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“When Issa had attained the age of thirteen years, the epoch when an Israelite should take a wife, the house where His parents earned their living by carrying on a modest trade began to be a place of meeting for rich and noble people, desirous of having for a son-in-law young Issa, already famous for His edifying discourses in the name of the Almighty. Then it was that Issa left the parental house in secret, departed from Jerusalem, and with the merchants set out toward Sind…” (4:10-12).
In every land that Jesus visited during these years — India, Tibet, Persia — He healed the sick, raised people from the dead, opposed paganism, and preached One Universal God-the-Father and the Path to Him. His favorite audience was people of lower social ranks; later it was the same in Judaea.
In the homilies that He delivered in India, in particular, He taught:
“Worship not the idols, for they hear you not. Listen not to the (four) Vedas, for their truth is counterfeit. Never put yourself in the first place and never humiliate your neighbor.
“Help the poor, support the weak, do ill to no one, and covet not that which you have not and which you see belonged to another.” (5:26-27).
Also there is an account of some words that Jesus said to Tibetans:
“I came to demonstrate the human potential. What I do — (let) everyone will be doing. What I am — (let) everyone will be. These boons are for every nation; (they are) water and bread of life.” (Tibetan Gospel).
Jesus “returned to the land of Israel” only at the age of 29 (The Life of Saint Issa, 9:1). It is His sayings and deeds there that became well known for the future generations.
Upon returning to the native land, Jesus with several disciples-assistants began to travel and visit many cities and villages. He worked wonders such as healing numerous sick people and raising people from the dead, preached in synagogues, in houses, in the open air about what the Heavenly Father wants people to be.
Thousands of people listened to Jesus, witnessed miracles and got healed of their diseases. Some of them gave up their worldly occupations and joined Jesus in order to travel with Him and to learn from Him.
He taught them by explaining the Path to the Perfection and by demonstrating methods of spiritual healing and meditative techniques.
No doubt, He wanted to see them as people to whom He could give all the highest knowledge about the Father. He wanted them to enter the Abode of the Father together with Him. “Father! I want those you have given Me to be with Me where I am!…” (John 17:24).
But when He was saying something that exceeded their ability to comprehend, they surprised Him with their lack of understanding; many left Him doubting adequacy of His words and even His sanity… (John 10:19-20; 13:36-38; 14:5-7; 16:17-18; Luke 9:54-56, etc).
Even His mother and brothers once came to the place where He was preaching to take Him home, for they decided that He went insane if He is saying things like that… (Mark 3:21,31-35).
At the end — after three years of teaching, giving discourses, working wonders — He was with only 12 male disciples (one of them was Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him later) and Mary Magdalene.
And where were the crowds of thousands of excited commoners who listened to His sermons, ate the food that He materialized for them, and got healed from various diseases?…
It turned out that these crowds did not need the Teachings about the efforts that one has to make in order to enter the Kingdom of God. They wanted Him only to heal, to pay attention to them… (Luke 9:11).
Jesus saw this and began to avoid the crowds. “… Crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places…” (Luke 5:15-16).
Jesus wanted people to learn the true faith, to make personal efforts on becoming better. Then the diseases would go away by the will of the Father… “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you, bear with you?!” He cried once because of hopelessness of this situation (Luke 9:41).
And the crowd, being stirred up against Him by priests, got angry. “… You look for an opportunity to kill Me, (only) because there is no place in you for My word!…” He said once trying to bring them to reason… (John 8:37).
Soon, the same people yelled to Pilate: “Crucify, crucify Him!”… (Luke 23:21).
“And they having taken the Lord pushed Him as they ran, and said: ‘Let us hale the Son of God, now that we have gotten authority over Him!’ And they put on Him a purple robe and made Him sit upon the seat of judgment, saying: ‘Give righteous judgment you King of Israel!’ And one of them brought a crown of thorns and set it upon the Lord’s head; and others stood and did spit in His eyes, and others buffeted His cheeks; and others did prick Him with a reed, and some of them scourged Him, saying: ‘With this honor let us honor the Son of God!’” (The Gospel of Peter, 3.6-3.9).
Why the clergy did not accept Him? There were no formal
differences between them and Jesus as to the basis of the faith: they spoke
about the same God-the-Father, they referred to the same Jewish Bible.
But in reality, there were very important differences between them: Jesus preached Living God, Whom He knew very well personally; while the priests only believed in God without knowing Him. With the help of religion, they secured a good social rank and material well-being for themselves and thus wanted to protect the foundation of their confession.
Why Jesus, knowing what death He was going to die, did not try to leave Judaea?
Because if He had done it, no one would have remembered about
Him after a few years; there would have been no Christian churches, no New
Testament.
This is why the plan was different.
The plan was, first, to fulfill all prophecies about the earthly life of the Christ-Savior, even such details as “not one of His bones will be broken” and “they will look on the One they have pierced”. That is, when the soldiers broke the legs of the two criminals crucified together with Jesus to make them die before night, Jesus had left the body already, so the soldiers just pierced His side with a spear… (John 19:31-37).
Second, His death and the days that followed were accompanied by many miracles: darkness fell too soon, the curtain of the Jerusalem temple was torn in two (Luke 23:44-45), Jesus’ body disappeared from where it was placed, Jesus several times appeared to His disciples materializing a body, He had conversation with them, edified them.
But people were astonished most of all by evident “Resurrection of Jesus from the dead”. Though these people were religious, they did not understand that after parting with body every man arises in the other world with self-awareness in non-corporeal form (Matt 22:30). Jesus proved this, and actually He did much more: with His Divine Power He dematerialized His body taken down from the cross and then several times materialized it for a time.
His disciples, Paul, and then many others devoted their lives to preaching about the Son of God Who came to the Earth, was crucified, and then arose, who taught about the Heavenly Father — Living God and about how to enter His Abode.
See also: • God • Christ
External links: •
The Teachings of Jesus Christ
Recommended literature:
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