Passover time had almost come, so Jesus had to be on his way. Jericho was left behind, and Jesus and the disciples pushed across the hills and desert land that lay east of Jerusalem.

This was the country Jesus had crossed the first time he went to the Passover feast. That was twenty years ago, when he was a boy of twelve, and Joseph and Mary had taken him to the feast in the great city. The stones were just as hard now as they had been then. The land was as dreary to see as it had ever been, and the desert as dry. And yet there were just as many pilgrims from all parts of Palestine traveling up to Jerusalem, going, as their fathers did before them, to keep the Passover in the holy city of the Jews. In a little while a shout would go up, and many a party would burst into song. They would sing:

A few days more, and they would sacrifice their lambs in the Temple. They would pray God to be good to the Jews, and to save them from their enemies. A few nights more, and they would sit down to eat the roasted flesh of the lambs at the Passover feast; and when they had eaten they would sing:

Jesus and the disciples came out of the desert, and paused among the olive groves near the village of Bethany. Now only the Mount of Olives and the brook called Kidron stood between Jesus and Jerusalem. Already the Passover pilgrims were pouring through the gates of the city and up to the Temple. It was hard for all the pilgrims to find places to stay during the week of the Passover. Here at Bethany, Jesus had friends who loved him, and here he found a place in which to stay.

A man named Simon, whom Jesus once cured of the dreaded leprosy, had a house in Bethany where Jesus was welcome. There also was a woman in Bethany whose name was Mary. She thought that nothing was too much to give to Jesus. Like another woman who once made the Pharisees angry, she came to Jesus when he sat at dinner in Simon's house and poured precious ointment on his head.

But this time it was not the Pharisees who were angry, for there were no Pharisees in the house. It was Jesus' own disciples, especially Judas Iscariot, who said that it was wrong to waste anything that cost as much as the ointment. Judas spoke up and said, "Why was not this ointment sold, and the money given to the poor?"

Judas did not really care about the poor. He looked after the money for Jesus and the disciples, and when he wanted any, he secretly helped himself out of what belonged to all of them. He thought that if the precious ointment had been sold, there would have been more money in the purse he carried.

When Jesus heard the disciples complaining about Mary's gift, he said: "Let her alone. This is a good thing that she has done. There will always be poor people, and you can give them all you like after I am gone. But you will not have me always. You know your custom is that when your loved ones die you put ointment on their bodies before you bury them. Well, Mary has come to get me ready to be buried, before I am even dead. I tell you, this woman's name will be remembered all over the world because of what she did for me today!"

The disciples begrudged Jesus the ointment that a loving woman pured upon his head! That was a bad sign. Many times in these last few months Jesus had had to speak sharply to his disciples. The longer they were with him, the less they seemed to understand the things that he had taught them. Jesus was growing lonelier every day, and the hardest task was still ahead.

One time, when they were on the road, John came to Jesus, feeling very proud of himself.

"Master," he said, "we saw a man curing people who were out of their minds and he was using your name to do it! Naturally we told him he would have to stop. He didn't have any right to use your name, when he wasn't one of us!"

Jesus answered: "You shouldn't have stopped him. If he wasn't doing us any harm, then he was on our side!"

Then there was a terrible scene one day, when Jesus found the disciples quarreling about which of them would be the most important when Jesus became king. Each thought that he ought to have a higher position than the rest.

"You aren't supposed to be looking out for yourselves," Jesus told them. "That's what the Romans do. They want to be kings, and order other people about. But the greatest one of you will be the one who does the most to help others, no matter what it costs him. Which would you rather do—sit down to a dinner and have your food brought to you, or bring the food for somebody else? You'd rather sit down and let a servant wait on you, of course. But I am content to be a servant among you, the servant of everyone."

The disciples could not get over thinking that some people were more important than others, and that they themselves counted for more than anyone else. Once some mothers brought their little children to Jesus, hoping that he would put his hands on them and bless them. The disciples did not think that the children counted for anything, and they were going to send them away. They told the mothers that they ought not to come where they were not wanted.

But Jesus called the little children to him, and said: "Let the little children come to me, and don't stand in their way. God's Kingdom is made up of people like these children. God hasn't any place for a person who thinks himself important. These children aren't pushing themselves forward. They are humble, and it would be better if you were more like them!"

With these words Jesus laid his hands upon the children and gave them his blessing, as the mothers wanted him to do.

Another thing that Jesus said, which the disciples could not understand, was that they ought to forgive anyone who did them an injury. One day Peter came to him and asked: "Lord, if somebody keeps on doing wrong to me, how many times should I forgive him? Seven times, perhaps?"

Peter thought that seven times would be doing very well. But Jesus answered: "Seven times! Multiply that by seventy! Forgive him until you have lost count of the times!"

When the disciples heard that, they knew that Jesus meant they should never stop forgiving anyone who wronged them. This seemed to them to be more than they could do unless God helped them. They would need more faith in God. So they said, "Lord, give us more faith than we have."

Then Jesus had to tell them that they really did not have any faith at all. He said: "If your faith were only as big as a mustard seed—the smallest seed there is—you could say to that tree over there, 'Be pulled up and be planted in the sea,' and it would be done."

No, the disciples did not have much faith. They did not understand Jesus. They were jealous of one another. They thought that Jesus ought to be a king, and each of them thought that he ought to be the king's right-hand man. The disciples were afraid. If Jesus went up to Jerusalem, they could not tell what would happen. Sometimes they thought it would be best if Jesus would stay out of sight where his enemies could not find him.

Worst of all, there was one of the disciples who was not loyal—Judas Iscariot. Judas was planning something so terrible that no one except Jesus knew what it was.

Jesus could not wait until his disciples understood. He could not wait until they were brave enough, or strong enough or good enough. If he did, he would wait forever. And there was very little time.

There was something that he had to do now—the thing he had planned to do all along. Back in the days when he was all alone in the wilderness, after John baptized him in the Jordan, he knew that this was what he would have to do someday. Now the time had come. He must go back to the Temple, where he had stood and watched the Passover lambs being killed when he was a boy of twelve. He must go and get ready for the Passover.

Jerusalem was about two miles away. He could not stay on in Bethany. He must go to Jerusalem at once.

He called two of his disciples and gave his orders.

"Go into the village, and there you will find a young donkey tied. No one has ever ridden it. Untie it and bring it here. If the owner questions you, tell him, 'The Lord needs this donkey.' He will let you have it at once."

The disciples went to do as they were told, and they did not need to be told twice. They knew what Jesus meant, for they knew the Scriptures. If this was the way Jesus was going to Jerusalem, there was nothing to be afraid of!

For it said in the Scriptures that the Messiah would come into Jerusalem riding upon a donkey. How did the words go?

Jesus was going to do it! He was going to ride into Jerusalem as the Messiah! Everyone would know who he was at last, for it said in the Scriptures that this was how the Messiah would come to the city! Let the Jews get ready to receive the King they had waited for so long!

They would have to wait no longer. Messiah—King Messiah—was marching toward his throne.