Killing Jesus: A History

of his coming death.
    So Jesus is having trouble focusing on his final message to the disciples. Like every Jew, the Nazarene knows the painful horror and humiliation that await those condemned to the cross. He firmly believes he must fulfill what has been written in Scripture, but panic is overtaking him.
    It doesn’t help that the entire city of Jerusalem is in an anxious frenzy of last-minute Passover preparation. Everything must be made perfect for the holiday. A lamb must be purchased for the feast—and not just any lamb but an unblemished one-year-old male. And each home must be cleansed of leavened bread. Everywhere throughout Jerusalem, women frantically sweep floors and wipe down counters because even so much as a single crumb can bring forth impurity. At Lazarus’s home, Martha and Mary are fastidious in their scrubbing and sweeping. After sundown Lazarus will walk through the house with a candle, in a symbolic search for any traces of leavened products. Finding none, it is hoped, he will declare his household ready for Passover.
    At the palace home of the high priest Caiaphas, slaves and servants comb the grounds of the enormous estate in search of any barley, wheat, rye, oats, or spelt. They scrub sinks, ovens, and stoves of any trace of leaven. They sterilize pots and pans inside and out by bringing water to a boil in them, then adding a brick to allow that scalding water to flow over the sides. Silverware is being heated to a glow, then placed one at a time into boiling water. There is no need, however, to purchase the sacrificial lamb, as Caiaphas’s family owns the entire Temple lamb concession.
    At the former palace of Herod the Great, where Pontius Pilate and his wife, Claudia, once again are enduring Passover, there are no such preparations. The Roman governor begins his day with a shave, for he is clean-shaven and short-haired in the imperial fashion of the day. He cares little for Jewish tradition. He is not interested in the traditional belief that Moses and the Israelites were forced to flee Egypt without giving their bread time to rise, which led to leavened products being forbidden on Passover. For him there is ientaculum , prandium , and cena (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), including plenty of bread, most often leavened with salt (instead of yeast), in the Roman tradition. Back at his palace in Caesarea, Pilate might also be able to enjoy oysters and a slice of roast pork with his evening meal, but no such delicacies exist (or are permitted) within observant Jerusalem—particularly not on the eve of Passover. In fact, Caiaphas and the high priests will even refrain from entering Herod’s palace as the feast draws near, for fear of becoming impure in the presence of the Romans and their pagan ways. This is actually a blessing for Pilate, ensuring him a short holiday from dealing with the Jews and their never-ending problems.
    Or so he thinks.
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    Judas Iscariot watches Jesus with a quiet intensity, waiting for the Nazarene to reveal his Passover plans so that he can slip away and inform Caiaphas. It would be easy enough to ask the high priest to send Temple guards to the home of Lazarus, but arresting Jesus so far from Jerusalem could be a disaster. Too many pilgrims would see the Nazarene marched back to the city in chains, thus possibly provoking the very riot scenario that so terrifies the religious leaders.
    Judas is sure that none of the other disciples knows he has betrayed Jesus. So he bides his time, listening and waiting for that moment when Jesus summons his followers and tells them it is time to walk back into Jerusalem. It seems incomprehensible that Jesus would not return to the Holy City at least one more time during their stay. Perhaps Jesus is waiting for Passover to begin to reveal that he is the Christ. If that is so, then Scripture says this must happen in Jerusalem. Sooner or later, the Nazarene will go back to the Holy City.
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    Next to the Temple, in the Antonia Fortress, the enormous citadel where Roman troops are garrisoned, hundreds of soldiers file into the dining hall for their evening meal. These barracks are connected to the Temple at the northwest corner, and most men have stood guard today, walking through the military-only gate and onto the forty-five-foot-wide platform atop the colonnades that line the Temple walls. From there, it is easy enough to look down on the Jewish pilgrims as they fuss over last-minute Passover