotional is held by its light. Perhaps starting with Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, the family can set up an “Easter wreath,” a flowery wreath with three large candles: a purple one representing that Christ is our king, which can be lit starting on Palm Sunday; a red one representing that he is our priest, added starting on Spy Wednesday; and a white candle, lit Easter morning, which proclaims that Christ came forth alive from the tomb with healing in his wings.

Although this book suggests devotionals starting with Palm Sunday, some families might want to start a week before, using the ideas discussed in chapter 1. Readings for this week could be as follows:

  • Sunday: read Mark 8:22‒26 and discuss the symbolism of the blind man healed in stages.
  • Monday: read Mark 8:27‒30 and its parallels in Matt 16:13‒20 and Luke 9:18‒21; read “Pure Testimony” by M. Russell Ballard (Ensign, November 2004, 40‒43) and discuss the elements of a testimony, especially what we need to know about who Jesus is and what he did for us; sing “Testimony” (Hymns, no. 137) or “Search, Ponder, and Pray” (Children’s Songbook, 109).
  • Tuesday: read Mark 8:31‒38; discuss what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
  • Wednesday: read Mark 9:30‒37; discuss what it means to be a servant and be like a little child.
  • Thursday: read Mark 10:32‒45; discuss what it means to serve others and have the greatest serve the least. 
    • Also, consider what it must have felt like for Jesus as drew closer to Jerusalem and knew that his greatest trials were about to begin.
  • Friday: read Mark 10:46‒52; compare and contrast Bartimaeus and the blind man healed in stages.
  • Lazarus Saturday: See Preludes to the Passion 2

These passages can be read in the familiar KJV version or from my own fresh translation of these texts, excerpts of which I have included below.

Some inspiring art includes Carl Bloch, Healing the Blind Man and The Raising of Lazarus; vignettes from James Tissot’s The Life of Christ such as The First Shall Be Last, Jesus and the Little Child, Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, The Two Blind Men at Jericho, The Resurrection of Lazarus; Harry Anderson, Christ and the Children; Michael Coleman, Road to Jerusalem; and J. Kirk Richards, Sight Restored. 


Texts: Mark 8:22–38; 9:30–37; 10:32–52

The “second act” of Mark begins with Jesus healing an unnamed blind man near Bethsaida in the northern part of the Holy Land (Mark 8:22‒26). It concludes with the healing of a second blind man, a beggar named Bartimaeus, as Jesus and his disciples leave Jericho on the last stage of their journey up to Jerusalem (10:46‒52; parallels Matt 20:29‒34; Luke 18:35‒43). This type of literary framing is called an inclusio, by which an author begins and ends a discrete portion of his or her text with the same term, motif, image, or theme. Prominent between these two healings are Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ (8:27‒30) and the three passion predictions (8:31‒38; 9:30‒37; 10:32‒45) that prepared his disciples—and by extension us—for the events of Passion Week.

Sunday

8

22Next they came to Bethsaida. Then they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored him to touch him. 23After he had taken the blind man’s hand, he brought him out of the village. When he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24When the man looked up, he said, “I see people who look like trees walking around.” 25Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and the man looked intently, was restored, and saw everything clearly. 26Jesus sent him to his house, saying, “Don’t even go into the village!”


Towards the end of his Galilean Ministry, Jesus heals a blind man near Bethsaida, interestingly in stages rather than all at once. After this healing, he briefly visits Caesarea Philippi, where Peter testifies that Jesus is the Son of God but shortly shows that while he now knows who Jesus is, he does not yet really understand what he has come to do. Jesus and his disciples than embark on the road to Jerusalem, at the end of which he heals another blind man, this time in Jericho. In Miracles of Jesus, 91‒96, 100‒-103, I suggest that these healings represent the incomplete understanding of Peter and the other disciples.


In Greater Love Hath No Man, 16, we wrote:

By beginning and ending the second act with stories of Jesus healing blind men, Mark establishes the restoration of sight as a motif that helps us interpret much of what happens on the road to Jerusalem. These miracles are not only about the blind men whose sight Jesus restored. They are also about his original disciples not initially seeing, or fully understanding, who Jesus was and what he came to do. The first, the story of the blind man healed in a village near Bethsaida, is an unusual miracle story because Jesus does not restore the man’s sight completely and at once. Instead, he heals the man’s blindness in stages, something that was troubling enough to Matthew and Luke that they left this episode out of their Gospels. The surprising details of how Jesus healed the man—such as applying his saliva and laying on his hands—are rather typical Marcan features, since this Gospel regularly makes miracles more magical and interesting than do Matthew and Luke. After Jesus’s initial efforts, the man can see the basic outlines of people and discern their movements, but he cannot make them out clearly, leading Jesus to touch the man’s eyes again, which finally allows him to see correctly. Rather than seeing this stepwise healing as an indication that Jesus lacked the ability to heal the man correctly, Mark seems to have been using the story as a symbol of the incomplete understanding and testimony of the disciples, with the blind man’s healing in stages representing how they progressively come to know what his saving work was to be." 

As we ourselves approach Holy Week, how complete is our understanding of who Jesus is and what he has done for us? How clear is our spiritual sight? 

Monday

27Then Jesus and his disciples left for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he began to question his disciples, asking them, “Whom do people say that I am?” 28Some replied, saying to him, “John the Baptist,” others, “Elijah,” and still others, “One of the prophets.” 29So he kept questioning them, “But whom do you say that I am?” Peter, answering, said to him, “You are the Christ!” 30Then Jesus insisted that they should not speak about him to anyone.

The cave out of which the headwaters originally emerged. Herod built a temple to Augustus Caesar in front of it.

Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ, or in Matthew’s expanded version, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16) occurred at or near Caesarea Philippi, a lovely site in the northern reaches of the Holy Land. At the time of Jesus, this was the capital of the tetrarch of Philip, one of the sons of Herod the Great. For centuries, the bubbling up of the life-giving waters of one of the Jordan River’s headwaters from a deep cave there had led pagans to worship various numbers of their gods there, including Pan, the wild god of the wilderness. But Herod had built there a shining temple to Augustus Caesar, who had been adopted as the son of Julius Caesar. Because the first Caesar has been declared a god by the Roman Senate, Augustus was able to style himself, Divi filius, or “son of the deified Julius.” But the site will ever be remembered by Christians as the place where the Holy Ghost revealed to the apostle Peter that Jesus was the true Son of God.

With my son, Samuel, at Banias, the modern site of ancient Caesarea Philippi

 “In the next episode Jesus leads his disciples farther north to the region around Caesarea Philippi, where he begins to ask his followers who people thought he was (Mark 8:27–30; parallels Matt 16:13–20; Luke 9:18–21). His ministry up to that point had reminded many of John the Baptist, a fearless preacher of repentance, and Elijah, a great miracle worker, but Jesus was more than that, is persistent questioning leading Peter to declare boldly, “You are the Christ!” (Mark 8:29, my translation). Significantly, this is the first time in Mark since the Gospel began with the words “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1) that the title Christ had been used by anyone in that text. Literally meaning “the anointed one” (Hebrew, māšîaḥ, hence “Messiah”; Greek, christos), the title had usually been used for the anointed king of Israel or the similarly anointed high priest. Although the prophecies of Isaiah had introduced the idea of a suffering servant, messianic expectations at the time of Jesus focused primarily on the idea of a great king in the mode of David who would redeem Israel from her enemies. 

“Indeed, Jesus’s subsequent conversations with Peter and the other disciples on the road to Jerusalem quickly reveal that they seem to have shared this expectation. The fuller version of Peter’s confession known from Matthew puts a more complete Christological confession on Peter’s lips, with the chief apostle proclaiming, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16; emphasis added), and the Matthean account provides additional teaching about revelation and a promise of the keys of the kingdom. Yet even in Matthew’s version, although it was revealed to Peter who Jesus was, he did not yet really understand what Jesus had come to do. Instead, Peter was like the blind man who had begun to see but not clearly; he did not yet fully understand what he saw” (Greater Love Hath No Man, 17‒18).

As we prepare for Holy Week, taking inventory of our own testimonies of Jesus—both who he is and what he has done for us—is an important exercise as we approach the commemoration of his salvific suffering, death, and resurrection. M. Russell Ballard’s talk, “Pure Testimony” (Ensign, November 2004, 40‒43), is an important reminder of what a real testimony is (and, conversely, what it is not). Among other things, he taught, “Our testimony meetings need to be more centered on the Savior, the doctrines of the gospel, the blessings of the Restoration, and the teachings of the scriptures.” In particular, he declared, “Testify God is our Father and Jesus is the Christ. The plan of salvation is centered on the Savior’s Atonement.” 

Tuesday  

31Next he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo much suffering, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the experts on the law, be put to death, and after three days rise again. 32He was saying this openly, so Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him. 33After Jesus had turned around and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not have the things of God in mind but rather human concerns.”

34When he had called the crowd to him together with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow behind me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me and the good news will save it. 36For how will it profit someone to gain the whole world but forfeit his life? 37What can someone offer in return for his life? 38Indeed, whoever is ashamed of me and my word in this unfaithful and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

James Tissot, "Jesus Traveling"
“[The fact that Peter and the other disciples did not yet clearly see what Jesus came to do] becomes very clear in the next episode, in which Jesus’s prophecy of what would befall him in Jerusalem is met with resistance by Peter, leading Jesus to deliver corrective teaching to him and the other disciples (Mark 8:31–38; parallels Matt 16:21–28; Luke 9:22–27). This is the first of the three passion predictions foretelling the coming suffering that Jesus will soon endure: “The Son of Man must undergo much suffering, be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and the experts at the law, be put to death, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, my translation). The image of a suffering Messiah, however, is not one that Peter is yet prepared to accept. Having just made a bold, faith-filled declaration that Jesus was the Christ, he now rebukes Jesus, apparently sharing the contemporary idea that the Messiah would be a political king who could not be defeated by his enemies. This misconception was, in fact, in line with the kind of earthly dominion with which Satan had tempted Jesus (Matt 4:8–10; Luke 4:5–8), but the KJV’s translation of Mark 8:33, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” though similar to Jesus’s earlier rebuke of the devil, “Get thee hence, Satan” (Matthew 4:10), may convey the wrong idea. Rather than rejecting Peter completely, Jesus’s rebuke, which we have rendered as “Get behind me,” literally “fall in behind me” (Greek, hypage opisō mou), seems to suggest that Jesus was calling upon Peter to resume his proper place following Jesus rather than trying to get ahead of him, endeavoring to tell him what to do and keep him from accomplishing his sacrificial death” (Greater Love Hath No Man, 18).

The words of the much-loved hymn “Come, Follow Me” (Hymns, no. 116) take on such powerful meeting in this context:

“Come, follow me,” the Savior said.
Then let us in his footsteps tread,
For thus alone can we be one
With God’s own loved, begotten Son.

“Come, follow me,” a simple phrase,
Yet truth’s sublime, effulgent rays
Are in these simple words combined
To urge, inspire the human mind.

Is it enough alone to know
That we must follow him below,
While trav’ling thru this vale of tears?
No, this extends to holier spheres.

Not only shall we emulate
His course while in this earthly state,
But when we’re freed from present cares,
If with our Lord we would be heirs.

 

Verses 34‒38 then directly address how we—not just Peter and the original disciples—must be willing to sacrifice everything in order to follow Jesus. Regarding this passage, we wrote:

“Jesus then broadens his correction to all his disciples, and by extension to us, teaching that those who follow him must be willing to deny themselves and take up their crosses. While “taking up a cross” is an easily understood metaphor for taking up a difficult, even dangerous, burden today, it was a graphic, terrifying image in a society where the sight of this cruel form of capital punishment was common. On the one hand, Jesus is preparing his followers for how he will die. On the other, he is calling upon all of us to be willing to sacrifice everything, no matter how painful that is, for him and the kingdom. Trying to save our physical lives is an exercise in futility; we will all die someday. But when we lose our lives in the sense of subsuming them in the service of the Master and in the joy of the gospel, there will be the promise of eternal life when Jesus returns in glory (Greater Love Hath No Man, 19).

The glory he brings he will share with us, leading us to the final two, less often-sung verses of “Come, Follow Me”:

We must the onward path pursue
As wider fields expand to view,
And follow him unceasingly,
Whate’er our lot or sphere may be.

For thrones, dominions, kingdoms, pow’rs,
And glory great and bliss are ours,
If we, throughout eternity,
Obey his words, “Come, follow me.

Wednesday 

9

30When they had left that place, they passed through Galilee, but Jesus did not want anyone to know, 31for he kept teaching his disciples and saying to them, “The Son of Man is being handed over into the hands of men—they will put him to death, and three days after he has been put to death, he will rise again.” 32They did not understand the saying but were afraid to ask him.

33Then they came to Capernaum, and while Jesus was in the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about along the way?” 34They kept quiet, for along the way they had argued with each other over who was greater. 35So when he had sat down, he called the Twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then taking a child, Jesus placed him in the middle of them and, taking him into his arms, said to them, 37“Whoever receives one of these children in my name receives me, and whoever receives me does not receive me but rather the one who sent me.”


The second passion prediction on the road to Jerusalem (Mark 9:30–37; parallels Matt 17:22–23, 18:1–5; Luke 9:43–48) is followed by strife among the disciples as to who will be the greatest among them, presumably because they want to know who will take Jesus’s place when he is gone. This gives the Lord an opportunity to teach the principle that “If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and servant of all” (v. 35). To illustrate this, he takes a small child in his arms and teaches that whoever receives children—in this instance representing not only those who are innocent and but also members of the Church who are often referred to as “children of the Kingdom”—in fact is receiving the Father.

Carl Bloch, "Christ with the Children"

In Matthew, when his disciples ask who is greatest in kingdom of heaven, Jesus sets a child in front of them and says, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me” (Matt 18:3‒5).

When we humble ourselves and become as a little child, we know that the Lord keeps us close and blesses us. “Dearest Children, God Is Near You” (Hymns no. 96) tenderly portrays this:

Dearest children, God is near you,
Watching o’er you day and night,
And delights to own and bless you,
If you strive to do what’s right.
He will bless you, He will bless you,
If you put your trust in him.

Dearest children, holy angels
Watch your actions night and day,
And they keep a faithful record
Of the good and bad you say.
Cherish virtue! Cherish virtue!
God will bless the pure in heart.

Children, God delights to teach you
By his Holy Spirit’s voice.
Quickly heed its holy promptings.
Day by day you’ll then rejoice.
Oh, prove faithful, Oh, prove faithful
To your God and Zion’s cause.

Thursday

10

32They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was leading them. They began to be astonished, and those who were following started to feel afraid. So when he had taken the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them what things were going to happen to him: 33“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the experts on the law, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles. 34And they will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him, and after three days he will rise again.”

35Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him, asking him, “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask you.” 36So he asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” 37They said to him, “Grant to us that we may sit, one at your right hand and one at the left, in your glory.” 38But Jesus said, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 39They said to him, “We are able!” But Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized, 40but to sit at my right hand or on my left is not mine to grant; this is for those for whom it is prepared.” 41When the other ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42So when he had called them to him, he said to them, “You know that those who appear to rule the Gentiles domineer over them, and their great ones tyrannize them. 43Yet it is not so among you. Rather, whoever wants to become great among you, he will be your servant. 44And whoever wants to be first among you will be the slave of all. 45For indeed the Son of Man did not come to be served, rather to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

 As Jesus and his disciples continued farther on the road to Jerusalem, they “began to be astonished” (Greek, ekthambounto). This is the same word that Mark uses of Jesus when he began to suffer in Gethsemane (Mark 14:33), although the KJV renders it there as “astonished,” which does not carry quite the same feeling. In the road to Jerusalem episode, Mark then adds that those following Jesus began to feel afraid, perhaps because of Jesus two earlier gloomy passion predictions but also because they were well aware of the dangers that awaited them in Jerusalem. 

In this gloomy mood, Jesus then delivered his third passion prediction (Mark 10:32–34; parallels Matt 20:17–19; Luke 18:31–34), which is followed by a seemingly impertinent request from the brothers James and John to sit on the right and left hands of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom. In Matthew’s account, it is the mother of James and John, who makes this request. In both cases the misunderstanding or misbehavior on the part of Jesus’s disciples is followed by corrective teaching, calling upon them—and us—to be willing to be a servant to others. 

This third and final prediction is also the most explicit, adding details about the abuse, spitting, and scourging that Jesus will endure and making it clear that the purpose of his death was to be a ransom for us. Significantly, in Jesus’ discussion with his disciples after the prediction, he explicitly says that not only that he had come to serve rather than be served, he also would “give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This is the first explicit description of the salvific significance of his imminent death in any of the Synoptic Gospels.

"Salome asks seats for her sons, James and John"

Friday

46Then they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with the disciples and a considerable crowd, Bartimaeus (or “son of Timaeus”), a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. 47When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was there, he began to cry out and say, “O Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many started to rebuke him, telling him to be quiet, but he cried out even more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49When Jesus stopped, he said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying, “Take heart, get up! He is calling you.” 50When Bartimaeus had thrown off his cloak and jumped up, he came to Jesus. 51Jesus said to him in response, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My master, I want to see again!” 52So Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him in the way.

In contrast to the initially incomplete understanding of Jesus' identity and mission that was symbolized by the healing of the blind man in stages at Bethsaida, a full, clear spiritual understanding of the mission of Jesus Christ is symbolized by the story of blind Bartimaeus that ends Mark’s second act. Unlike the man healed near Bethsaida, who had his sight restored in stages, this beggar, recognizing Jesus as the Son of David, or Messiah, cries out to him, pleading unreservedly for mercy. Throwing aside his cloak, which was probably the means by which he collected the alms that he begged, the blind man comes to Jesus and pleads for his sight. Jesus complies, stating that the man’s faith not only led to his healing, because it also allows him to see Jesus for who he really is, but it also saved him (Greek, sesōken se) in a deeper, spiritual sense. Bartimaeus then follows Jesus “in the way,” which in this case meant going with him from Jericho up the road to Jerusalem, where Jesus was about to begin his Passion Week. Bartimaeus’s willingness to cast aside his means of earning his living also connects this scene with the first passion prediction, when Jesus had enjoined Peter and the other disciples who wanted to follow him to be willing to lose their lives for his sake (see Mark 8:34–35). Likewise, we need to be willing to give up everything and open our eyes, not just to know that “Jesus is the Christ” but also to understand what it meant that he suffered, died, and rose for us, celebrating it not just each year at Easter but every week. Are we, in fact, willing to follow Jesus “in the way”?  (Greater Love Hath No Man, 19‒20; see also Miracles of Jesus, 100‒103). 

Italian School (17th Century), "Christ Healing the Blind Man of Jericho"

Michael Coleman, "Road to Jerusalem"


[1] France, Gospel of Mark, 11‒15. See also Smith, Gospel according to Mark, 20‒23.

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