The Urantia Book
PAPER 186
JUST BEFORE THE CRUCIFIXION
186:0.1 AS JESUS and his accusers started off to
see Herod, the Master turned to the Apostle John and said: "John,
you can do no more for me. Go to my mother and bring her to see me
ere I die." When John heard his Master's request, although
reluctant to leave him alone among his enemies, he hastened off to
Bethany, where the entire family of Jesus was assembled in waiting
at the home of Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus whom Jesus
raised from the dead.
186:0.2 Several times during the morning,
messengers had brought news to Martha and Mary concerning the
progress of Jesus' trial. But the family of Jesus did not reach
Bethany until just a few minutes before John arrived bearing the
request of Jesus to see his mother before he was put to death.
After John Zebedee had told them all that had happened since the
midnight arrest of Jesus, Mary his mother went at once in the
company of John to see her eldest son. By the time Mary and John
reached the city, Jesus, accompanied by the Roman soldiers who
were to crucify him, had already arrived at Golgotha.
186:0.3 When Mary the mother of Jesus started
out with John to go to her son, his sister Ruth refused to remain
behind with the rest of the family. Since she was determined to
accompany her mother, her brother Jude went with her. The rest of
the Master's family remained in Bethany under the direction of
James, and almost every hour the messengers of David Zebedee
brought them reports concerning the progress of that terrible
business of putting to death their eldest brother, Jesus of
Nazareth.
1. THE END OF JUDAS ISCARIOT
186:1.1 It was about half past eight o'clock
this Friday morning when the hearing of Jesus before Pilate was
ended and the Master was placed in the custody of the Roman
soldiers who were to crucify him. As soon as the Romans took
possession of Jesus, the captain of the Jewish guards marched with
his men back to their temple headquarters. The chief priest and
his Sanhedrist associates followed close behind the guards, going
directly to their usual meeting place in the hall of hewn stone in
the temple. Here they found many other members of the Sanhedrin
waiting to learn what had been done with Jesus. As Caiaphas was
engaged in making his report to the Sanhedrin regarding the trial
and condemnation of Jesus, Judas appeared before them to claim his
reward for the part he had played in his Master's arrest and
sentence of death.
186:1.2 All of these Jews loathed Judas; they
looked upon the betrayer with only feelings of utter contempt.
Throughout the trial of Jesus before Caiaphas and during his
appearance before Pilate, Judas was pricked in his conscience
about his traitorous conduct. And he was also beginning to become
somewhat disillusioned regarding the reward he was to receive as
payment for his services as Jesus' betrayer. He did not like the
coolness and aloofness of the Jewish authorities; nevertheless, he
expected to be liberally rewarded for his cowardly conduct. He
anticipated being called before the full meeting of the Sanhedrin
and there hearing himself eulogized while they conferred upon him
suitable honors in token of the great service which he flattered
himself he had rendered his nation. Imagine, therefore, the great
surprise of this egotistic traitor when a servant of the high
priest, tapping him on the shoulder, called him just outside the
hall and said: "Judas, I have been appointed to pay you for the
betrayal of Jesus. Here is your reward." And thus speaking, the
servant of Caiaphas handed Judas a bag containing thirty pieces of
silver -- the current price of a good, healthy slave.
186:1.3 Judas was stunned, dumfounded. He rushed
back to enter the hall but was debarred by the doorkeeper. He
wanted to appeal to the Sanhedrin, but they would not admit him.
Judas could not believe that these rulers of the Jews would allow
him to betray his friends and his Master and then offer him as a
reward thirty pieces of silver. He was humiliated, disillusioned,
and utterly crushed. He walked away from the temple, as it were,
in a trance. He automatically dropped the money bag in his deep
pocket, that same pocket wherein he had so long carried the bag
containing the apostolic funds. And he wandered out through the
city after the crowds who were on their way to witness the
crucifixions.
186:1.4 From a distance Judas saw them raise the
cross piece with Jesus nailed thereon, and upon sight of this he
rushed back to the temple and, forcing his way past the
doorkeeper, found himself standing in the presence of the
Sanhedrin, which was still in session. The betrayer was well-nigh
breathless and highly distraught, but he managed to stammer out
these words: "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent
blood. You have insulted me. You have offered me as a reward for
my service, money -- the price of a slave. I repent that I have
done this; here is your money. I want to escape the guilt of this
deed."
186:1.5 When the rulers of the Jews heard Judas,
they scoffed at him. One of them sitting near where Judas stood,
motioned that he should leave the hall and said: "Your Master has
already been put to death by the Romans, and as for your guilt,
what is that to us? See you to that -- and begone!"
186:1.6 As Judas left the Sanhedrin chamber, he
removed the thirty pieces of silver from the bag and threw them
broadcast over the temple floor. When the betrayer left the
temple, he was almost beside himself. Judas was now passing
through the experience of the realization of the true nature of
sin. All the glamor, fascination, and intoxication of wrongdoing
had vanished. Now the evildoer stood alone and face to face with
the judgment verdict of his disillusioned and disappointed soul.
Sin was bewitching and adventurous in the committing, but now must
the harvest of the naked and unromantic facts be faced.
186:1.7 This onetime ambassador of the kingdom
of heaven on earth now walked through the streets of Jerusalem,
forsaken and alone. His despair was desperate and well-nigh
absolute. On he journeyed through the city and outside the walls,
on down into the terrible solitude of the valley of Hinnom, where
he climbed up the steep rocks and, taking the girdle of his cloak,
fastened one end to a small tree, tied the other about his neck,
and cast himself over the precipice. Ere he was dead, the knot
which his nervous hands had tied gave way, and the betrayer's body
was dashed to pieces as it fell on the jagged rocks below.
2. THE MASTER'S ATTITUDE
186:2.1 When Jesus was arrested, he knew that
his work on earth, in the likeness of mortal flesh, was finished.
He fully understood the sort of death he would die, and he was
little concerned with the details of his so-called trials.
186:2.2 Before the Sanhedrist court Jesus
declined to make replies to the testimony of perjured witnesses.
There was but one question which would always elicit an answer,
whether asked by friend or foe, and that was the one concerning
the nature and divinity of his mission on earth. When asked if he
were the Son of God, he unfailingly made reply. He steadfastly
refused to speak when in the presence of the curious and wicked
Herod. Before Pilate he spoke only when he thought that Pilate or
some other sincere person might be helped to a better knowledge of
the truth by what he said. Jesus had taught his apostles the
uselessness of casting their pearls before swine, and he now dared
to practice what he had taught. His conduct at this time
exemplified the patient submission of the human nature coupled
with the majestic silence and solemn dignity of the divine nature.
He was altogether willing to discuss with Pilate any question
related to the political charges brought against him -- any
question which he recognized as belonging to the governor's
jurisdiction.
186:2.3 Jesus was convinced that it was the will
of the Father that he submit himself to the natural and ordinary
course of human events just as every other mortal creature must,
and therefore he refused to employ even his purely human powers of
persuasive eloquence to influence the outcome of the machinations
of his socially nearsighted and spiritually blinded fellow
mortals. Although Jesus lived and died on Urantia, his whole human
career, from first to last, was a spectacle designed to influence
and instruct the entire universe of his creation and unceasing
upholding.
186:2.4 These shortsighted Jews clamored
unseemlily for the Master's death while he stood there in awful
silence looking upon the death scene of a nation -- his earthly
father's own people.
186:2.5 Jesus had acquired that type of human
character which could preserve its composure and assert its
dignity in the face of continued and gratuitous insult. He could
not be intimidated. When first assaulted by the servant of Annas,
he had only suggested the propriety of calling witnesses who might
duly testify against him.
186:2.6 From first to last, in his so-called
trial before Pilate, the onlooking celestial hosts could not
refrain from broadcasting to the universe the depiction of the
scene of "Pilate on trial before Jesus."
186:2.7 When before Caiaphas, and when all the
perjured testimony had broken down, Jesus did not hesitate to
answer the question of the chief priest, thereby providing in his
own testimony that which they desired as a basis for convicting
him of blasphemy.
186:2.8 The Master never displayed the least
interest in Pilate's well-meant but halfhearted efforts to effect
his release. He really pitied Pilate and sincerely endeavored to
enlighten his darkened mind. He was wholly passive to all the
Roman governor's appeals to the Jews to withdraw their criminal
charges against him. Throughout the whole sorrowful ordeal he bore
himself with simple dignity and unostentatious majesty. He would
not so much as cast reflections of insincerity upon his would-be
murderers when they asked if he were "king of the Jews." With but
little qualifying explanation he accepted the designation, knowing
that, while they had chosen to reject him, he would be the last to
afford them real national leadership, even in a spiritual sense.
186:2.9 Jesus said little during these trials,
but he said enough to show all mortals the kind of human character
man can perfect in partnership with God and to reveal to all the
universe the manner in which God can become manifest in the life
of the creature when such a creature truly chooses to do the will
of the Father, thus becoming an active son of the living God.
186:2.10 His love for ignorant mortals is fully
disclosed by his patience and great self-possession in the face of
the jeers, blows, and buffetings of the coarse soldiers and the
unthinking servants. He was not even angry when they blindfolded
him and, derisively striking him in the face, exclaimed: "Prophesy
to us who it was that struck you."
186:2.11 Pilate spoke more truly than he knew
when, after Jesus had been scourged, he presented him before the
multitude, exclaiming, "Behold the man!" Indeed, the fear-ridden
Roman governor little dreamed that at just that moment the
universe stood at attention, gazing upon this unique scene of its
beloved Sovereign thus subjected in humiliation to the taunts and
blows of his darkened and degraded mortal subjects. And as Pilate
spoke, there echoed throughout all Nebadon, "Behold God and man!"
Throughout a universe, untold millions have ever since that day
continued to behold that man, while the God of Havona, the supreme
ruler of the universe of universes, accepts the man of Nazareth as
the satisfaction of the ideal of the mortal creatures of this
local universe of time and space. In his matchless life he never
failed to reveal God to man. Now, in these final episodes of his
mortal career and in his subsequent death, he made a new and
touching revelation of man to God.
3. THE DEPENDABLE DAVID ZEBEDEE
186:3.1 Shortly after Jesus was turned over to
the Roman soldiers at the conclusion of the hearing before Pilate,
a detachment of the temple guards hastened out to Gethsemane to
disperse or arrest the followers of the Master. But long before
their arrival these followers had scattered. The apostles had
retired to designated hiding places; the Greeks had separated and
gone to various homes in Jerusalem; the other disciples had
likewise disappeared. David Zebedee believed that Jesus' enemies
would return; so he early removed some five or six tents up the
ravine near where the Master so often retired to pray and worship.
Here he proposed to hide and at the same time maintain a center,
or co-ordinating station, for his messenger service. David had
hardly left the camp when the temple guards arrived. Finding no
one there, they contented themselves with burning the camp and
then hastened back to the temple. On hearing their report, the
Sanhedrin was satisfied that the followers of Jesus were so
thoroughly frightened and subdued that there would be no danger of
an uprising or any attempt to rescue Jesus from the hands of his
executioners. They were at last able to breathe easily, and so
they adjourned, every man going his way to prepare for the
Passover.
186:3.2 As soon as Jesus was turned over to the
Roman soldiers by Pilate for crucifixion, a messenger hastened
away to Gethsemane to inform David, and within five minutes
runners were on their way to Bethsaida, Pella, Philadelphia,
Sidon, Shechem, Hebron, Damascus, and Alexandria. And these
messengers carried the news that Jesus was about to be crucified
by the Romans at the insistent behest of the rulers of the Jews.
186:3.3 Throughout this tragic day, until the
message finally went forth that the Master had been laid in the
tomb, David sent messengers about every half hour with reports to
the apostles, the Greeks, and Jesus' earthly family, assembled at
the home of Lazarus in Bethany. When the messengers departed with
the word that Jesus had been buried, David dismissed his corps of
local runners for the Passover celebration and for the coming
Sabbath of rest, instructing them to report to him quietly on
Sunday morning at the home of Nicodemus, where he proposed to go
in hiding for a few days with Andrew and Simon Peter.
186:3.4 This peculiar-minded David Zebedee was
the only one of the leading disciples of Jesus who was inclined to
take a literal and plain matter-of-fact view of the Master's
assertion that he would die and "rise again on the third day."
David had once heard him make this prediction and, being of a
literal turn of mind, now proposed to assemble his messengers
early Sunday morning at the home of Nicodemus so that they would
be on hand to spread the news in case Jesus rose from the dead.
David soon discovered that none of Jesus' followers were looking
for him to return so soon from the grave; therefore did he say
little about his belief and nothing about the mobilization of all
his messenger force on early Sunday morning except to the runners
who had been dispatched on Friday forenoon to distant cities and
believer centers.
186:3.5 And so these followers of Jesus,
scattered throughout Jerusalem and its environs, that night
partook of the Passover and the following day remained in
seclusion.
4. PREPARATION FOR THE CRUCIFIXION
186:4.1 After Pilate had washed his hands before
the multitude, thus seeking to escape the guilt of delivering up
an innocent man to be crucified just because he feared to resist
the clamor of the rulers of the Jews, he ordered the Master turned
over to the Roman soldiers and gave the word to their captain that
he was to be crucified immediately. Upon taking charge of Jesus,
the soldiers led him back into the courtyard of the praetorium,
and after removing the robe which Herod had put on him, they
dressed him in his own garments. These soldiers mocked and derided
him, but they did not inflict further physical punishment. Jesus
was now alone with these Roman soldiers. His friends were in
hiding; his enemies had gone their way; even John Zebedee was no
longer by his side.
186:4.2 It was a little after eight o'clock when
Pilate turned Jesus over to the soldiers and a little before nine
o'clock when they started for the scene of the crucifixion. During
this period of more than half an hour Jesus never spoke a word.
The executive business of a great universe was practically at a
standstill. Gabriel and the chief rulers of Nebadon were either
assembled here on Urantia, or else they were closely attending
upon the space reports of the archangels in an effort to keep
advised as to what was happening to the Son of Man on Urantia.
186:4.3 By the time the soldiers were ready to
depart with Jesus for Golgotha, they had begun to be impressed by
his unusual composure and extraordinary dignity, by his
uncomplaining silence.
186:4.4 Much of the delay in starting off with
Jesus for the site of the crucifixion was due to the last-minute
decision of the captain to take along two thieves who had been
condemned to die; since Jesus was to be crucified that morning,
the Roman captain thought these two might just as well die with
him as wait for the end of the Passover festivities.
186:4.5 As soon as the thieves could be made
ready, they were led into the courtyard, where they gazed upon
Jesus, one of them for the first time, but the other had often
heard him speak, both in the temple and many months before at the
Pella camp.
5. JESUS' DEATH IN RELATION TO THE PASSOVER
186:5.1 There is no direct relation between the
death of Jesus and the Jewish Passover. True, the Master did lay
down his life in the flesh on this day, the day of the preparation
for the Jewish Passover, and at about the time of the sacrificing
of the Passover lambs in the temple. But this coincidental
occurrence does not in any manner indicate that the death of the
Son of Man on earth has any connection with the Jewish sacrificial
system. Jesus was a Jew, but as the Son of Man he was a mortal of
the realms. The events already narrated and leading up to this
hour of the Master's impending crucifixion are sufficient to
indicate that his death at about this time was a purely natural
and man-managed affair.
186:5.2 It was man and not God who planned and
executed the death of Jesus on the cross. True, the Father refused
to interfere with the march of human events on Urantia, but the
Father in Paradise did not decree, demand, or require the death of
his Son as it was carried out on earth. It is a fact that in some
manner, sooner or later, Jesus would have had to divest himself of
his mortal body, his incarnation in the flesh, but he could have
executed such a task in countless ways without dying on a cross
between two thieves. All of this was man's doing, not God's.
186:5.3 At the time of the Master's baptism he
had already completed the technique of the required experience on
earth and in the flesh which was necessary for the completion of
his seventh and last universe bestowal. At this very time Jesus'
duty on earth was done. All the life he lived thereafter, and even
the manner of his death, was a purely personal ministry on his
part for the welfare and uplifting of his mortal creatures on this
world and on other worlds.
186:5.4 The gospel of the good news that mortal
man may, by faith, become spirit-conscious that he is a son of
God, is not dependent on the death of Jesus. True, indeed, all
this gospel of the kingdom has been tremendously illuminated by
the Master's death, but even more so by his life.
186:5.5 All that the Son of Man said or did on
earth greatly embellished the doctrines of sonship with God and of
the brotherhood of men, but these essential relationships of God
and men are inherent in the universe facts of God's love for his
creatures and the innate mercy of the divine Sons. These touching
and divinely beautiful relations between man and his Maker on this
world and on all others throughout the universe of universes have
existed from eternity; and they are not in any sense dependent on
these periodic bestowal enactments of the Creator Sons of God, who
thus assume the nature and likeness of their created intelligences
as a part of the price which they must pay for the final
acquirement of unlimited sovereignty over their respective local
universes.
186:5.6 The Father in heaven loved mortal man on
earth just as much before the life and death of Jesus on Urantia
as he did after this transcendent exhibition of the copartnership
of man and God. This mighty transaction of the incarnation of the
God of Nebadon as a man on Urantia could not augment the
attributes of the eternal, infinite, and universal Father, but it
did enrich and enlighten all other administrators and creatures of
the universe of Nebadon. While the Father in heaven loves us no
more because of this bestowal of Michael, all other celestial
intelligences do. And this is because Jesus not only made a
revelation of God to man, but he also likewise made a new
revelation of man to the Gods and to the celestial intelligences
of the universe of universes.
186:5.7 Jesus is not about to die as a sacrifice
for sin. He is not going to atone for the inborn moral guilt of
the human race. Mankind has no such racial guilt before God. Guilt
is purely a matter of personal sin and knowing, deliberate
rebellion against the will of the Father and the administration of
his Sons.
186:5.8 Sin and rebellion have nothing to do
with the fundamental bestowal plan of the Paradise Sons of God,
albeit it does appear to us that the salvage plan is a provisional
feature of the bestowal plan.
186:5.9 The salvation of God for the mortals of
Urantia would have been just as effective and unerringly certain
if Jesus had not been put to death by the cruel hands of ignorant
mortals. If the Master had been favorably received by the mortals
of earth and had departed from Urantia by the voluntary
relinquishment of his life in the flesh, the fact of the love of
God and the mercy of the Son -- the fact of sonship with God --
would have in no wise been affected. You mortals are the sons of
God, and only one thing is required to make such a truth factual
in your personal experience, and that is your spirit-born faith.
►
