Most people who know the Easter story can tell you about Thursday and Friday. The Last Supper. Gethsemane. The cross. But ask them what Jesus was doing on Tuesday — two days before all of that — and you'll usually get silence.
That silence is a loss, because Tuesday of Holy Week may be the most concentrated day of teaching in all of scripture. And what Jesus chose to teach, knowing He had roughly seventy-two hours left, tells us something extraordinary about what mattered most to Him at the end.
A Man Walking Toward His Death on Purpose
Here's the setting. Jesus has already entered Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna. He has already wept over the city. Luke records the rawness of that moment: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes" (Luke 19:42). He has cleansed the temple. He has cursed a fig tree that bore no fruit — a living parable aimed straight at a nation that had all the outward signs of spiritual life but produced nothing.
And now, on Tuesday, He walks back into the temple one more time. Not to hide. Not to escape. To teach. Every sentence He speaks is a sentence He has chosen over silence, knowing the cross is coming.
Think about that for a moment. If you had two days left and you had already said everything you needed to say, you'd stop talking. The fact that Jesus kept teaching — and taught more on this day than on almost any other recorded day of His ministry — means He hadn't said everything yet. Or perhaps more precisely, He hadn't said certain things loudly enough.
What He Chose to Say
The sheer volume of Tuesday's teaching is staggering. Matthew devotes chapters 21 through 25 largely to this day and its aftermath. Mark covers it from chapter 11:20 through chapter 13. Luke covers it in chapters 20 and 21. The New Testament Teacher Resource Manual charts it all: the confrontation with the chief priests over His authority, the parables of the two sons and the wicked husbandmen, the parable of the wedding feast, verbal sparring with Pharisees and Sadducees over tribute to Caesar and the resurrection, the great commandment, the denunciation of hypocrisy in Matthew 23, the widow's mite, and then — as He left the temple for the last time — the Olivet Discourse and the three great parables of Matthew 25.
That's an entire semester of institute in a single day.
But what strikes me is not the quantity. It's the arc. The day begins with confrontation and ends with tenderness. It begins with Jesus dismantling every pretender to authority and ends with Him on the Mount of Olives, privately telling His closest friends how the world will end and what they must do to survive it.
And right in the middle — the hinge of the whole day — is this:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37)
That verse is grief, not anger. A dying man looking at the people He came to save and saying, I tried. I tried so many times. And you wouldn't let me.
Then He turns His back on the temple forever.
The Olivet Discourse: Teaching Under a Deadline
As Jesus and His disciples walked away from the temple, the disciples did what any of us would do — they pointed out the buildings, the massive stones, the grandeur of it all. Jesus stopped them cold: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" (Matthew 24:2).
That prophecy was fulfilled in A.D. 70 when Roman legions under Titus burned the temple and scattered its stones. Josephus estimated over a million Jews perished. The Christians in Jerusalem, however, remembered what Jesus had said. They fled to a town called Pella in the northern foothills of the Jordan Valley and survived. The words of a man they'd heard on a hillside forty years earlier literally saved their lives.
Sitting on the Mount of Olives afterward, the disciples asked the two questions that frame everything that follows: "When shall these things be?" and "What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" (Matthew 24:3). The Joseph Smith Translation separates the answers more clearly than the King James Version does — Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:5–21 addresses the destruction of Jerusalem, and verses 22–55 address the Second Coming. Joseph Smith made more changes to Matthew 24 than to any other chapter in the New Testament, which tells you something about how much the original text had been muddled.
What Jesus tells them is unflinching. False Christs. Wars. Betrayal. The love of many waxing cold. But threaded through every warning is this refrain, spoken directly to His elect: "Behold, I speak these things unto you for the elect's sake; and you also shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled, for all I have told you must come to pass; but the end is not yet" (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:23). And this: "But he that remaineth steadfast and is not overcome, the same shall be saved" (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:11).
He is not trying to scare them. He is trying to prepare them. There's a difference.
Three Parables, One Question
Then come the three parables of Matthew 25, all delivered that same evening on the Mount of Olives. Elder Dale G. Renlund, in his April 2025 general conference address, described these as parables about "how to prepare to meet Him — whether at His Second Coming or whenever we leave this world." He's right. Each one asks a slightly different version of the same question: When the moment comes, will you be ready?
The parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13) teaches that spiritual preparation cannot be borrowed. Oil — the kind that comes from years of quiet obedience, scripture study, repentance, and seeking the Spirit — cannot be transferred at the last minute. Five virgins had it. Five didn't. The door shut. The Doctrine and Covenants identifies the wise virgins as those who "have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived" (D&C 45:57).
The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30) teaches that God does not compare us to each other — but He does expect growth. The servant with five talents and the servant with two talents received identical praise: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord" (Matthew 25:21). The same words. The same reward. The only servant condemned was the one who buried what he'd been given out of fear.
And then the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:35–40). This one still gets me. Both groups — the sheep and the goats — are surprised by the verdict. The righteous don't remember serving Christ. The wicked don't remember neglecting Him. And that's the point. The judgment isn't about grand gestures anyone would notice. It's about the hungry person you fed without thinking about it, the stranger you welcomed without calculating the cost, the prisoner you visited when no one was watching. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Why This Is an Easter Story
We tend to telescope Holy Week into two moments: the suffering and the empty tomb. But the Savior Himself spent His final days doing something else entirely. He was teaching. He was looking at a city that would reject Him, a temple that would be destroyed, a world that would descend into chaos, and disciples who would be scattered — and He was saying, Here is how you survive. Here is how you stay faithful. Here is what matters when everything else falls apart.
What mattered enough to say before He died?
Don't be deceived. Remain steadfast. Stand in holy places. Treasure up the word of God. Be watchful. Use what you've been given. And for the love of heaven, feed the hungry and visit the sick.
Not a single item on that list requires a theology degree. Not one requires wealth or status or a particular calling. Every one of them is available to every person reading this right now.
The next morning — Wednesday — the Gospels record nothing. Silence. As if Jesus, having poured out everything He had to say, simply rested. And then came Thursday, and the upper room, and a basin of water, and a new commandment: "That ye love one another; as I have loved you" (John 13:34).
And then came Friday. And then came Sunday.
But Tuesday — the day nobody talks about — is the day He told us what to do with the life His death would make possible. He walked toward His death on purpose. And He used every remaining hour to make sure we'd know how to walk toward our lives.