When evening came, they[e] went out of the city.(11:19)
The above verse seems to describe the calmness the night before storm. Jesus and his followers quietly withdrew from Jerusalem as they had done before whether they knew the high priests and the scribes were conspiring to get rid of Jesus or not. When we see this scene only, it is rather romantic. After sunset they went to the sleeping place, probably Bethany. However, the shadow of death that handed down to Jesus slowly getting thicker.
The cause of such phenomena was Jerusalem temple cleaning incident. The high priests and the subscribers began to be afraid of Jesus through this incident. The incident seemed to be a violent act and we might think it is something specific incident distinguished from other incidents of Jesus. It is not. It is deeply related to the entire life of Jesus.
Jesus only sought the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Such life couldn’t but crash against the order of power and greedy. Such crush wasn’t happened only between the people with vested right. It was the same with the publics. As we know very well, the publics refused to accept Pilate’s suggestion to release Jesus. Those who followed Jesus fervently left Jesus immediately when they realized Jesus wouldn’t fitted to their expectation.
To Jesus who only tried to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the temple cleaning was already anticipated. If Jesus didn’t enter into the temple it wouldn’t happen but once he entered in and saw those merchandizing actives then he couldn’t but fight against the vested power group of the temple. Now Jesus reached an impasse. He had no choice but to fight with his back to the wall. What would be the result? It was an act of hitting a rock by an egg to crush it. However, the result was not important for him. He simply said yes for yes and no for no.
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