Section 150b
Opposition from the world
Jerusalem, in the upper room → The Mount of Olives
John 15:18-16:4
18“If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. 19If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. 20Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24If I had not done among them the works that no one else had done, they would have no sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25But this has happened to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me for no reason.’ 26“When the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. 27You must also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. 1“I have said these things to you so that you will not fall away. 2They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, an hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God. 3They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me. 4But I have said these things to you so that when the hour comes you will remember that I said them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.
Notes
Mount of Olives
The mountainous ridge called the Mount of Olives stretches totay from the Hebrew University Mount Scopus campus in the north to the Jewish cemetery and beyond, to the village of Silwan in the south. Between these two ends of the mountain are the olive trees from which the mountain takes its name. The area at the bottom of the mountain would have been the place for the olive gardens and an olive press, “Gat shemen” in Hebrew, from which the name “Gethsemane” comes.
The gospels record on more than one occasion Jesus’ sorrow for Jerusalem as he made his way down the slopes of the Mount of Olives. It was a path he would have known from childhood from His many visits to Jerusalem.
Down the road from Bethphage He came riding on a donkey colt with palm branches symbolic of Judaea strewn along the way. “Hosanna!” (“save now!”) was the cry upon the lips of the people (Matthew 21:1-9). This prayer from Psalm 118:25 was a request for salvation. Yet Jesus knew that these cries would be changed within a week to “Crucify him!” He wept again for Jerusalem, for He knew what would befall the people in less than one generation as the city would be besieged and taken.
Upper Room
The Upper room, or Cenacle, commemorates the place where the last Supper was eaten and Holy Communion was instituted. The Gospels tell us nothing of the location of the house, but there is good indication it would have been on the western hill where a wealthy man would have had an upper room on his house. Archaeological excavations in the Jewish quarter show that there were large houses in this area during the time of Christ.
There is a possibility that this is indeed the correct location of the Upper Room. A church was built on this site soon after the death of Jesus. It must have survived the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Bishop Epiphanius wrote of how Emperor Hadrian made an inspection tour of Jerusalem in 130 A.D. and found “everything razed except for a few houses and a certain small church of the Christians which stood on Mount Zion in the place where the disciples returned after the ascension”. This church was destroyed and rebuilt many times over the following centuries before being handed over to the Franciscans who restored the room giving it its present Gothic appearance (14th century).
Photos
Videos
Jerusalem, in the upper room & The Mount of Olives
Footnotes
John 15,25
Psalms 35:19; 69:4