The Transition Years

134:2.1It was the first of April, A.D. 24, when Je­sus left Naz­a­reth on the car­a­van trip to the Caspian Sea re­gion. The car­a­van which Je­sus joined as its con­duc­tor was go­ing from Je­ru­sa­lem by way of Da­mas­cus and Lake Ur­mia through As­syria, Me­dia, and Parthia to the south­east­ern Caspian Sea re­gion. It was a full year be­fore he re­turned from this jour­ney.

134:2.2For Je­sus this car­a­van trip was an­other ad­ven­ture of ex­plo­ration and per­sonal min­istry. He had an in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with his car­a­van fam­ily—pas­sen­gers, guards, and camel drivers. Scores of men, women, and chil­dren re­sid­ing along the route fol­lowed by the car­a­van lived richer lives as a re­sult of their con­tact with Je­sus, to them, the ex­traor­di­nary con­duc­tor of a com­mon­place car­a­van. Not all who en­joyed these oc­ca­sions of his per­sonal min­istry prof­ited thereby, but the vast ma­jor­ity of those who met and talked with him were made bet­ter for the re­main­der of their nat­u­ral lives.

134:2.3Of all his world trav­els this Caspian Sea trip car­ried Je­sus near­est to the Ori­ent and en­abled him to gain a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the Far-East­ern peo­ples. He made in­ti­mate and per­sonal con­tact with ev­ery one of the sur­viv­ing races of Uran­tia ex­cept­ing the red. He equally en­joyed his per­sonal min­istry to each of these var­ied races and blended peo­ples, and all of them were re­cep­tive to the liv­ing truth which he brought them. The Eu­ro­peans from the Far West and the Asi­at­ics from the Far East alike gave at­ten­tion to his words of hope and eter­nal life and were equally in­flu­enced by the life of lov­ing ser­vice and spir­i­tual min­istry which he so gra­ciously lived among them.

134:2.4The car­a­van trip was suc­cess­ful in ev­ery way. This was a most in­ter­est­ing episode in the hu­man life of Je­sus, for he func­tioned dur­ing this year in an ex­ec­u­tive ca­pac­ity, be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the ma­te­rial in­trusted to his charge and for the safe con­duct of the trav­el­ers mak­ing up the car­a­van party. And he most faith­fully, ef­fi­ciently, and wisely dis­charged his mul­ti­ple du­ties.

134:2.5On the re­turn from the Caspian re­gion, Je­sus gave up the di­rec­tion of the car­a­van at Lake Ur­mia, where he tar­ried for slightly over two weeks. He re­turned as a pas­sen­ger with a later car­a­van to Da­mas­cus, where the own­ers of the camels be­sought him to re­main in their ser­vice. De­clin­ing this of­fer, he jour­neyed on with the car­a­van train to Ca­per­naum, ar­riv­ing the first of April, A.D. 25. No longer did he re­gard Naz­a­reth as his home. Ca­per­naum had be­come the home of Je­sus, James, Mary, and Ruth. But Je­sus never again lived with his fam­ily; when in Ca­per­naum he made his home with the Zebe­dees.