rare bit
of sheepfold and shepherd teaching.[37] These four incidents make up the
second great outstanding group of incidents, and mark the sharpest clash
and crisis thus far.

A few months later at another Jerusalem feast called the Feast of the
Dedication, comes a second hotly impulsive riotous attempt at stoning,
and then an attempt to arrest, both foiled by the restraint of Jesus'
mere presence and personal power.[38] And another connecting link traces
His going away beyond the Jordan River, where the crowds gather to Him,
and are won to warm personal belief.[39]

Another little gap of a few months passed over in silence, brings the
narrative to the _third_ and last _chief group of incidents_ in this
part of the book, and so leads immediately up to the great final events
of the whole book.

The illness and death of Lazarus draws Jesus back to a suburb of
Jerusalem, Bethany. Then the stupendous incident of the raising of
Lazarus leads to the official decision to put Jesus to death.[40] And a
connecting link of verses tells of Jesus' cautious withdrawal, of the
inquiring crowds coming to the approaching Passover, and of the public
notice given that Jesus was under official condemnation.[41]

It is at the home feast given in Bethany as a tribute of love to Jesus
that Judas, coldly criticizing a warm act of tender love, and gently
rebuked by Jesus, gets into that bad heat of temper out of which came
the foul bargaining and betrayal.[42] Another brief connecting link lets
us see the crowds more eagerly inquiring for Jesus because of the
raising of Lazarus, and the determined priests coolly plotting Lazarus'
death, too.[43]

Then comes Jesus' faithful open offer of Himself in kingly fashion to
the nation, with the tremendous enthusiasm of the multitudes, and the
hardening of the official purpose to do the one thing that will offset
this wild-fire enthusiasm.[44]

And then comes the apparently simple, but in meaning tremendous,
incident of the inquiring Greeks. The Jew door is slamming shut, but the
outside door is opening. Here the whole world opens its door, its front
door, in these Greek representatives of the best culture the earth knew.
But Jesus' vision never blurs. He understands; He alone. The only route
to Greece and the whole outer world is the underground route, the way
through Joseph's tomb.

And as the intense spirit-struggle passes, Jesus quietly goes on with
His searching appealing talk to the crow