Sometime near the beginning of time, God the Father and the Eternal Son created the 700,000 offspring of the order of Michael. Billions of years later, the Michael sons each created and administer a universe of 10 million inhabited planets. Each Michael son engages in a series of extended personalization’s in the form of descending orders of his universe children. In the last of these personalization’s the Michael of each universe becomes a mortal and lives the life of an ordinary human in order to give him the experience of being a mortal in his own universe. Our local universe of 10,000,000 planets is named Orvonton and its headquarter sphere is Salvington. So Michael of Salvington is the creator and administrator of our universe. His first minister is Gabriel of Salvington.
Tens of thousands of years ago Michael and Gabriel authorized a study to identify the characteristics of certain inhabited planets which might be chosen as the one in ten million on which Michael would live as a human. They were apparently interested in a world that was not very advanced and which had suffered the isolation consequences of the Lucifer rebellion. Our planet was further qualified as an interesting/challenging place by the default of our Adam and Eve. So, about 37,000 years ago a message was sent to Adam and Eve, even as they were in the midst of their default turmoil, that this planet would be Michael’s mortal bestowal world.
Now I submit to you that you and I enjoy a great privilege to be natives of the planet Michael chose to be his bestowal planet and especially within such a short time after he lived his bestowal life and before the planet had changed very much in culture or climate. The circumstances of our lives are not so different from life as he lived it. The joys and the pains of his life are fully understandable to us without interpretation. The experience of living on this planet must be special, primitive, about the bottom rung on the ladder for ascending mortals.
It is important to remember who is being born. This was Michael coming as a human baby to experience human existence, to demonstrate the perfect life of intentionally living in harmony with the indwelling spirit of the Father of all creation and to spiritually uplift humanity with a living portrayal of the loving nature of our heavenly Father. This was the creator and ruler of stars and galaxies and ten million inhabited planets. This was a very big deal.
Sometime much closer to Jesus’ birth, Gabriel came here and surveyed the spiritual, intellectual, racial and geographic features of our planet as they would likely impact Jesus’ life and the spread of his teachings. He decided that the Hebrew culture and religion had advantages warranting their selection as the bestowal race. In this sense they were a chosen people; chosen to be the religious and cultural foundation of Jesus’ mortal life. Michael gave his approval to this decision and Gabriel sent the Family Commission of twelve to investigate Jewish family life. Gabriel was present at the conclusion of the study to receive nominations of three equally favorable unions. Gabriel selected Mary and Joseph.
Joseph’s family was Jewish back to Abraham but his relationship to David was by adoption generations earlier. Mary’s lineage was much more varied, embracing many of the most remarkable women in the history of our planet. Racially Mary was hardly Jewish. Joseph was a dark-eyed brunette. Mary had brown eyes and her hair was almost blond. Joseph and Mary were selected because they were average people. Michael wanted to live the life of an average person so that common people could understand and accept him.
The circumstances of this bestowal were about perfect. This planet was never before or since at a higher level of spiritual thinking or religious living. Jews, being part western and part eastern, were well suited to spreading the new religion both East and West. Tolerant political rule of the Mediterranean world by the Romans enhanced the favorable circumstances. The Greek language and culture was pervasive and Jewish religious and moral teachings were spreading rapidly. For the first time in world history, good roads connected many major cities. Seas were cleared of pirates and travel was rapidly advancing.
While it was a time of peace and prosperity, there was no middle class and most people lived a miserable and impoverished lower class existence.
Nazareth was particularly well situated because half the caravan traffic between the orient and the Mediterranean ports passed through or near it. Dispersion of Jews with over 200 synagogues and religious communities throughout the Roman world provided culture centers where the new gospel of the kingdom of heaven found its initial reception and from which it spread.
When Jesus was born, Herod the Idumean ruled both Galilee and Judeah. (Herod died in 4BC.) He was an outsider who held power because he had ingratiated himself with the Roman rulers. He built temples to many strange gods. Because Herod was friendly with Roman rulers, the world was safe for Jewish travelers and the way was open for evangelists to carry the gospel throughout the Roman Empire.
Galilee was more gentile than Jewish when Jesus was born.
Mary and Joseph married in March of 8 BC. Mary was 14 years old and Joseph was 21. Joseph and his brothers had built a one room home for the new family. In November of 8 BC Mary and Joseph conceived Jesus and the next day Gabriel appeared to Mary at dusk at her home. Joseph had not returned from work. Gabriel’s appearance shocked Mary but after she regained her composure, Gabriel said to her: “I come at the bidding of one who is my master and whom you shall love and nurture. To you, Mary, I bring glad tidings when I announce to you that the conception within you is ordained by heaven, and that in due time you will become the mother of a son; you shall call him Joshua, and he shall inaugurate the kingdom of heaven on earth and among men. Your son shall proclaim the message of deliverance with great power and deep conviction.”
It is curious to me that Gabriel told Mary what name to give her son. He had done the same with Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother. I wonder why they needed to be named John and Joshua. [In Hebrew, John (Yoghanan) means “Yahweh is gracious.” Joshua (Yehoshua) means “Yahweh is salvation”]. It is also curious to me that Gabriel spoke only to Mary and Elizabeth. Joseph and Zacharias were left with no direct communication. They had dreams but these came long after their wives had told them what had happened.
Mary didn’t tell Joseph of Gabriel’s visit for many weeks. Not until she knew she was pregnant. It was many nights before Joseph could sleep. At first he doubted the Gabriel visitation. When he became convinced of the visit, he was still troubled by how the offspring of humans could be a child of divine destiny. After several weeks, Joseph and Mary concluded that they had been chosen to be parents of the Messiah, but it hadn’t been part of the Jewish concept that the deliverer was to be of divine nature. As Mary’s time approached, Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to register for the census. Joseph virtually forbade Mary to make the journey to Bethlehem with him, but she insisted and he relented.
Jesus was born at noon, August 21, 7 BC in a grain storage room of a caravan stable of an inn in Bethlehem. The following day, a wealthy person at the inn exchanged rooms; and Mary, Joseph and Jesus resided there for three weeks until they got lodging with a distant relative of Joseph. They stayed in Bethlehem for a year because Mary, Elizabeth and Zacharias thought Jesus was to be the Jewish Messiah and that he should grow up in the city of David.
After the three wise men made inquiry in Jerusalem about the new born king of the Jews, Herod’s spies looked for Jesus for a year. Then in mid-October of 6 BC Herod ordered a systematic search of all houses in Bethlehem and the murder of all baby boys less than two years of age. Sixteen baby boys perished as a result. Jesus was a little over one year old and still living in Bethlehem but one of Herod’s assistants communicated the baby slaughter order to Zacharias, and he dispatched a messenger to Joseph. The night before the massacre Joseph and Mary left Bethlehem for Alexandria in Egypt. They journeyed alone to avoid attention. Zacharias provided the funds for them to travel on. Joseph worked in Alexandria and they lodged with well-to-do relatives of Joseph’s family. They stayed in Alexandria for two years and returned to Bethlehem only after Harod’s death.
Certain wise men of spiritual insight had been informed of the impending bestowal of Michael on Earth. This was probably an earlier announcement that he was coming. More specifically, the angels of attachment to Adam and Eve in the first garden made an announcement to Ardnon and his associates in Ur that the light of life was about to appear as a babe on earth and among the Jews. Apparently the communication to Ardnon was by way of a midwayer who either posed as or communicated through a strange religious teacher who claimed these insights came to him through a dream. This strange teacher must have been very persuasive because three Chaldean priests traveled for weeks just to have the chance to see the child. They were in Jerusalem looking for the babe when by chance Zacharias heard of their quest and directed them to Jesus in Bethlehem. Jesus was about three weeks old when they arrived.
The wise men were following fairly specific information communicated to them as interested persons who were part of the spiritual continuum. That is terribly significant because it suggests that mortals can be contacted by their celestial friends. I don’t know if this is something we can all aspire to but it is intriguing.
For a time all Nazareth was proud of his exploits confounding the wise men in the temple at Jerusalem.
Before Jesus was 14 years old he had become a good yoke maker and worked well with canvas and leather. He was rapidly developing into an expert carpenter and cabinet maker. In this 14th year he made frequent trips to the top of the hill to the northwest of Nazareth for prayer and meditation. Gradually he was becoming more self-conscious of the nature of his bestowal on earth. He continued his advanced course of reading under the teachers at the synagogue school and continued to home school his brothers and sisters. The family was prosperous and Jesus resumed his music lessons.
Joseph and Mary both had frequent doubts about Jesus’ destiny. He was brilliant but difficult to understand and nothing extraordinary ever happened. Miracles were expected of persons of destiny and Jesus didn’t produce any.
Tue, Sept .25, A.D. 8, a month after Jesus’ 14th birthday, Joseph died of injuries from a falling derrick while at work on the governor’s residence at Sepphoris. None of the family members made it to him before he died. He is buried at Nazareth.
Jesus knew nothing of the Gabriel visit to Mary before Jesus’ birth. He learned about this from John on the day of his baptism, at the beginning of his public ministry. As years passed, Jesus increasingly measured every institution of society and every usage of religion by one test: What does it do for the human soul? Does it bring God to man? Does it bring man to God?
During his 14th year it became the custom for the neighbors to drop in during the winter evenings to hear Jesus play the harp, listen to him tell stories and read the Greek scriptures. He was a master story teller. Jesus demonstrated keen business judgment and financial sagacity. He was liberal but frugal, saving but generous. He was a wise and efficient administrator of his father’s estate.
By the middle of this 15th year Jesus had taken a firm grasp on the management of his family. By the end of the year, the family savings were almost gone. They needed to sell one of the Nazareth houses Joseph owned in partnership with Jacob. Ruth was born the evening of April 17, A.D. 9. This year Jesus formulated what became known as the Lord’s Prayer. It was intended to lead his brothers and sisters into spontaneous personal prayers but the family had many forms of praise and several formal prayers and the children always fell back to using them.
This year Jesus suffered a lot of confused thinking about being about his Father’s business and the need to watch over Joseph’s family. He reasoned rightly that his earthly family had to take precedence. He had thoroughly considered the idea of the Jewish Messiah and had concluded that he was not to be the Messiah. He never expected to lead Jewish armies to overthrow foreign domination of Palestine. Nor did he believe that his spiritual mission was to be directed solely to the Jewish people. He also did not believe that he was to be the Son of Man depicted by the Prophet Daniel.
As he worked at his carpenter’s bench he pondered what his relationship should be after he started his public ministry; to the messiah if he should appear, to his family, to the Jewish commonwealth and religion, to the Roman Empire and to the gentiles and their religion. From this year on he was more cautious about sharing his unusual ideas. He longed for a trustworthy and confidential friend but his problems were too complex for human associates to understand. He had to bear his burden alone.
Jesus delivered his first sermon at the Nazareth synagogue on the first Sabbath after his fifteenth birthday. He carefully chose scriptures and sequenced them so that when he read them they conveyed the message without his having to interpret them. The scriptures chosen presented something of a preview of his future career.
Poverty was catching up with the family month by month. Clothing and meals became simpler and their best food was saved for their evening meal. They had plenty of milk, butter and cheese from their animals and vegetables from their garden in season. The Chazzan continued to believe that Jesus was to become a great teacher. Apparently all of Jesus’ plans for a career were thwarted by circumstances but he was not discouraged. He did not falter. By the end of 9A.D. Jesus was earning only the equivalent of 25 cents per day and the family found it difficult to pay the civil and temple taxes. The tax collector threatened to take Jesus’ harp. Jesus gave his copy of the Greek scriptures to the synagogue library as his maturity offering to the lord on his 15th birthday. In his 15th year Herod ruled that Joseph was owed nothing and Jesus never again trusted Herod Antipas because of the unjustness of his decision.
Jesus’ uncle took over the family supply shop. Jesus worked at his home bench so he was close to help Mary with the children. They couldn’t afford to move to the country as Jesus wanted but Jesus rented a large garden plot near their home and they had three cows, four sheep, a donkey, a flock of chickens, a dog and the doves. So they had many of the experiences of farm life.