The Coming of the King

by Bernie Babcock

Again he clenched his fist and the impulse came to strike, but he put it away and leaving the Temple turned his feet toward a narrow back street where the poverty-stricken swarmed. Here the pallid faces of the hungry, and the maimed bodies of many men told something of the suffering inflicted on these poor by the late wars. As he made his way through this district, the heart of Jesus was bowed under a great weight which was growing heavier and heavier as he acquainted himself with the mass suffering. Following a narrow street to a side gate he went beyond the city walls into a place of stony valleys and gloomy ravines that made the quarries and pools of Jerusalem. In this place, fed by waters running through a subterranean passage from a fountain, was the Pool of Siloam. Gathered here on the broad stone steps that ran to the water's edge, was the outcast poor and the crippled. For a time the Galilean looked upon the scene of helplessness and pain with eyes of infinite compassion and pity, then turning his back on the basin of Siloam's misery, he lifted his eyes to Zion on the Mount and with a long deep sigh exclaimed: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

Retracing his steps, Kedron came into view and again he paused. As he looked into the valley the stream ran brown. To-morrow it would carry clots of rosy foam under which the current would be dark and ruddy. Even as he looked upon it, the lambs were bleating in the stalls. The picture of the bloody sacrifice came before him—the awe-inspiring congregation of two hundred thousand of 'God's chosen ones.' At the ninth hour three blasts of the silver trumpet would start the surging chant of five thousand Levites and signal the beginning of the slaughter. And in the next six hours two hundred thousand lambs must be slain and carried away from the gate.

"What availeth all this?" he said to himself.

When Jesus reentered the Temple, several hours had passed. The noise in the Outer Court had now grown to a deafening roar. Cattle were lowing and lambs bleating. Men shouted and cursed when an affrighted animal broke its tether. The voices of other men were heard calling their wares at shop entrances and booths, and the air was heavy with the stench of goats and cattle dung. Making his way through the crowd he found the niche between the pillars and again stepped into it to look for a few moments upon the scene of uproar and confusion. There was nothing to indicate a place of worship. Rather was it a great bazaar of shops with competition so keen at times as to give promise of the use of fists. In addition to the stalls of lambs and pigeons and the booths of oil and wine and wheat required for the sacrifices, there were stands for vase sellers, brass and copper dealers, dealers in ovens, dishes and bottles, silk merchants and jewelers and traffickers in imported goods.

The crowd was made up mostly of tradespeople and strangers with a sprinkling of Temple Guards and here and there scribes and Pharisees. The gleam of spear points of the Legion told that an extra guard had been sent in from the Tower of Antonio, and Jesus noticed that this guard was well established around the tables of the money-changers. His eye turned again to the table directly in front of him and now for the first time he saw its owner. He smiled at the memory of a startled face looking at him in the dark from over a water-jar. But Zador Ben Amon did not look his way now. He was busy passing on the value of coins and in seeing that any who complained were well pushed out of the way by soldiers, to be swallowed up by the crowd. For a time Jesus watched the game. The last victim of the unscrupulous money-changer was a Galilean peasant, whose travel-stained and shabby body covering, bent shoulders and knotted hands bespoke poverty. When the change was pressed into his hand he refused to accept it. There were words. The peasant was ordered by Zador Ben Amon to move on. This he refused to do. Guards were summoned and when the man, who had been robbed of his one coin, still clamored for his money, he was cruelly beaten and dragged away to the stocks.

The Galilean watching from the balustrade felt again the fierce anger sweeping over him and he left his place of watching with his face turned in the direction of the money-changers. As he crossed the court he stopped at a goat pen. A dozen goats were just being brought in on the shoulders of as many men. As the animals were pushed into the pen the thongs that bound their legs were cast aside. Selecting a handful of these Jesus pressed on. When he reached the table of Zador Ben Amon, this mighty Sadducee was not in sight. But business was going on and, quite near at hand, the Galilean watched the money-changing while his quick fingers plaited a scourge, and the muscles of his arm called him to action. He spoke no word and no man noticed the flush on his face nor the fire in his eye until the hiss of the thong sang over the heads of those about the table of Ben Amon and its stinging force fell across those who bent over the money bags. There was a yell, and another hissing of the thongs. Then the words rang out in a shout of mighty condemnation, "Ye have made my Father's house a den of thieves!" And the thong writhed and hissed and struck and stung and the coin-laden tables were overturned with the ease and fury of an enraged man brushing straw aside. Seeing the uproar about his table, Zador Ben Amon pushed his way through the confusion just in time to see two well filled money bags kicked open by a fellow money-changer trying to escape the scourge. With a shout and a curse he sprang forward. As he did so the hiss of the burning thongs sounded in his ears and the next instant he was blinded by the stinging pain of the scourge as blood ran across his cheeks and into his well oiled beard.

With incredible swiftness the money-changers had been driven out and the cleanser of the Temple had mounted the steps of the Beautiful Gate, and thong in hand was looking out on a scene unparalleled. Servants of money-changers were creeping about the floor; thieves were quickly at work stealing from those who had stolen, and the money-changers themselves, Zador Ben Amon with bloody face among them, were struggling desperately to get possession of their bags before their contents should be wholly appropriated by itching fingers. Running in and out among the affrighted people were animals yet more affrighted whose bleating and bellowing mingled with the outcries of men, while over the heads of them all flocks of frightened doves with swift wing sought escape to the open.

There was a call for guards, but the man pausing on the steps for a passing moment only smiled as he saw them search for one who so boldly stood before them. But if the guards knew not where to look for him, there were those who saw, and in the commotion, when the question was asked, "Who did this thing?" the answer was, "Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth of Galilee who hath been acclaimed King of the Jews. He hath taken charge of the Temple! Let us see what cometh."

The first development from the confusion was the appearance of a number of scribes, Pharisees and Chief Priests who made their way in a body to the foot of the steps where he who had wrought the confusion stood. Fear, surprise and anger in varying degree marked the faces of these Temple officials. But their wrath was as nothing beside the righteous indignation of him who stood, thong in hand, awaiting their coming. They stopped at the foot of the steps—beyond reach of the weapon in his hand. And from this safe distance they challenged his right and his authority.

A moment he regarded them in silent scorn, then he twisted the whip into a loose roll and flung it at their feet saying, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men! Woe unto you, hypocrites! Ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation! Woe unto ye, blind guides! Ye pay the tithe of mint and anise and cummin and omit the weightier matters of the Law,—judgment, mercy and faith. Ye blind guides which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess! Woe, woe unto you! Ye are like whited sepulchres which indeed appear beautiful outward but within are full of dead men's bones! Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye build tombs for the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous while ye yourselves be children of them which killed the prophets! Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers! Ye serpents! How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Ye generation of vipers!"