Adapted from the Urantia Book original paper here.
During his journey around the Mediterranean, Jesus had been both studying the people, as usual, and allowing himself time to determine the course for the rest of his life. After considerable debate in his mind, Jesus decided that since he’d been born in Palestine that was where he should finish his mission as a public teacher of truth on Earth.
The Thirtieth Year (A.D. 24)
This could be called the in-between year for Jesus: He was transitioning from being God appearing as man, to man appearing as God. His Thought Adjuster had been reorganizing and preparing his mind the for the events soon to come in the future, and his personality was preparing for his change in attitude to the world.
Jesus made his way home to Nazareth and spent time with his family. His brothers, Simon and Jude, had been waiting for him to return so they could have his consent to marry, and hence, they had a double wedding that March. At this point, all of the kids except Ruth, who was now 15 years old, were married.
While Jesus was in Nazareth, the conductor of a large caravan that was passing through town got sick, and Jesus volunteered to take his place conducting the caravan to the Caspian Sea. Since the trip was going to be for a year and his mother Mary and sister Ruth were the only ones now living at home, Jesus suggested that the two of them move to Capernaum and live in the small house he owned there. This they did right after Jesus left with the caravan, and Jesus’ house in Capernaum was Mary’s home for the rest of her life. Jesus, also, called Capernaum home from this time forward, although when he was there, he stayed with the Zebedees, not his mom and Ruth.
The Urmia Lectures
Jesus and the caravan left Nazareth on the first of April, A.D. 24, for the southeastern region of the Caspian Sea. The route took them via Damascus and Lake Urmia, and then through Assyria, Media, and Parthia. Jesus had responsibility for all of the cargo, and the safe passage of the passengers.
When they got to Lake Urmia, Jesus had the caravan stop for a few days of rest. On the western shore of the lake was the ancient Persian city of Urmia. Right off of the shore there was a group of islands, and on the largest of these was a big amphitheater that had been built by a rich man named Cymboyton and his three sons.
Cymboyton built this facility as a temple dedicated to studying various religious philosophies that recognized a single supreme deity. There were about seventy-five teachers on the faculty representing more than thirty cults and religions, as well as five independent scholars. These teachers had been chosen by their respective groups to represent their beliefs at the school. These teachers were lodged in cabins holding about a dozen people each, and every month they cast lots to see who would be sleeping where. The rules were very strict: everyone had to get along and anyone who didn’t was immediately replaced. During the week lectures began at 10 A.M. in the morning, 3 P.M in the afternoon, and then again at 8 P.M. in the evening. These lectures were presided over by either Cymboyton or one of his three sons.
While the passengers were resting at Lake Urmia, Jesus attended a couple of these discussions. Before he continued on with the caravan, Cymboyton talked with Jesus and arranged for him to come back next year after the trip and give twenty-four lectures on the brotherhood of men. In reality, these lectures turned out to be on the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men.
NOTE:
It needs to be stated that the celestial authors of the Urantia revelation disagreed over whether or not to include these lectures in this presentation of Jesus’ life. The problem was adapting what Jesus said back then to make sense according to life today, which is so much different in social and political terms.
I, now, have a similar problem, especially with the section about political power. This portion of the Urantia Book is what motivated me to enter college in my early forties, and it’s been the basis of much of my life’s work since then. I can also tell you that what at once seemed pretty clear, has become murkier the deeper I’ve gone into these ideas.
The point is, I have strong beliefs about what’s happening in our country today and what we need to do on the world stage to find a more compassionate and peaceful world. But it’s not my purpose as the one restating the life and teachings of Jesus to push my personal agenda, other than providing a guide to how he taught us to commune with that fragment of God inside us. That is the message, nothing more.
So, I’ve decided my responsibility to you, the reader, is to present just the outline of this section of the life and teaching of Jesus, and let you, if you desire to do so, go to the original version for more detail.
I caution you to remember that if the Urantia Revelation is in fact a celestial document as it claims to be, that the celestial authors were not perfect and that they had their own biases, as did the humans selected to bring this information forth to humanity.
The problem is that we don’t know the degree of that bias on the material, and hence, we have to use caution when attempting to use the Urantia revelation in any way other than to guide our own inner personal journey to God.
In a way this is just like earlier in the story where Jesus advised the rich man. Jesus said that the advice he was giving to the rich man was for him only, and that he was not to use Jesus’ words to dictate the conduct of others.
In a similar manner, we are to use the life and teachings of Jesus to guide our own personal journey to God, and nothing more: We are we not to use the Urantia revelation to lord over other people or beliefs, or to use the political concepts it contains to guide our world system today. I suggest that everyone take the following ideas with a grain of salt, give them time to mature in your mind, and then predicate any subsequent decisions on your highest idea of truth, beauty, and goodness keeping in mind that everything hinges on the context of the present moment.
Sovereignty, or the holding of supreme power and authority: Divine and Human
The brotherhood of man is founded on the Fatherhood of God. God is Spirit and a part of God is in each person, hence ours is a spiritual relationship with God and all in the family of God. All people are spiritually equal. There are no chosen people, or any group or religion that holds divine favor over others.
The idea of personal freedom can only exist with laws. Somehow, we must find the balance between granting all people the same degree of freedom, while at the same time protecting the freedom of all others. The only way groups of people who want the same degree of freedom can exist in peace, is when they all place themselves subservient to the laws allowing their mutual freedom to exist.
God alone is the ultimate authority of all creation. As God is no respecter of people, God is no respecter of religions: none hold divine favor over the others. For there to be peace among us, all people and all religious groups must surrender themselves to one overarching superhuman level of authority, God, and accept equality between ourselves in all spiritual matters and beliefs under that supreme power. Until that happens, we’ll continue to have religious wars on Earth.
When people and religions assume superiority over others, they become intolerant and willing to prosecute those others for their beliefs. But for those people and groups that recognize God’s sovereignty, in other words that God and God alone has ultimate authority over everything, then the kingdom of heaven that’s in those people’s hearts and minds will create spiritual unity regardless of the specific religious dogma the people themselves believe.
Ideas of equality among humanity can only bring peace when everyone involved recognizes the absolute overcontrolling influence of an ultimate spiritual power: God our Father binding us together in brotherhood through his Spirit presence inside of us. When our people and our various religions all recognize and agree to the ultimate spiritual authority of God, we can find peace on Earth.
Political Power and Authority
Just like God is the one overarching spiritual authority that all religions must recognize for there to be peace among those religions, so must all nations release their ideas of unlimited political authority and place themselves subservient to the overarching political authority of humanity as a whole.
There are only two levels of ultimate authority on an inhabited world: the spiritual free will of the individual, and the collective will of all of humanity.
Every other level of authority in between the person and the entirety of humanity’s collective will is relative, and should only exist as long as it enhances the welfare and progress of the people and the planet. Our purpose is to find that way forward that is best for the greatest number of people for the greatest amount of time. Otherwise, in the fighting between us for one government to gain ultimate political control over all others, we are destroying ourselves.
In other words, humanity as a whole has the right to say how life is conducted on the planet: The Earth is ours to use and share in peace while we meet our responsibility to preserve and enhance it for the next generations to come.
We, the human family, have the right to say how businesses and governments conduct their affairs on our behalf. We were not born to serve governments: they were created to serve us.
When we, humanity across the entire planet, can find our collective voice, determine the shared values under which we wish to live, and enforce that right to ultimate political power over those we’ve chosen to serve us, we’ll be able to find our way to ending war on Earth. But as long as any one nation feels it has the unlimited right to act in its self-interest alone, we’ll continue to wage death and destruction on ourselves.
After Cymboyton died, his three sons had to deal with their own version of these issues. The new Christian teachers that arrived after Jesus was murdered were proclaiming Paul’s religion about the life of Jesus the man, instead of his teachings on how to better talk to God inside of us. These men were egotistical and intolerant, and acting in direct contradiction to Jesus’ example they tried to lord their beliefs over all the others. The problems they caused got so bad that the three brothers stopped their financial support for the school, and it closed. Ironically, those later Christian teachers never realized it was Jesus who was the caravan conductor that had delivered the lectures on the spiritual and political authority.
The Thirty-First Year (A.D. 25)
After returning from his trip to the Caspian Sea, Jesus spent the next year wandering through Syria and Palestine, keeping mostly to himself. The people he met during this year knew him variously as the carpenter of Nazareth, the boatbuilder of Capernaum, the scribe of Damascus, and the teacher of Alexandria. The longest time he stayed anywhere was two months in Antioch working as a tent-maker. Before this final year of learning the ways of men was over, his Thought Adjuster signaled to Jesus that it was time to leave the company of mortals and to go up on Mount Hermon to finish mastering his mind and set his plan for finishing his life’s work on Earth. This period by himself on Mount Hermon was technically the end of Jesus’ time as a mortal, and has been wrongly understood as his time of temptation.
The Time on Mount Hermon
Jesus bought a donkey and hired a lad named Tiglath to go with him via the Damascus road to Beit Jenn, a village in the foothills of Mount Hermon. There he secured lodging for Tiglath and his supplies. The first day, this was about the middle of August, A.D. 25, Jesus had Tiglath go with him part way up Mount Hermon. At about 6000 feet above sea level, they found a place to build a stone container where Tiglath could put food and water for Jesus twice a week.
After they built the rock enclosure, Jesus sent Tiglath back down the mountain and he continued up the slope. After a short way, Jesus stopped to pray. Among other things, Jesus asked his Father to release the angels that were then watching over him so they could go and watch over Tiglath instead. God granted this request, which meant Jesus had only his Thought Adjuster to guide him through this final test of his mortal experience.
Jesus was on Mount Hermon to fight and defeat, in a very real and literal sense, the superhuman archenemies who had been opposing his rule in the system of Satania. These struggles – which were more of a battle of faith, loyalty, and truth proclamations than a war as we know them - took Jesus six weeks. During that time of solitude on the mountain he finished his mortal requirement of mastering his mind and personality, and he achieved the mortal goal of absolute harmony with his indwelling Thought Adjuster. Jesus now knew with absolute certainty that he was a Creator Son of God, and he was now fully willing to allow his divine self to supersede his human nature.
After five weeks of intense communion with his Paradise Father, Jesus asked to meet his archenemies as the Son of Man, as Joshua ben Joseph. God, again, granted this request. This was the great temptation, the universe trial of the rebels of Satania. And no, the temptation had nothing to do with earthly matters like food, glory, or the kingdoms of men: those presentations were only offered because of the world’s backward and childlike thought at that time.
But people today and in the future need to know that this was a very real test of human loyalty: Jesus chose to be in the form of a man, in other words as a mortal with no spiritual power, when he stood up against the lies and treason of once mighty and glorious spiritual beings with nothing more than his faith in, and loyalty too, his Paradise Father in heaven.
On Mount Hermon, Satan, who was representing Lucifer, and our Earth’s rebel Planetary Prince, Caligastia, were made visible to Jesus. On behalf of Lucifer these two they tried many times and, in many ways, to bargain with Jesus. But to every attempt they made, Jesus would only say:
“May the will of my Paradise Father prevail, and you, my rebellious son, may the Ancients of Days judge you divinely. I am your Creator-father; I can hardly judge you justly, and my mercy you have already spurned. I commit you to the adjudication of the Judges of a greater universe.”
When this struggle was over, Jesus’ angels that were watching over Tiglath returned to minister to their creator. This event completed Jesus’ task of living the full mortal life in the flesh, and gained Michael of Nebadon unquestioned ultimate authority over his universe. While this accomplishment wasn’t broadcast to the universe until his later baptism by John in the Jordan River, it took place that day. The Lucifer rebellion in Satania and Caligastia’s secession on Earth were settled, and Jesus was ready to return to his Father’s business. He gave the donkey to Tiglath, and headed south back to Capernaum.
The Time of Waiting
Jesus and John the son of Zebedee set off for Jerusalem to attend the day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles. John could tell that Jesus had changed, and he spent a lot of time wandering around Jerusalem alone while Jesus was hanging out in the hills talking with God.
Both Jesus and John were present for the temple ceremonies for the day of atonement. John was impressed, as usual, but not Jesus. He thought it was all pitiful and pathetic, although he stayed silent. But inside himself, Jesus was burning to tell the people the real truth of his Father’s divine justice, loving character, and infinite mercy. Before the week’s celebrations were over, Jesus left John in Jerusalem while he spent some more time in the hills before returning to Capernaum.
It still wasn’t time for Jesus to begin his mission, so he got his apron and went to work in Zebedee’s workshop to pass the time. Jesus was a good carpenter, and really enjoyed making things with his human hands. During this time, he was working with his brother James, and they had a lot of talks. Later, when Jesus became so controversial and everyone else was having doubts about him, James was able to keep faith in his brother’s mission because of this time he spent with his him.
As time wore on, reports started to come in to Capernaum about a man named John who was preaching the word of God and baptizing people down in the Jordan River. This man was proclaiming that the “The kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and be baptized.”
Jesus listened to these reports about his friend John, but he kept quiet and continued to work at his bench. John slowly made his way up the Jordan Valley, and finally, in January A.D. 26, he made it to an area near Pella and set up camp. At this point, Jesus stood up, laid down his tools, and told the others that, “My hour has come.”
Jesus was soon to present himself to John for baptism, and begin his mission as the Son of God. He had changed much throughout the years as the Son of Man, and few of the people with whom he had spoken with in private recognized the Son of God in his role as the later public teacher.
Okay, folks, that’s it for Son of Man: Urantia, Chapter 13, “The Transition Years.”
Next week’s Chapter 14 is titled, “John the Baptist.”
Have a fantastic week out there.