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The travels of Jesus presented in the Papers offers an amazing glimpse at the world and the times of the Master. These tales also portray the personality, mission, and ministry of Jesus and demonstrate many key elements of the eventual formation and success of historical Christianity!
We will be studying Papers 128 through 134. These 7 Papers are an incredible story of the Master’s personal preparation for his ministry. The transition from child to adult as the Son of Man.
Jesus’ Early Manhood
128:0.1 (1407.1) AS JESUS of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Jesus came into this world just as other children come; he had nothing to do with selecting his parents. He did choose this particular world as the planet whereon to carry out his seventh and final bestowal, his incarnation in the likeness of mortal flesh, but otherwise he entered the world in a natural manner, growing up as a child of the realm and wrestling with the vicissitudes of his environment just as do other mortals on this and on similar worlds.
128:0.2 (1407.2) Always be mindful of the twofold purpose of Michael’s bestowal on Urantia:
128:0.3 (1407.3) 1. The mastering of the experience of living the full life of a human creature in mortal flesh, the completion of his sovereignty in Nebadon.
128:0.4 (1407.4) 2. The revelation of the Universal Father to the mortal dwellers on the worlds of time and space and the more effective leading of these same mortals to a better understanding of the Universal Father.
128:0.5 (1407.5) All other creature benefits and universe advantages were incidental and secondary to these major purposes of the mortal bestowal.
Me here: Of course the story of Jesus travels throughout the Roman world begins long before the age of 21. It is so interesting how time connects the past with the future don’t you think?
As a child, Jesus hung out amongst caravaners – the teamsters of the day! – and learned important skills regarding boat building and caravan animal packing tack for horses and camels. Such skills and interests served him for his entire life on Urantia!!
And during Passover and other holy days, pilgrims came from the four corners of the Empire to Jerusalem. The location and time of Michael’s final bestowal were quite intentional.
123:1.6 (1357.3) It was midsummer of this same year that Joseph built a small workshop close to the village spring and near the caravan tarrying lot. After this he did very little carpenter work by the day. He had as associates two of his brothers and several other mechanics, whom he sent out to work while he remained at the shop making yokes and plows and doing other woodwork. He also did some work in leather and with rope and canvas. And Jesus, as he grew up, when not at school, spent his time about equally between helping his mother with home duties and watching his father work at the shop, meanwhile listening to the conversation and gossip of the caravan conductors and passengers from the four corners of the earth.
123:5.6 (1362.7) Next, in addition to his more formal schooling, Jesus began to make contact with human nature from the four quarters of the earth as men from many lands passed in and out of his father’s repair shop. When he grew older, he mingled freely with the caravans as they tarried near the spring for rest and nourishment. Being a fluent speaker of Greek, he had little trouble in conversing with the majority of the caravan travelers and conductors.
123:5.7 (1362. Nazareth was a caravan way station and crossroads of travel and largely gentile in population; at the same time it was widely known as a center of liberal interpretation of Jewish traditional law. In Galilee the Jews mingled more freely with the gentiles than was their practice in Judea. And of all the cities of Galilee, the Jews of Nazareth were most liberal in their interpretation of the social restrictions based on the fears of contamination as a result of contact with the gentiles. And these conditions gave rise to the common saying in Jerusalem, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
https://truthbook.com/jesus/where-jesus-walked-maps-index/
121:1.1 (1332.2) Jesus did not come to this world during an age of spiritual decadence; at the time of his birth Urantia was experiencing such a revival of spiritual thinking and religious living as it had not known in all its previous post-Adamic history nor has experienced in any era since. When Michael incarnated on Urantia, the world presented the most favorable condition for the Creator Son’s bestowal that had ever previously prevailed or has since obtained. In the centuries just prior to these times Greek culture and the Greek language had spread over Occident and near Orient, and the Jews, being a Levantine race, in nature part Occidental and part Oriental, were eminently fitted to utilize such cultural and linguistic settings for the effective spread of a new religion to both East and West. These most favorable circumstances were further enhanced by the tolerant political rule of the Mediterranean world by the Romans.
121:1.2 (1332.3) This entire combination of world influences is well illustrated by the activities of Paul, who, being in religious culture a Hebrew of the Hebrews, proclaimed the gospel of a Jewish Messiah in the Greek tongue, while he himself was a Roman citizen.
121:1.3 (1332.4) Nothing like the civilization of the times of Jesus has been seen in the Occident before or since those days. European civilization was unified and co-ordinated under an extraordinary threefold influence:
121:1.4 (1332.5) 1. The Roman political and social systems.
121:1.5 (1332.6) 2. The Grecian language and culture—and philosophy to a certain extent.
121:1.6 (1332.7) 3. The rapidly spreading influence of Jewish religious and moral teachings.
121:1.7 (1332.
When Jesus was born, the entire Mediterranean world was a unified empire. Good roads, for the first time in the world’s history, interconnected many major centers. The seas were cleared of pirates, and a great era of trade and travel was rapidly advancing. Europe did not again enjoy another such period of travel and trade until the nineteenth century after Christ.121:1.8 (1333.1) Notwithstanding the internal peace and superficial prosperity of the Greco-Roman world, a majority of the inhabitants of the empire languished in squalor and poverty. The small upper class was rich; a miserable and impoverished lower class embraced the rank and file of humanity. There was no happy and prosperous middle class in those days; it had just begun to make its appearance in Roman society.
121:1.9 (1333.2) The first struggles between the expanding Roman and Parthian states had been concluded in the then recent past, leaving Syria in the hands of the Romans. In the times of Jesus, Palestine and Syria were enjoying a period of prosperity, relative peace, and extensive commercial intercourse with the lands to both the East and the West.
2. The Jewish People
121:2.1 (1333.3) The Jews were a part of the older Semitic race, which also included the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the more recent enemies of Rome, the Carthaginians. During the fore part of the first century after Christ, the Jews were the most influential group of the Semitic peoples, and they happened to occupy a peculiarly strategic geographic position in the world as it was at that time ruled and organized for trade.
121:2.2 (1333.4) Many of the great highways joining the nations of antiquity passed through Palestine, which thus became the meeting place, or crossroads, of three continents. The travel, trade, and armies of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Parthia, and Rome successively swept over Palestine. From time immemorial, many caravan routes from the Orient passed through some part of this region to the few good seaports of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, whence ships carried their cargoes to all the maritime Occident. And more than half of this caravan traffic passed through or near the little town of Nazareth in Galilee.
121:2.3 (1333.5) Although Palestine was the home of Jewish religious culture and the birthplace of Christianity, the Jews were abroad in the world, dwelling in many nations and trading in every province of the Roman and Parthian states.
121:2.4 (1333.6) Greece provided a language and a culture, Rome built the roads and unified an empire, but the dispersion of the Jews, with their more than two hundred synagogues and well-organized religious communities scattered hither and yon throughout the Roman world, provided the cultural centers in which the new gospel of the kingdom of heaven found initial reception, and from which it subsequently spread to the uttermost parts of the world.
121:6.8 (1339.4) Throughout the whole wide world, no matter where the Jews found themselves dispersed by commerce or oppression, all with one accord kept their hearts centered on the holy temple at Jerusalem. Jewish theology did survive as it was interpreted and practiced at Jerusalem, notwithstanding that it was several times saved from oblivion by the timely intervention of certain Babylonian teachers.
121:6.9 (1339.5) As many as two and one-half million of these dispersed Jews used to come to Jerusalem for the celebration of their national religious festivals. And no matter what the theologic or philosophic differences of the Eastern (Babylonian) and the Western (Hellenic) Jews, they were all agreed on Jerusalem as the center of their worship and in ever looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.
1. The Twenty-First Year (A.D. 15)
128:1.1 (1407.6) With the attainment of adult years Jesus began in earnest and with full self-consciousness the task of completing the experience of mastering the knowledge of the life of his lowest form of intelligent creatures, thereby finally and fully earning the right of unqualified rulership of his self-created universe. He entered upon this stupendous task fully realizing his dual nature. But he had already effectively combined these two natures into one—Jesus of Nazareth.
128:1.2 (1407.7) Joshua ben Joseph knew full well that he was a man, a mortal man, born of woman. This is shown in the selection of his first title, the Son of Man. He was truly a partaker of flesh and blood, and even now, as he presides in sovereign authority over the destinies of a universe, he still bears among his numerous well-earned titles that of Son of Man. It is literally true that the creative Word—the Creator Son—of the Universal Father was “made flesh and dwelt as a man of the realm on Urantia.” He labored, grew weary, rested, and slept. He hungered and satisfied such cravings with food; he thirsted and quenched his thirst with water. He experienced the full gamut of human feelings and emotions; he was “in all things tested, even as you are,” and he suffered and died.
128:1.3 (1407.8) He obtained knowledge, gained experience, and combined these into wisdom, just as do other mortals of the realm. Until after his baptism he availed himself of no supernatural power. He employed no agency not a part of his human endowment as a son of Joseph and Mary.
128:1.4 (1408.1) As to the attributes of his prehuman existence, he emptied himself. Prior to the beginning of his public work his knowledge of men and events was wholly self-limited. He was a true man among men.
128:1.5 (1408.2) It is forever and gloriously true: “We have a high ruler who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We have a Sovereign who was in all points tested and tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” And since he himself has suffered, being tested and tried, he is abundantly able to understand and minister to those who are confused and distressed.
128:1.6 (1408.3) The Nazareth carpenter now fully understood the work before him, but he chose to live his human life in the channel of its natural flowing. And in some of these matters he is indeed an example to his mortal creatures, even as it is recorded: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being of the nature of God, thought it not strange to be equal with God. But he made himself to be of little import and, taking upon himself the form of a creature, was born in the likeness of mankind. And being thus fashioned as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.”
128:1.7 (1408.4) He lived his mortal life just as all others of the human family may live theirs, “who in the days of the flesh so frequently offered up prayers and supplications, even with strong feelings and tears, to Him who is able to save from all evil, and his prayers were effective because he believed.” Wherefore it behooved him in every respect to be made like his brethren that he might become a merciful and understanding sovereign ruler over them.
128:1.8 (1408.5) Of his human nature he was never in doubt; it was self-evident and always present in his consciousness. But of his divine nature there was always room for doubt and conjecture, at least this was true right up to the event of his baptism. The self-realization of divinity was a slow and, from the human standpoint, a natural evolutionary revelation. This revelation and self-realization of divinity began in Jerusalem when he was not quite thirteen years old with the first supernatural occurrence of his human existence; and this experience of effecting the self-realization of his divine nature was completed at the time of his second supernatural experience while in the flesh, the episode attendant upon his baptism by John in the Jordan, which event marked the beginning of his public career of ministry and teaching.
128:1.9 (1408.6) Between these two celestial visitations, one in his thirteenth year and the other at his baptism, there occurred nothing supernatural or superhuman in the life of this incarnated Creator Son. Notwithstanding this, the babe of Bethlehem, the lad, youth, and man of Nazareth, was in reality the incarnated Creator of a universe; but he never once used aught of this power, nor did he utilize the guidance of celestial personalities, aside from that of his guardian seraphim, in the living of his human life up to the day of his baptism by John. And we who thus testify know whereof we speak.
Me here: These years as father/brother to his younger siblings, especially age 21-26, help prepare Jesus for the opportunity to come as tutor to the Indian lad and that trip, both west and east, truly results in Jesus being known in many places by many titles. Now comes that season when Jesus slowly weans his family into more and more independence from his personal presence and financial support. This will still take more years but is achieved by patiently paying off debt and acquiring new skills and professional resources and tools while teaching his several crafts with wood, metal, leather, rope, and canvas to his brothers while overseeing marriages, relocations, and many other householder duties!!
We are shown in the UB what the hammer and anvil of life’s adventures forged with this Son of Man who was not given any idle or easy life. But Jesus chose to face all uncertainties and frustrations and disappointments and failures with grace and courage!!
During these years in his early – mid 20’s, most of Jesus’ travel was to Jerusalem and in the region…but remember, he lives at the crossroads of the East and West and is always meeting people and learning about distant places and all manner of people in his small home town!
Imagine…the creator of a universe….now a human child, beset by woe, who has suddenly lost his hero and dad to become the head of household and to carry the financial and parental burden of this large family!!
127:0.1 (1395.1) AS JESUS entered upon his adolescent years, he found himself the head and sole support of a large family. Within a few years after his father’s death all their property was gone. As time passed, he became increasingly conscious of his pre-existence; at the same time he began more fully to realize that he was present on earth and in the flesh for the express purpose of revealing his Paradise Father to the children of men.
127:0.2 (1395.2) No adolescent youth who has lived or ever will live on this world or any other world has had or ever will have more weighty problems to resolve or more intricate difficulties to untangle. No youth of Urantia will ever be called upon to pass through more testing conflicts or more trying situations than Jesus himself endured during those strenuous years from fifteen to twenty.
127:0.3 (1395.3) Having thus tasted the actual experience of living these adolescent years on a world beset by evil and distraught by sin, the Son of Man became possessed of full knowledge about the life experience of the youth of all the realms of Nebadon, and thus forever he became the understanding refuge for the distressed and perplexed adolescents of all ages and on all worlds throughout the local universe.
127:0.4 (1395.4) Slowly, but certainly and by actual experience, this divine Son is earning the right to become sovereign of his universe, the unquestioned and supreme ruler of all created intelligences on all local universe worlds, the understanding refuge of the beings of all ages and of all degrees of personal endowment and experience.
Me here: And yet this struggling Son of Man is also a Paradise Son of God:
128:1.10 (1408.7) And yet, throughout all these years of his life in the flesh he was truly divine. He was actually a Creator Son of the Paradise Father. When once he had espoused his public career, subsequent to the technical completion of his purely mortal experience of sovereignty acquirement, he did not hesitate publicly to admit that he was the Son of God. He did not hesitate to declare, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” He made no protest in later years when he was called Lord of Glory, Ruler of a Universe, the Lord God of all creation, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of all, our Lord and our God, God with us, having a name above every name and on all worlds, the Omnipotence of a universe, the Universe Mind of this creation, the One in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the fullness of Him who fills all things, the eternal Word of the eternal God, the One who was before all things and in whom all things consist, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Upholder of a universe, the Judge of all the earth, the Giver of life eternal, the True Shepherd, the Deliverer of the worlds, and the Captain of our salvation.
128:1.11 (1409.1) He never objected to any of these titles as they were applied to him subsequent to the emergence from his purely human life into the later years of his self-consciousness of the ministry of divinity in humanity, and for humanity, and to humanity on this world and for all other worlds. Jesus objected to but one title as applied to him: When he was once called Immanuel, he merely replied, “Not I, that is my elder brother.”
128:1.12 (1409.2) Always, even after his emergence into the larger life on earth, Jesus was submissively subject to the will of the Father in heaven.
128:1.13 (1409.3) After his baptism he thought nothing of permitting his sincere believers and grateful followers to worship him. Even while he wrestled with poverty and toiled with his hands to provide the necessities of life for his family, his awareness that he was a Son of God was growing; he knew that he was the maker of the heavens and this very earth whereon he was now living out his human existence. And the hosts of celestial beings throughout the great and onlooking universe likewise knew that this man of Nazareth was their beloved Sovereign and Creator-father. A profound suspense pervaded the universe of Nebadon throughout these years; all celestial eyes were continuously focused on Urantia—on Palestine.
128:1.14 (1409.4) This year Jesus went up to Jerusalem with Joseph to celebrate the Passover. Having taken James to the temple for consecration, he deemed it his duty to take Joseph. Jesus never exhibited any degree of partiality in dealing with his family. He went with Joseph to Jerusalem by the usual Jordan valley route, but he returned to Nazareth by the east Jordan way, which led through Amathus. Going down the Jordan, Jesus narrated Jewish history to Joseph and on the return trip told him about the experiences of the reputed tribes of Ruben, Gad, and Gilead that traditionally had dwelt in these regions east of the river.
128:1.15 (1409.5) Joseph asked Jesus many leading questions concerning his life mission, but to most of these inquiries Jesus would only reply, “My hour has not yet come.” However, in these intimate discussions many words were dropped which Joseph remembered during the stirring events of subsequent years. Jesus, with Joseph, spent this Passover with his three friends at Bethany, as was his custom when in Jerusalem attending these festival commemorations.
Jesus was a traveling man. Born on a road trip to Bethlehem. Soon to flee to Alexandria to live a season as toddler and young child until returning to Palestine to grow up among caravaners, foreigners, and world travellers.
124:0.1 (1366.1) ALTHOUGH Jesus might have enjoyed a better opportunity for schooling at Alexandria than in Galilee, he could not have had such a splendid environment for working out his own life problems with a minimum of educational guidance, at the same time enjoying the great advantage of constantly contacting with such a large number of all classes of men and women hailing from every part of the civilized world. Had he remained at Alexandria, his education would have been directed by Jews and along exclusively Jewish lines. At Nazareth he secured an education and received a training which more acceptably prepared him to understand the gentiles, and which gave him a better and more balanced idea of the relative merits of the Eastern, or Babylonian, and the Western, or Hellenic, views of Hebrew theology.
Some of Jesus’ earlier travels were trips to Jerusalem which was the epicenter of global Judaism, a people 2.5 million strong spread far and wide and wonderfully diverse and educated who traveled great distances to gather in old Salem, now Jerusalem.
The boyhood home was itself a cultural and educational epicenter attracting a stream of learned teachers and earnest students to Jesus home. Jesus was becoming quite a scholar early in life with a keen curiosity and discerning mind, quick to ask questions and seek answers. Jesus was quite a scientist and linguist and scholar and craftsman as well as a student of people and places.
123:3.1 (1359.2) Already, with his mother’s help, Jesus had mastered the Galilean dialect of the Aramaic tongue; and now his father began teaching him Greek. Mary spoke little Greek, but Joseph was a fluent speaker of both Aramaic and Greek. The textbook for the study of the Greek language was the copy of the Hebrew scriptures—a complete version of the law and the prophets, including the Psalms—which had been presented to them on leaving Egypt. There were only two complete copies of the Scriptures in Greek in all Nazareth, and the possession of one of them by the carpenter’s family made Joseph’s home a much-sought place and enabled Jesus, as he grew up, to meet an almost endless procession of earnest students and sincere truth seekers. Before this year ended, Jesus had assumed custody of this priceless manuscript, having been told on his sixth birthday that the sacred book had been presented to him by Alexandrian friends and relatives. And in a very short time he could read it readily.
Jesus traveled extensively in the region with his dad who became an accomplished contractor and builder.
123:3.7 (1360.2) In June of this year Joseph turned the shop in Nazareth over to his brothers and formally entered upon his work as a builder. Before the year was over, the family income had more than trebled. Never again, until after Joseph’s death, did the Nazareth family feel the pinch of poverty. The family grew larger and larger, and they spent much money on extra education and travel, but always Joseph’s increasing income kept pace with the growing expenses.
123:3.8 (1360.3) The next few years Joseph did considerable work at Cana, Bethlehem (of Galilee), Magdala, Nain, Sepphoris, Capernaum, and Endor, as well as much building in and near Nazareth. As James grew up to be old enough to help his mother with the housework and care of the younger children, Jesus made frequent trips away from home with his father to these surrounding towns and villages. Jesus was a keen observer and gained much practical knowledge from these trips away from home; he was assiduously storing up knowledge regarding man and the way he lived on earth.
123:5.8 (1363.1) Jesus received his moral training and spiritual culture chiefly in his own home. He secured much of his intellectual and theological education from the chazan. But his real education—that equipment of mind and heart for the actual test of grappling with the difficult problems of life—he obtained by mingling with his fellow men. It was this close association with his fellow men, young and old, Jew and gentile, that afforded him the opportunity to know the human race. Jesus was highly educated in that he thoroughly understood men and devotedly loved them.
Jesus was a teacher. He began teaching as a young child. He taught other children his entire childhood. He began teaching adults as a child too. But he was more than a teacher. He was a coach and mentor who helped develop skills and rehearse roles in preparation for life’s vicissitudes and opportunities.
Jesus was such an excellent teacher because he was such a tremendous student first. Jesus loved to learn. He began teaching by sharing what he learned….as he was learning it. The UB teaches that we have not truly learned what we cannot and do not teach others. We learn best by teaching what we learn.
2. The Twenty-Second Year (A.D. 16)
128:2.1 (1409.6) This was one of several years during which Jesus’ brothers and sisters were facing the trials and tribulations peculiar to the problems and readjustments of adolescence. Jesus now had brothers and sisters ranging in ages from seven to eighteen, and he was kept busy helping them to adjust themselves to the new awakenings of their intellectual and emotional lives. He had thus to grapple with the problems of adolescence as they became manifest in the lives of his younger brothers and sisters.
128:2.2 (1410.1) This year Simon graduated from school and began work with Jesus’ old boyhood playmate and ever-ready defender, Jacob the stone mason. As a result of several family conferences it was decided that it was unwise for all the boys to take up carpentry. It was thought that by diversifying their trades they would be prepared to take contracts for putting up entire buildings. Again, they had not all kept busy since three of them had been working as full-time carpenters.
128:2.3 (1410.2) Jesus continued this year at house finishing and cabinetwork but spent most of his time at the caravan repair shop. James was beginning to alternate with him in attendance at the shop. The latter part of this year, when carpenter work was slack about Nazareth, Jesus left James in charge of the repair shop and Joseph at the home bench while he went over to Sepphoris to work with a smith. He worked six months with metals and acquired considerable skill at the anvil.
128:2.4 (1410.3) Before taking up his new employment at Sepphoris, Jesus held one of his periodic family conferences and solemnly installed James, then just past eighteen years old, as acting head of the family. He promised his brother hearty support and full co-operation and exacted formal promises of obedience to James from each member of the family. From this day James assumed full financial responsibility for the family, Jesus making his weekly payments to his brother. Never again did Jesus take the reins out of James’s hands. While working at Sepphoris he could have walked home every night if necessary, but he purposely remained away, assigning weather and other reasons, but his true motive was to train James and Joseph in the bearing of the family responsibility. He had begun the slow process of weaning his family. Each Sabbath Jesus returned to Nazareth, and sometimes during the week when occasion required, to observe the working of the new plan, to give advice and offer helpful suggestions.
128:2.5 (1410.4) Living much of the time in Sepphoris for six months afforded Jesus a new opportunity to become better acquainted with the gentile viewpoint of life. He worked with gentiles, lived with gentiles, and in every possible manner did he make a close and painstaking study of their habits of living and of the gentile mind.
128:2.6 (1410.5) The moral standards of this home city of Herod Antipas were so far below those of even the caravan city of Nazareth that after six months’ sojourn at Sepphoris Jesus was not averse to finding an excuse for returning to Nazareth. The group he worked for were to become engaged on public work in both Sepphoris and the new city of Tiberias, and Jesus was disinclined to have anything to do with any sort of employment under the supervision of Herod Antipas. And there were still other reasons which made it wise, in the opinion of Jesus, for him to go back to Nazareth. When he returned to the repair shop, he did not again assume the personal direction of family affairs. He worked in association with James at the shop and as far as possible permitted him to continue oversight of the home. James’s management of family expenditures and his administration of the home budget were undisturbed.
128:2.7 (1410.6) It was by just such wise and thoughtful planning that Jesus prepared the way for his eventual withdrawal from active participation in the affairs of his family. When James had had two years’ experience as acting head of the family—and two full years before he (James) was to be married—Joseph was placed in charge of the household funds and intrusted with the general management of the home.
More travels…and the beginning of Christianity!!!! The link between Jesus and Stephen and Paul. The stories to come reveal that upon the Travels of Jesus dozens of relationships formed which became the very foundation of first and second generation Christianity to come throughout the entirety of the Mediterranean region due directly to these Travels of Jesus!!.
The chosen Apostles come long after the pillars of dozens of future congregations become believers in the Jesusonian Gospel by personal contact and conversation with Jesus, known eventually far and wide by many titles in his travels…Teacher, Scribe, Rabbi, Nazerite, Scholar, and more!
The Jesusonian Gospel is now becoming formulated and promulgated with this trip and each successive trip after this one. Indeed, the future mission and ministry is being developed now….the way forward into personal and future public ministry is being surveyed now.
So many seeds are to be planted during this season of personal teaching and ministry experience before the public ministry to come.
3. The Twenty-Third Year (A.D. 17)
128:3.1 (1411.1) This year the financial pressure was slightly relaxed as four were at work. Miriam earned considerable by the sale of milk and butter; Martha had become an expert weaver. The purchase price of the repair shop was over one third paid. The situation was such that Jesus stopped work for three weeks to take Simon to Jerusalem for the Passover, and this was the longest period away from daily toil he had enjoyed since the death of his father.
128:3.2 (1411.2) They journeyed to Jerusalem by way of the Decapolis and through Pella, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Heshbon, and Jericho. They returned to Nazareth by the coast route, touching Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea, thence around Mount Carmel to Ptolemais and Nazareth. This trip fairly well acquainted Jesus with the whole of Palestine north of the Jerusalem district.
128:3.3 (1411.3) At Philadelphia Jesus and Simon became acquainted with a merchant from Damascus who developed such a great liking for the Nazareth couple that he insisted they stop with him at his Jerusalem headquarters. While Simon gave attendance at the temple, Jesus spent much of his time talking with this well-educated and much-traveled man of world affairs. This merchant owned over four thousand caravan camels; he had interests all over the Roman world and was now on his way to Rome. He proposed that Jesus come to Damascus to enter his Oriental import business, but Jesus explained that he did not feel justified in going so far away from his family just then. But on the way back home he thought much about these distant cities and the even more remote countries of the Far West and the Far East, countries he had so frequently heard spoken of by the caravan passengers and conductors.
128:3.4 (1411.4) Simon greatly enjoyed his visit to Jerusalem. He was duly received into the commonwealth of Israel at the Passover consecration of the new sons of the commandment. While Simon attended the Passover ceremonies, Jesus mingled with the throngs of visitors and engaged in many interesting personal conferences with numerous gentile proselytes.
128:3.5 (1411.5) Perhaps the most notable of all these contacts was the one with a young Hellenist named Stephen. This young man was on his first visit to Jerusalem and chanced to meet Jesus on Thursday afternoon of Passover week. While they both strolled about viewing the Asmonean palace, Jesus began the casual conversation that resulted in their becoming interested in each other, and which led to a four-hour discussion of the way of life and the true God and his worship. Stephen was tremendously impressed with what Jesus said; he never forgot his words.
128:3.6 (1411.6) And this was the same Stephen who subsequently became a believer in the teachings of Jesus, and whose boldness in preaching this early gospel resulted in his being stoned to death by irate Jews. Some of Stephen’s extraordinary boldness in proclaiming his view of the new gospel was the direct result of this earlier interview with Jesus. But Stephen never even faintly surmised that the Galilean he had talked with some fifteen years previously was the very same person whom he later proclaimed the world’s Savior, and for whom he was so soon to die, thus becoming the first martyr of the newly evolving Christian faith. When Stephen yielded up his life as the price of his attack upon the Jewish temple and its traditional practices, there stood by one named Saul, a citizen of Tarsus. And when Saul saw how this Greek could die for his faith, there were aroused in his heart those emotions which eventually led him to espouse the cause for which Stephen died; later on he became the aggressive and indomitable Paul, the philosopher, if not the sole founder, of the Christian religion.
Jesus has now begun to become well known and deeply admired by a great many people – influential people of means and education and influence. He is also becoming known for many different sets of skills and expertise. Jesus frequently had to refuse worldly opportunities for position or fortune as the Son of Man which might interfere with his later public ministry or take him from his family support obligations. Jesus receives many, many offers of position that would have greatly elevated his own material position and wealth and standing. Indeed there is no limit to what Jesus might have accomplished as a mortal of the realm and time given his human talents and skills – with both things and with people!!
Jesus was an incredible person in so many different ways!!
128:3.7 (1412.1) On the Sunday after Passover week Simon and Jesus started on their way back to Nazareth. Simon never forgot what Jesus taught him on this trip. He had always loved Jesus, but now he felt that he had begun to know his father-brother. They had many heart-to-heart talks as they journeyed through the country and prepared their meals by the wayside. They arrived home Thursday noon, and Simon kept the family up late that night relating his experiences.
128:3.8 (1412.2) Mary was much upset by Simon’s report that Jesus spent most of the time when in Jerusalem “visiting with the strangers, especially those from the far countries.” Jesus’ family never could comprehend his great interest in people, his urge to visit with them, to learn about their way of living, and to find out what they were thinking about.
128:3.9 (1412.3) More and more the Nazareth family became engrossed with their immediate and human problems; not often was mention made of the future mission of Jesus, and very seldom did he himself speak of his future career. His mother rarely thought about his being a child of promise. She was slowly giving up the idea that Jesus was to fulfill any divine mission on earth, yet at times her faith was revived when she paused to recall the Gabriel visitation before the child was born.
4. The Damascus Episode
128:4.1 (1412.4) The last four months of this year Jesus spent in Damascus as the guest of the merchant whom he first met at Philadelphia when on his way to Jerusalem. A representative of this merchant had sought out Jesus when passing through Nazareth and escorted him to Damascus. This part-Jewish merchant proposed to devote an extraordinary sum of money to the establishment of a school of religious philosophy at Damascus. He planned to create a center of learning which would out-rival Alexandria. And he proposed that Jesus should immediately begin a long tour of the world’s educational centers preparatory to becoming the head of this new project. This was one of the greatest temptations that Jesus ever faced in the course of his purely human career.
128:4.2 (1412.5) Presently this merchant brought before Jesus a group of twelve merchants and bankers who agreed to support this newly projected school. Jesus manifested deep interest in the proposed school, helped them plan for its organization, but always expressed the fear that his other and unstated but prior obligations would prevent his accepting the direction of such a pretentious enterprise. His would-be benefactor was persistent, and he profitably employed Jesus at his home doing some translating while he, his wife, and their sons and daughters sought to prevail upon Jesus to accept the proffered honor. But he would not consent. He well knew that his mission on earth was not to be supported by institutions of learning; he knew that he must not obligate himself in the least to be directed by the “councils of men,” no matter how well-intentioned.
128:4.3 (1412.6) He who was rejected by the Jerusalem religious leaders, even after he had demonstrated his leadership, was recognized and hailed as a master teacher by the businessmen and bankers of Damascus, and all this when he was an obscure and unknown carpenter of Nazareth.
128:4.4 (1412.7) He never spoke about this offer to his family, and the end of this year found him back in Nazareth going about his daily duties just as if he had never been tempted by the flattering propositions of his Damascus friends. Neither did these men of Damascus ever associate the later citizen of Capernaum who turned all Jewry upside down with the former carpenter of Nazareth who had dared to refuse the honor which their combined wealth might have procured.
Jesus gets yet another wonderful opportunity!! Jesus becomes further committed to anonymity. So many came to know him by so many different ways and in so many different personages or functions and roles. Michael (as Son of God and pre-bestowal) determined to and Jesus (as Son of Man and as an adult mortal) attempted to accomplish the delivery of his Gospel without personal idolization or icon worship. He destroyed all written records of his own and deflected/refused all king making efforts by his own Apostles and the crowds of seekers and the political malcontents of the day. He wanted so strongly for the Good News he delivered to this world to be accepted and heralded on its own merits.
In many ways he failed in this effort and the Jesusonian Gospel became the Christian dogmas ABOUT Jesus after all. Jesus told us to believe WITH him while Paul preached to believe IN him and his atonement for human sins. The purity and universality of the Jesusonian Gospel OF Jesus became, after all, the gospel ABOUT Jesus. And yet did this cocoon preserve the true gospel within itself and the Son’s gift of the Spirit of Truth has ministered to each soul since the murder of this Son of God and Man. Jesus did succeed in leaving no real documented footprints or finger prints or any form of official record in the annals of human recorded history.
128:4.5 (1413.1) Jesus most cleverly and intentionally contrived to detach various episodes of his life so that they never became, in the eyes of the world, associated together as the doings of a single individual. Many times in subsequent years he listened to the recital of this very story of the strange Galilean who declined the opportunity of founding a school in Damascus to compete with Alexandria.
128:4.6 (1413.2) One purpose which Jesus had in mind, when he sought to segregate certain features of his earthly experience, was to prevent the building up of such a versatile and spectacular career as would cause subsequent generations to venerate the teacher in place of obeying the truth which he had lived and taught. Jesus did not want to build up such a human record of achievement as would attract attention from his teaching. Very early he recognized that his followers would be tempted to formulate a religion about him which might become a competitor of the gospel of the kingdom that he intended to proclaim to the world. Accordingly, he consistently sought to suppress everything during his eventful career which he thought might be made to serve this natural human tendency to exalt the teacher in place of proclaiming his teachings.
128:4.7 (1413.3) This same motive also explains why he permitted himself to be known by different titles during various epochs of his diversified life on earth. Again, he did not want to bring any undue influence to bear upon his family or others which would lead them to believe in him against their honest convictions. He always refused to take undue or unfair advantage of the human mind. He did not want men to believe in him unless their hearts were responsive to the spiritual realities revealed in his teachings.
128:4.8 (1413.4) By the end of this year the Nazareth home was running fairly smoothly. The children were growing up, and Mary was becoming accustomed to Jesus’ being away from home. He continued to turn over his earnings to James for the support of the family, retaining only a small portion for his immediate personal expenses.128:4.9 (1413.5) As the years passed, it became more difficult to realize that this man was a Son of God on earth. He seemed to become quite like an individual of the realm, just another man among men. And it was ordained by the Father in heaven that the bestowal should unfold in this very way.
5. The Twenty-Fourth Year (A.D. 18)
128:5.1 (1413.6) This was Jesus’ first year of comparative freedom from family responsibility. James was very successful in managing the home with Jesus’ help in counsel and finances.
128:5.2 (1413.7) The week following the Passover of this year a young man from Alexandria came down to Nazareth to arrange for a meeting, later in the year, between Jesus and a group of Alexandrian Jews at some point on the Palestinian coast. This conference was set for the middle of June, and Jesus went over to Caesarea to meet with five prominent Jews of Alexandria, who besought him to establish himself in their city as a religious teacher, offering as an inducement to begin with, the position of assistant to the chazan in their chief synagogue.
128:5.3 (1414.1) The spokesmen for this committee explained to Jesus that Alexandria was destined to become the headquarters of Jewish culture for the entire world; that the Hellenistic trend of Jewish affairs had virtually outdistanced the Babylonian school of thought. They reminded Jesus of the ominous rumblings of rebellion in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine and assured him that any uprising of the Palestinian Jews would be equivalent to national suicide, that the iron hand of Rome would crush the rebellion in three months, and that Jerusalem would be destroyed and the temple demolished, that not one stone would be left upon another.
128:5.4 (1414.2) Jesus listened to all they had to say, thanked them for their confidence, and, in declining to go to Alexandria, in substance said, “My hour has not yet come.” They were nonplused by his apparent indifference to the honor they had sought to confer upon him. Before taking leave of Jesus, they presented him with a purse in token of the esteem of his Alexandrian friends and in compensation for the time and expense of coming over to Caesarea to confer with them. But he likewise refused the money, saying: “The house of Joseph has never received alms, and we cannot eat another’s bread as long as I have strong arms and my brothers can labor.”
128:5.5 (1414.3) His friends from Egypt set sail for home, and in subsequent years, when they heard rumors of the Capernaum boatbuilder who was creating such a commotion in Palestine, few of them surmised that he was the babe of Bethlehem grown up and the same strange-acting Galilean who had so unceremoniously declined the invitation to become a great teacher in Alexandria.
Ten years after becoming the head of his earthly father’s household and business manager as a 14 year old boy/man, Jesus has led his family out of poverty and struggle to relative wealth and stability:
128:5.6 (1414.4) Jesus returned to Nazareth. The remainder of this year was the most uneventful six months of his whole career. He enjoyed this temporary respite from the usual program of problems to solve and difficulties to surmount. He communed much with his Father in heaven and made tremendous progress in the mastery of his human mind.
128:5.7 (1414.5) But human affairs on the worlds of time and space do not run smoothly for long. In December James had a private talk with Jesus, explaining that he was much in love with Esta, a young woman of Nazareth, and that they would sometime like to be married if it could be arranged. He called attention to the fact that Joseph would soon be eighteen years old, and that it would be a good experience for him to have a chance to serve as the acting head of the family. Jesus gave consent for James’s marriage two years later, provided he had, during the intervening time, properly trained Joseph to assume direction of the home.
128:5.8 (1414.6) And now things began to happen—marriage was in the air. James’s success in gaining Jesus’ assent to his marriage emboldened Miriam to approach her brother-father with her plans. Jacob, the younger stone mason, onetime self-appointed champion of Jesus, now business associate of James and Joseph, had long sought to gain Miriam’s hand in marriage. After Miriam had laid her plans before Jesus, he directed that Jacob should come to him making formal request for her and promised his blessing for the marriage just as soon as she felt that Martha was competent to assume her duties as eldest daughter.
128:5.9 (1414.7) When at home, he continued to teach the evening school three times a week, read the Scriptures often in the synagogue on the Sabbath, visited with his mother, taught the children, and in general conducted himself as a worthy and respected citizen of Nazareth in the commonwealth of Israel.
6. The Twenty-Fifth Year (A.D. 19)
128:6.1 (1415.1) This year began with the Nazareth family all in good health and witnessed the finishing of the regular schooling of all the children with the exception of certain work which Martha must do for Ruth.
128:6.2 (1415.2) Jesus was one of the most robust and refined specimens of manhood to appear on earth since the days of Adam. His physical development was superb. His mind was active, keen, and penetrating—compared with the average mentality of his contemporaries, it had developed gigantic proportions—and his spirit was indeed humanly divine.
128:6.3 (1415.3) The family finances were in the best condition since the disappearance of Joseph’s estate. The final payments had been made on the caravan repair shop; they owed no man and for the first time in years had some funds ahead. This being true, and since he had taken his other brothers to Jerusalem for their first Passover ceremonies, Jesus decided to accompany Jude (who had just graduated from the synagogue school) on his first visit to the temple.
These past 10 years of struggle for Jesus and his large family of younger siblings was critical to the development of the Master. This formative season shaped not only the Son of Man but also this Creator Son and ruler of a universe.
This is the essence of the final bestowal. To be human. To know the struggles, the trials and tribulations, the suffering, and the triumphs of being mortal born. The meaning and value of the life of Jesus was not and is not about his death but is about his life! Jesus loved the adventure of living his life and loved the people he met upon this journey.
The “Travels of Jesus in the UB” include this journey of his daily walk upon the path of uncertainty in growing faith and truth discovery. Never was Jesus too important or too busy or too distant or indifferent or aloof to those around him. His loyalty to duty and community and his consideration for others was astounding as he set aside self importance in favor of others.
All of Jesus life was a journey. He now approaches a small oasis in time and space to enjoy the fruits of such long and intensive seed sowing. His success as father/brother and businessman and craftsman and scholar and mentor becomes a real bloom upon the vine, releasing another generation of seed in fertile soil.
I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that Michael was to father no children during his 7th Bestowal but still did Jesus have so many children to raise by the family’s tragic loss of Joseph. Some of the 8 siblings he raised knew only him as father and eldest brother….baby Ruth was not even born when Joseph died. Jesus became the Master of his household long before being called Master by others upon his travels to come.
Such an extraordinary human being!!
126:2.2 (1388.2) Just at the time when prospects were good and the future looked bright, an apparently cruel hand struck down the head of this Nazareth household, the affairs of this home were disrupted, and every plan for Jesus and his future education was demolished. This carpenter lad, now just past fourteen years of age, awakened to the realization that he had not only to fulfill the commission of his heavenly Father to reveal the divine nature on earth and in the flesh, but that his young human nature must also shoulder the responsibility of caring for his widowed mother and seven brothers and sisters—and another yet to be born. This lad of Nazareth now became the sole support and comfort of this so suddenly bereaved family. Thus were permitted those occurrences of the natural order of events on Urantia which would force this young man of destiny so early to assume these heavy but highly educational and disciplinary responsibilities attendant upon becoming the head of a human family, of becoming father to his own brothers and sisters, of supporting and protecting his mother, of functioning as guardian of his father’s home, the only home he was to know while on this world.
126:2.3 (1388.3) Jesus cheerfully accepted the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him, and he carried them faithfully to the end. At least one great problem and anticipated difficulty in his life had been tragically solved—he would not now be expected to go to Jerusalem to study under the rabbis. It remained always true that Jesus “sat at no man’s feet.” He was ever willing to learn from even the humblest of little children, but he never derived authority to teach truth from human sources.
45:6.4 (516.2) No surviving mortal, midwayer, or seraphim may ascend to Paradise, attain the Father, and be mustered into the Corps of the Finality without having passed through that sublime experience of achieving parental relationship to an evolving child of the worlds or some other experience analogous and equivalent thereto. The relationship of child and parent is fundamental to the essential concept of the Universal Father and his universe children. Therefore does such an experience become indispensable to the experiential training of all ascenders.
Back to the sequential text post:
128:6.4 (1415.4) They went up to Jerusalem and returned by the same route, the Jordan valley, as Jesus feared trouble if he took his young brother through Samaria. Already at Nazareth Jude had got into slight trouble several times because of his hasty disposition, coupled with his strong patriotic sentiments.
128:6.5 (1415.5) They arrived at Jerusalem in due time and were on their way for a first visit to the temple, the very sight of which had stirred and thrilled Jude to the very depths of his soul, when they chanced to meet Lazarus of Bethany. While Jesus talked with Lazarus and sought to arrange for their joint celebration of the Passover, Jude started up real trouble for them all. Close at hand stood a Roman guard who made some improper remarks regarding a Jewish girl who was passing. Jude flushed with fiery indignation and was not slow in expressing his resentment of such an impropriety directly to and within hearing of the soldier. Now the Roman legionnaires were very sensitive to anything bordering on Jewish disrespect; so the guard promptly placed Jude under arrest. This was too much for the young patriot, and before Jesus could caution him by a warning glance, he had delivered himself of a voluble denunciation of pent-up anti-Roman feelings, all of which only made a bad matter worse. Jude, with Jesus by his side, was taken at once to the military prison.
128:6.6 (1415.6) Jesus endeavored to obtain either an immediate hearing for Jude or else his release in time for the Passover celebration that evening, but he failed in these attempts. Since the next day was a “holy convocation” in Jerusalem, even the Romans would not presume to hear charges against a Jew. Accordingly, Jude remained in confinement until the morning of the second day after his arrest, and Jesus stayed at the prison with him. They were not present in the temple at the ceremony of receiving the sons of the law into the full citizenship of Israel. Jude did not pass through this formal ceremony for several years, until he was next in Jerusalem at a Passover and in connection with his propaganda work in behalf of the Zealots, the patriotic organization to which he belonged and in which he was very active.
128:6.7 (1415.7) The morning following their second day in prison Jesus appeared before the military magistrate in behalf of Jude. By making apologies for his brother’s youth and by a further explanatory but judicious statement with reference to the provocative nature of the episode which had led up to the arrest of his brother, Jesus so handled the case that the magistrate expressed the opinion that the young Jew might have had some possible excuse for his violent outburst. After warning Jude not to allow himself again to be guilty of such rashness, he said to Jesus in dismissing them: “You had better keep your eye on the lad; he’s liable to make a lot of trouble for all of you.” And the Roman judge spoke the truth. Jude did make considerable trouble for Jesus, and always was the trouble of this same nature—clashes with the civil authorities because of his thoughtless and unwise patriotic outbursts.
128:6.8 (1416.1) Jesus and Jude walked over to Bethany for the night, explaining why they had failed to keep their appointment for the Passover supper, and set out for Nazareth the following day. Jesus did not tell the family about his young brother’s arrest at Jerusalem, but he had a long talk with Jude about this episode some three weeks after their return. After this talk with Jesus Jude himself told the family. He never forgot the patience and forbearance his brother-father manifested throughout the whole of this trying experience.
128:6.9 (1416.2) This was the last Passover Jesus attended with any member of his own family. Increasingly the Son of Man was to become separated from close association with his own flesh and blood.
Throughout his ministry, even as depicted in the Bible, Jesus displayed an affection for and delight in children…always kind and patient, he truly enjoyed their company!
Now we know why….
128:6.10 (1416.3) This year his seasons of deep meditation were often broken into by Ruth and her playmates. And always was Jesus ready to postpone the contemplation of his future work for the world and the universe that he might share in the childish joy and youthful gladness of these youngsters, who never tired of listening to Jesus relate the experiences of his various trips to Jerusalem. They also greatly enjoyed his stories about animals and nature.
128:6.11 (1416.4) The children were always welcome at the repair shop. Jesus provided sand, blocks, and stones by the side of the shop, and bevies of youngsters flocked there to amuse themselves. When they tired of their play, the more intrepid ones would peek into the shop, and if its keeper were not busy, they would make bold to go in and say, “Uncle Joshua, come out and tell us a big story.” Then they would lead him out by tugging at his hands until he was seated on the favorite rock by the corner of the shop, with the children on the ground in a semicircle before him. And how the little folks did enjoy their Uncle Joshua. They were learning to laugh, and to laugh heartily. It was customary for one or two of the smallest of the children to climb upon his knees and sit there, looking up in wonderment at his expressive features as he told his stories. The children loved Jesus, and Jesus loved the children.
128:6.12 (1416.5) It was difficult for his friends to comprehend the range of his intellectual activities, how he could so suddenly and so completely swing from the profound discussion of politics, philosophy, or religion to the lighthearted and joyous playfulness of these tots of from five to ten years of age. As his own brothers and sisters grew up, as he gained more leisure, and before the grandchildren arrived, he paid a great deal of attention to these little ones. But he did not live on earth long enough to enjoy the grandchildren very much.
The story of Jesus illustrates the human tenacity delivered by faith and trust in God, to strive and to patiently endure to overcome disappointment and failure. The family lost nearly everything, hard earned material wealth and financial security earned by Joseph was soon diminished to the very edge of poverty. But this burden was primarily upon the teenager Jesus who kept his family fed, educated, united, devout, and happy despite all tribulations and obstacles.
Despite being the incarnated creator of this universe, Jesus did not enjoy ease and favor in this mortal life. Experiential wisdom is earned. It cannot be given. It is a prize of progress for all personalities in time. It is hard won by overcoming adversity and affliction. Evidently this is just as true for Creator Sons as it is for mortal Faith Sons.
The hammer and anvil form us, shape us, hone us, sharpen us in ways that deliver wisdom, compassion, skill, faith, truth, discernment, courage, strength, and resolve. Uncertainty, obstacles, frustration, disappointment, failure, and suffering all demand and require reflective response in pursuit of the fruits of the Spirit which are desired by all personalities. Such reflective responses deliver progress and wisdom which deliver nobility of character.
Or so I understand the teachings…
We must remember that Jesus wss a mortal child who became a mortal adult…someone who, like all other mortals, had a progressive and transformative faith based religious experience. Not any singular event but the evolutionary and revelationary experience all mortals may (and so many do) realize by our own choices and responses to the Spirit within.Jesus exemplifies the very human potential to choose the Divine nature and grow by spiritization and yield the fruits of the Spirit. Creator Sons become humanized by their final bestowals, becoming flesh and bone and blood while endowed by the Fathet Fragment, born as helpless babes who must also hear the whisper and respond in faith and be tutored by the inner Spirit and make decisions and take actions and mold motives and priorities and perspectives and philosophy of living and expressing all of that by mortal chouces in the situations and circumstances of mortal life.
The Papers present the story of this very human boy who grew into adulthood by conquest and courage and faith. So very mortal in potential and in fact. A life lived which revealed God to a universe by faith and by love. We too, and all people everywhere, have the endowments of personality, mind, spirit, and freewill to experience and to choose such a faith based life for ourselves. Faith and truth assurances grow soul and transfer the seat of identity and deliver those definitive fruits of the Spirit to each and all mortals who respond to the Spirit within and share those fruits with others.
Like the Master, all mortals have the Divine Nature within!!!! The Divine Nature within is already perfect and replete. Our mortal potential is eternal perfecting in partnership with eternal perfection. We must only choose to respond to God’s presence within to receive the Divine Assurance. The results of such hope, faith, and trust in God are strength of character and persistent nobility despite all uncertainties and disappointments to come.
101:3.4 (1108.3) Through religious faith the soul of man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature by the characteristic manner in which it induces the mortal personality to react to certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. Genuine spiritual faith (true moral consciousness) is revealed in that it:
101:3.5 (1108.4) 1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies.
101:3.6 (1108.5) 2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat.
101:3.7 (1108.6) 3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity.
101:3.8 (1108.7) 4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquillity notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.
101:3.9 (1108.
5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice.101:3.10 (1108.9) 6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare.
101:3.11 (1108.10) 7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.
101:3.12 (1108.11) 8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul’s survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy.
101:3.13 (1108.12) 9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times.
101:3.14 (1108.13) 10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political maladjustments.
101:3.15 (1108.14) 11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.
101:3.16 (1108.15) 12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, “Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.”
101:3.17 (1108.16) We know, then, by three phenomena, that man has a divine spirit or spirits dwelling within him: first, by personal experience—religious faith; second, by revelation—personal and racial; and third, by the amazing exhibition of such extraordinary and unnatural reactions to his material environment as are illustrated by the foregoing recital of twelve spiritlike performances in the presence of the actual and trying situations of real human existence. And there are still others.
101:3.18 (1109.1) And it is just such a vital and vigorous performance of faith in the domain of religion that entitles mortal man to affirm the personal possession and spiritual reality of that crowning endowment of human nature, religious experience.
Jesus has fully mastered the material life demands for himself and his entire family. He has also taught and mentored and raised each child/sibling to literacy and self sufficiency. Imagine the strength and wisdom so well earned by this Son of Man who’s own human faith in God’s goodness and friendly universe guided his personal motives, intentions, priorities, and decisions.
The mortal Jesus was blessed with the fruits of the Spirit as reward for faith just like every other mortal is or can be. The patience in awaiting the fullness of time and life’s seasons demonstrates full confidence in God’s will and way and a time unit perspective that destroys anxiety and impatience. Such trust in God’s goodness always delivers the fruits of the Spirit to share with others.
7. The Twenty-Sixth Year (A.D. 20)
128:7.1 (1416.6) As this year began, Jesus of Nazareth became strongly conscious that he possessed a wide range of potential power. But he was likewise fully persuaded that this power was not to be employed by his personality as the Son of Man, at least not until his hour should come.
128:7.2 (1417.1) At this time he thought much but said little about the relation of himself to his Father in heaven. And the conclusion of all this thinking was expressed once in his prayer on the hilltop, when he said: “Regardless of who I am and what power I may or may not wield, I always have been, and always will be, subject to the will of my Paradise Father.” And yet, as this man walked about Nazareth to and from his work, it was literally true—as concerned a vast universe—that “in him were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
128:7.3 (1417.2) All this year the family affairs ran smoothly except for Jude. For years James had trouble with his youngest brother, who was not inclined to settle down to work nor was he to be depended upon for his share of the home expenses. While he would live at home, he was not conscientious about earning his share of the family upkeep.
128:7.4 (1417.3) Jesus was a man of peace, and ever and anon was he embarrassed by Jude’s belligerent exploits and numerous patriotic outbursts. James and Joseph were in favor of casting him out, but Jesus would not consent. When their patience would be severely tried, Jesus would only counsel: “Be patient. Be wise in your counsel and eloquent in your lives, that your young brother may first know the better way and then be constrained to follow you in it.” The wise and loving counsel of Jesus prevented a break in the family; they remained together. But Jude never was brought to his sober senses until after his marriage.
128:7.5 (1417.4) Mary seldom spoke of Jesus’ future mission. Whenever this subject was referred to, Jesus only replied, “My hour has not yet come.” Jesus had about completed the difficult task of weaning his family from dependence on the immediate presence of his personality. He was rapidly preparing for the day when he could consistently leave this Nazareth home to begin the more active prelude to his real ministry for men.
128:7.6 (1417.5) Never lose sight of the fact that the prime mission of Jesus in his seventh bestowal was the acquirement of creature experience, the achievement of the sovereignty of Nebadon. And in the gathering of this very experience he made the supreme revelation of the Paradise Father to Urantia and to his entire local universe. Incidental to these purposes he also undertook to untangle the complicated affairs of this planet as they were related to the Lucifer rebellion.
128:7.7 (1417.6) This year Jesus enjoyed more than usual leisure, and he devoted much time to training James in the management of the repair shop and Joseph in the direction of home affairs. Mary sensed that he was making ready to leave them. Leave them to go where? To do what? She had about given up the thought that Jesus was the Messiah. She could not understand him; she simply could not fathom her first-born son.
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