Episode:Last Ministry of the Master—Jesus' Final Tour (Part 1)

From Symmetry of Soul


Late on Monday evening, March 6, A.D. 30, Jesus and the ten apostles arrived at the Pella camp, where Peter and Andrew awaited their return. Word regarding the resurrection of Lazarus had reached the encampment two days before the Master’s arrival, and the entire assembly was agog. Not since the feeding of the five thousand had anything occurred which so aroused the imagination of the people.

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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, His Favorite Parable, The Prodigal Son, The Father's Love

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

A slip of the tongue in the reading of the summary occasioned comment regarding the value of accurate usage of language in enabling a more precise resonance of expression with reality.

The secret of Jesus’ unparalleled religious life is attributed to his consciousness of God attained through intelligent prayer and sincere worship—unbroken communion with God. The self-reminding elements of prayer always carry the risk of exalting the self’s incessant clamoring. Extended periods of communion are safest when they are predominantly genuine worship. Yet, humble and sincere faith-trust in the divine presence to guide our efforts at communion should antidote any inhibitory doubts of failure in “doing it just right.” As was pointed out, the drives for such diverse and indispensable human activities as prayer and mating, designed into us mortals by the Life Carriers are highly resistant to extinction.

Paper 169 Last Teaching at Pella

The midwayers introduce this return from the Lazarus detour by anchoring the narrative in the specifics of the final week of their time at the Pella camp. It is one month before the Master’s crucifixion. Not since the feeding of the five thousand had anything occurred to so arouse the imagination of the people. Jesus has become spectacular in his very presence and doings. His spiritual message is increasingly eclipsed to the discernment of his disciples by the astounding accompanying material manifestations. The out of order bestowal mission Michael chose to perform on a planet deficient in the Adamic uplift and prior to any Magisterial mission of philosophic uplift virtually guaranteed such a reception. As noted, Jesus promised to return to complete the planetary benefits of the bestowal, essentially validating the wisdom of the normal order of dispensations to evolving material mortals.

Observe the decisions made by Jesus at the initiation of his public ministry, essentially to refrain from supermaterial manifestations and his subsequent acts of healing as his ministry unfolded in actual experience.

The Pharisees and chief priests began to formulate their charges against Jesus, coalescing around four points: he is a friend of publicans and sinners, he blasphemes claiming equality with God his Father, he breaks numerous points of the sacred law of Israel, and works wonders in league with and by the power of devils.

169:1 Parable of the Lost Son

As mentioned previously, Luke’s gospel parallels these parables closely, but the midwayer narrative with its explanations, additions, clarifications, contextualization, and proper sequencing provides a richness and wholeness of factual foundation for accessing the truth of Jesus’ life and teachings not found in the olden scriptures.

SoS often reminds listeners that The Urantia Book is a philosophic text with profound religious content. Careful reading of these parables illustrates this claim: Introducing the stories, the midwayers have Jesus repeating admonitions of the prophets from Samuel to John to “seek for God—search for truth.” Note the foundational philosophic search for truth contains within it the religious nucleus, God. Likewise do the authors employ the religious term “good” in association with the philosophical term “true.” Righteousness, conformity with the cosmos, encompasses the purity of individuality implied in goodness. Look carefully, read slowly, stop, and reflect!

Jesus loved to tell the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son as a set of stories progressively illustrating the depth and extent of love of the Father for his children.

As we stepped through his telling of these favorite stories we noted numerous enhancements to the scriptures. The authors’ use of italics provide a philosophic guide to a more truthful interpretation of these parables, available to mankind for the first time since they were recorded almost two thousand years ago.

Notes by Brad

  • Being a serious student
    • Precision of language. For example, can you challenge yourself to say time-space instead of spacetime? To help condition your mind better (space is foundational). But no need to go too far and obsess over it.
    • Analysis versus synthesis. It takes courage to engage in synthesis--it's out of fashion in this scientific and materialistic age. But the 5th ER demands it.
      • And warns us that if you dismiss the vertical dimension of thought, secular totalitarianism takes over. And then fascism in government.
    • The individual must know innately that going up and synthesizing a solution to an apparently unbridgeable divide always is an options


  • Aim higher. Don't confuse "unbroken communion" with the "incessant" grasping self trying to pray.
    • But the ego in and of itself is not the problem. The go is neutral... it's the self-aware self.
    • The problem is your animal-origin self. It never stops clamoring.
    • Can you turn into that still small voice that you can only begin to hear definitively when you start to be unnatural?
    • "But I'm already in the first psychic circle!" you say. Are you sure? You're more advanced of a human that Jesus was on the Mediterranean tour?
    • And yet, we are driven to pray by deeply designed urges. So pray, wisely or unwisely.


  • Returning to the Pella camp on March 6. One month until the crucifixion.
    • It's obvious his time is coming to an end. People are "agog" in his presence. He's just too much for them.


  • Even a Creator Son cannot escape the need for experience.
    • Taking your idea and trying it out in the evolutionary process. Try it on.
    • Even Jesus is discovering that he ought not tell people in a totalilitarian way what to do. That's tyranny. And unrighteous.
    • It is would have been unwise for Jesus to rule over people, it's unwise for us, too.
    • "That person over there should stop having that thought" is not a thought you should have. It's a tyrannical thought with no place in an advancing civilization.
      • Though it's a listed side effect of our material-comfort era (tyrannical thoughts, that is)


  • Why might the list of charges against Jesus be listed here? Seems out of place.
    • Seems to parallel this part in Luke.
  • Beelzebub is uncannily accurate here, as the leader of the rebel secondary midwayers. The prince of demons—secondary midwayers—not prince of devils, as the Sanhedrin claimed.


  • Blink and you'll miss it: Jesus un-transcribed sermon was titled "Grace of Salvation."
    • He was trying to discuss taking salvation for granted (grace). Instead, Christianity and old wineskins gave us the atonement doctrine.


  • A "true" shepherd story is about truth, a philosophic quality, a relation to the whole.
    • A "good" shepherd is more of a religious and individualistic story.


  • A coin obscured by "the things of men."
    • This isn't necessarily just about material possessions.
    • What about mental accumulations: too many thoughts? befogged by much thinking?
    • If you can declutter your house, can you declutter your mind?
      • The things of men, like ideologies, how stored up are they in your mind?


  • "...finding nothing profitable to do which was also pleasurable, he soon wasted all his inheritance in riotous living." This author thinks about how many people his age this describes perfectly today.


  • Lost... searching... restoration. Our authors are italicizing to help us see the philosophical structure and narrative progression in the 3 parables told in this section.