On the supposition just made, the task of Peter and John would, indeed, have been simple. They left the house of Mark with wondering but saddened hearts. Once more had they had evidence, how the Master's Divine glance searched the futher in all its details. They had met the servant with the pitcher of water; they had delivered their message to the master of the house; and they had seen the large Upper Room furnished and ready. But this prescience of Christ afforded only further evidence, that what He had told of His impending Crucifixion would also come true. And now it would be time for the ordinary Evening-Service and Sacrifice. Ordinarily this began about 2.30 p.m. - the daily Evening-Sacrifice being actually offered up about an hour later; but on this occasion, on account of the Feast, the Service was an hour earlier. [5630] As at about half-past one of our time the two Apostles ascended the Temple-Mount, following a dense, motley crowd of joyous, chatting pilgrims, they must have felt terribly lonely among them. In all that crowd how few to sympathise with them; how many enemies! The Temple-Courts were thronged to the utmost by worshippers from all countries and from all parts of the land. The Priests' Court was filled with white-robed Priests and Levites - for on that day all the twenty-four Courses were on duty, and all their services would be called for, although only the Course for that week would that afternoon engage in the ordinary service, which preceded that of the Feast. Almost mechanically would they witness the various parts of the well-remembered ceremonial. There must have been a peculiar meaning to them, a mournful significance, in the language of Ps. lxxxi., as the Levites chanted it that afternoon in three sections, broken three times by the threefold blast from the silver trumpets of the Priests.
Before the incense was burnt for the Evening Sacrifice, or yet the lamps in the Golden Candlestick were trimmed for the night, the Paschal-Lambs were slain. The worshippers were admitted in three divisions within the Court of the Priests. When the first company had entered, the massive Nicanor Gates - which led from the Court of the Women to that of Israel - and the other side-gates into the Court of the Priests, were closed. A threefold blast from the Priests' trumpets intimated that the Lambs were being slain. This each Israelite did for himself. We can scarcely be mistaken in supposing that Peter and John would be in the first of the three companies into which the offerers were divided; for they must have been anxious to be gone, and to meet the Master and their brethren in that Upper Room.' Peter and John [5631] had slain the Lamb. In two rows the officiating Priest stood, up to the great Altar of Burnt-offering. As one caught up the blood from the dying Lamb in a golden bowl. he handed it to his colleague, receiving in return an empty bowl; and so the blood was passed on to the Great Altar, where it was jerked in one jet at the base of the Altar. [5632] While this was going on, the Hallel [5633] was being chanted by the Levites. We remember that only the first line of every Psalm was repeated by the worshippers; while to every other line they responded by a Halleluyah, till Ps. cxviii. was reached, when, besides the first, these three lines were also repeated: -
Save now, I beseech Thee, Lord;
O Lord, I beseech Thee, send now prosperity.
Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
As Peter and John repeated them on that afternoon, the words must have sounded most deeply significant. But their minds must have also reverted to that triumphal Entry into the City a few days before, when Israel had greeted with these words the Advent of their King. And now - was it not, as if it had only been an anticipation of the Hymn, when the blood of the Paschal Lamb was being shed?