26. The Last Denunciation by Jesus Christ of the Scribes and Pharisees. Praise for the Widow’s Devotion. The Discourse With the Disciples on the Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the End of the World, and the Second Coming. The Parables of the Ten Virgins and the Talents. The Depiction of the Last Judgment

After all that had transpired, it became apparent to all that between the ruling and guiding classes of the Jewish people and Christ there could be nothing in common. And since the Pharisees and scribes had from this point resolved at all costs to destroy Christ, it was no longer possible to treat them with the forbearing patience that had been maintained hitherto. It was necessary to expose them definitively before the people, and this the Savior accomplished in His last great denunciation.

Surrounded as usual by a crowd of people among whom were scribes and Pharisees, the Savior addressed Himself directly to the latter, and from His lips thundered words of denunciation that could have failed to awaken only a dead conscience. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He began His denunciatory speech, and then like thunderclaps resounded over them the terrible and irresistible exposures: how they, as guardians of the law of Moses, presented in their lives an example of its most brazen violation; how they laid on others heavy and unbearable burdens while they themselves were not willing to move them with so much as a finger; how they loved external honors and did everything for show, while their lives were full of vice and rapacity; how they sought to win proselytes to the faith but made them twice as bad as before; how they washed and cleansed the outer vessels while they themselves were inwardly full of all manner of filth and iniquity; blind guides, they strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel; their hypocrisy made them perfectly like tombs that were carefully adorned on the outside but contained within a decomposing mass. “So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Woe to them for their pretended repentance with which they condemned their forefathers for the slaying of prophets, while at the same time they bore within themselves that same bloodthirsty spirit of their ancestors, and had even filled to overflowing and surpassed the measure of their crimes with a still more terrible deed. Upon that generation was to fall all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, whom they killed between the temple and the altar. The thunder of retribution was already gathering over them and was ready to break with all its horrors upon their guilty heads. But then this voice, thundering with righteous wrath, was suddenly touched by the tenderest, most loving pity for the ill-fated city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,’”—that is, you will cry out as the crowd cried at the entry into Jerusalem, but it will already be too late. And this prophecy was fulfilled in all its terrible exactness at the siege and capture of Jerusalem, when indeed “the house of the Jews was left desolate,” became a heap of ruins and rotting corpses.

Burning with righteous wrath and compassion at the same time, Christ left the temple—for the last time. But His heart was sorrowful, and He sat in the court of the women to rest His soul. In this court there were several offering boxes into which worshippers dropped their contributions. And there, among the wealthy donors who self-complacently dropped gold and silver into the boxes, one poor widow timidly placed her small offering. The faces of the wealthy donors were distorted with contempt at the trifling offering, smaller than which it was already impossible to bring to the temple. She had dropped two lepta, the smallest of the coins in circulation, so that to drop only one was not permitted by law even for the very poorest. The lepta or pruta was one-eighth of an as and was worth a little more than half a kopek, so that her entire offering amounted to a little more than a kopek. In giving so paltry a gift, she might have been ashamed of her poverty, when all around her the wealthy were pouring out gold. But Christ was pleased with her faith and self-sacrifice. Her gift was that “cup of cold water” which, given with love, will not go without its due reward in His kingdom. Accordingly He wished to teach for all time that every act of charity is valued according to the degree of self-denial accompanying it; and the self-denial of this widow in her poverty was far greater than that of the richest Pharisee who brought gold. “For they all gave out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, all her livelihood.”

At last the Savior left the precincts of the temple as well; but the disciples still could not bring themselves to part from the Old Testament temple and, not clearly understanding the prophecy just uttered, though they involuntarily felt its terrible truth, they ventured once more, with a feeling of pity, to draw their Teacher’s attention to the temple being left behind, as if wishing to verify once more the prophecy concerning its fate. But Christ briefly answered the disciple who addressed Him: “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” After such a clear declaration there could no longer be any misunderstanding concerning the pronounced prophecy, and the disciples, following their Teacher, walked away from the precincts of the temple with heavy thoughts in their hearts. Crossing the Kidron valley, they went along the steep path leading through the Mount of Olives toward Bethany. At the summit they stopped, and Christ sat down to rest, perhaps beneath the green branches of two magnificent cedar trees that had once adorned the mountain top. The spectacle that opened from here was capable of inspiring the most elevated thoughts. On one side, deep below Him, lay the sacred city, which had long since become a harlot and even now on this day—the last day of Christ’s public ministry—had definitively proved that it had not known the time of its visitation. At His feet spread the slopes of the mountain and the Garden of Gethsemane. On the opposite slope rose the city walls and in the midst of them the broad expanse crowned with the marble colonnades and gilded roofs of the temple. To the east, beyond the bare, rocky hills of the Judean wilderness, gleamed the purple ridge of the Moabite mountains, which at sunset sparkle like a chain of precious stones. In the deep, sun-scorched hollow the dark waters of the Dead Sea undulated. And thus, looking from the mountain top, the Savior everywhere saw the traces of God’s wrath and human sin. On one side the Dead Sea gleamed somberly, its pitchy and stupefying waves a constant witness to the punishment of God for carnal depravity; and at His feet was the famous but guilty city, which had shed the blood of all the prophets and was condemned to fall under still more terrible retribution for an even more heinous crime.

Christ was sorrowful and absorbed in deep thought. Not without a feeling of fear, the nearest and most beloved of the apostles—Peter, James, John, and Andrew—approached Him and, seeing that His gaze was fixed on the temple, asked Him privately: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?” Their question evidently proceeded from the assumption that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple would coincide with the end of the world. Christ then laid before them in prophetic imagery the development and course of the kingdom of God on earth, dwelling especially on two chief events—the ruin of Jerusalem and with it of the Jewish people as an independent political body, and the end of the world. The destruction of Jerusalem would be only the beginning of all this, and it was to serve as a foreshadowing of what would take place at the dread judgment of the living and the dead. When the last dreadful event would occur is a mystery of the Godhead into which even the angels cannot penetrate; but even before the nearer event considerable time would pass, and many temptations would arise against which they must be on guard. False messiahs would appear and by enticement and fear would seek to win followers; but they must hold unshakeably to their faith in their Teacher and Lord, endure all things for His sake, and those who endure to the end will be saved. Though the coming of the Lord and the end of the world are unknown even to the angels, there are nonetheless certain signs by which one may judge of the nearness of these great events. By that time the sun and moon will grow dark, the stars will fall like leaves, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. A general shaking of the world order will occur, and then Christ will send His angels with a great trumpet to gather His elect from the four winds, from one end to the other. The Savior urged His disciples at all times to watch for these signs and interpret them in the same way they interpret the signs of the approach of summer from the leafing of the fig tree. But that day will come suddenly; and since it will be a day of reward for all faithful servants, it will also at the same time be a day of punishment for all those who are found unequal to their calling and unprepared for the great day. To impress upon their souls still more strongly this lesson of vigilance and faithfulness and to warn them still more expressively against the danger of a careless life and the extinction of the lamp of watchfulness, He told them two parables striking in their simplicity yet rich in instruction—the parable of “the ten virgins” and of “the talents”—and painted for them the picture of the great day of the dread judgment, when the heavenly King would separate peoples and individuals from one another, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. On that day those who had shown even the smallest kindness to the least of His brethren would be counted as having shown it to Him personally. All who had done evil will go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life. But lest these sayings give occasion to some old erroneous messianic views, He concluded them with a sad yet already familiar prediction that before all this His suffering and death would come first. Now with complete clarity and simplicity He revealed to them even the occasion, the manner, and the day: “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

Thus ended this great discourse on the Mount of Olives. The sun had already set, and He rose and went with His apostles along the road to Bethany. This was the last time He walked that road on earth; and after the trials, the fatigue, the elevated preaching, and the terrible agitations of that event-filled day, how delightfully pleasant must have seemed to Him those hours of quiet twilight and evening rest, how refreshing the peace and love that surrounded Him in that tranquil village and blessed house! It is worth noting that Jesus Christ in general did not care for cities and hardly ever spent a night within their bounds. Their gregarious impiety, their unceasing social bustle, their feverish restlessness, their noisy monotony and colorlessness—all this repelled and disturbed the tender, pure soul of Christ. An Eastern city is always filthy; refuse is thrown into the streets; there are no pavements; stray dogs are the only scavengers of filth; animals and men jostle together indiscriminately in narrow streets and passageways. Therefore, although by the duty of His ministry the Savior was frequently obliged to visit Jerusalem and preach to the vast crowds that gathered for the annual festivals from all regions and countries of the world, yet on every convenient occasion He withdrew beyond the city gates—partly for safety, partly on account of poverty, partly because He loved that blessed house in Bethany, and partly also because He felt more peace and joy in His soul when treading the grass growing on the mountains than the rough stones of the city; and the highest bliss for Him was communion with the heavenly Father beneath the shadow of the olive trees, where, far from the noise of men and the disturbing spectacles of the world, He could quietly enjoy the wondrous beauty of the setting sun and the wholesome freshness of the evening dew.