The Transition Years

134:9.1It was now near the end of the sum­mer, about the time of the day of atone­ment and the feast of taber­na­cles. Je­sus had a fam­ily meet­ing in Ca­per­naum over the Sab­bath and the next day started for Je­ru­sa­lem with John the son of Zeb­e­dee, go­ing to the east of the lake and by Gerasa and on down the Jor­dan val­ley. While he vis­ited some with his com­pan­ion on the way, John noted a great change in Je­sus.

134:9.2Je­sus and John stopped overnight at Beth­any with Laz­a­rus and his sis­ters, go­ing early the next morn­ing to Je­ru­sa­lem. They spent al­most three weeks in and around the city, at least John did. Many days John went into Je­ru­sa­lem alone while Je­sus walked about over the near-by hills and en­gaged in many sea­sons of spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with his Fa­ther in heaven.

134:9.3Both of them were pres­ent at the solemn ser­vices of the day of atone­ment. John was much im­pressed by the cer­e­monies of this day of all days in the Jew­ish re­li­gious rit­ual, but Je­sus re­mained a thought­ful and silent spec­ta­tor. To the Son of Man this per­for­mance was piti­ful and pa­thetic. He viewed it all as mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the char­ac­ter and at­tri­butes of his Fa­ther in heaven. He looked upon the do­ings of this day as a trav­esty upon the facts of di­vine jus­tice and the truths of in­fi­nite mercy. He burned to give vent to the dec­la­ra­tion of the real truth about his Fa­ther’s lov­ing char­ac­ter and mer­ci­ful con­duct in the uni­verse, but his faith­ful Mon­i­tor ad­mon­ished him that his hour had not yet come. But that night, at Beth­any, Je­sus did drop nu­mer­ous re­marks which greatly dis­turbed John; and John never fully un­der­stood the real sig­nif­i­cance of what Je­sus said in their hear­ing that evening.

134:9.4Je­sus planned to re­main through­out the week of the feast of taber­na­cles with John. This feast was the an­nual hol­i­day of all Pales­tine; it was the Jew­ish va­ca­tion time. Al­though Je­sus did not par­tic­i­pate in the mer­ri­ment of the oc­ca­sion, it was ev­i­dent that he de­rived plea­sure and ex­pe­ri­enced sat­is­fac­tion as he be­held the light­hearted and joy­ous aban­don of the young and the old.

134:9.5In the midst of the week of cel­e­bra­tion and ere the fes­tiv­i­ties were fin­ished, Je­sus took leave of John, say­ing that he de­sired to re­tire to the hills where he might the bet­ter com­mune with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. John would have gone with him, but Je­sus in­sisted that he stay through the fes­tiv­i­ties, say­ing: “It is not re­quired of you to bear the bur­den of the Son of Man; only the watch­man must keep vigil while the city sleeps in peace.” Je­sus did not re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. Af­ter al­most a week alone in the hills near Beth­any, he de­parted for Ca­per­naum. On the way home he spent a day and a night alone on the slopes of Gil­boa, near where King Saul had taken his life; and when he ar­rived at Ca­per­naum, he seemed more cheer­ful than when he had left John in Je­ru­sa­lem.

134:9.6The next morn­ing Je­sus went to the chest con­tain­ing his per­sonal ef­fects, which had re­mained in Zeb­e­dee’s work­shop, put on his apron, and pre­sented him­self for work, say­ing, “It be­hooves me to keep busy while I wait for my hour to come.” And he worked sev­eral months, un­til Jan­uary of the fol­low­ing year, in the boat­shop, by the side of his brother James. Af­ter this pe­riod of work­ing with Je­sus, no mat­ter what doubts came up to be­cloud James’s un­der­stand­ing of the life­work of the Son of Man, he never again re­ally and wholly gave up his faith in the mis­sion of Je­sus.

134:9.7Dur­ing this fi­nal pe­riod of Je­sus’ work at the boat­shop, he spent most of his time on the in­te­rior fin­ish­ing of some of the larger craft. He took great pains with all his hand­i­work and seemed to ex­pe­ri­ence the sat­is­fac­tion of hu­man achieve­ment when he had com­pleted a com­mend­able piece of work. Though he wasted lit­tle time upon tri­fles, he was a painstak­ing work­man when it came to the es­sen­tials of any given un­der­tak­ing.

134:9.8As time passed, ru­mors came to Ca­per­naum of one John who was preach­ing while bap­tiz­ing pen­i­tents in the Jor­dan, and John preached: “The king­dom of heaven is at hand; re­pent and be bap­tized.” Je­sus lis­tened to these re­ports as John slowly worked his way up the Jor­dan val­ley from the ford of the river near­est to Je­ru­sa­lem. But Je­sus worked on, mak­ing boats, un­til John had jour­neyed up the river to a point near Pella in the month of Jan­uary of the next year, A.D. 26, when he laid down his tools, declar­ing, “My hour has come,” and pres­ently pre­sented him­self to John for bap­tism.

134:9.9But a great change had been com­ing over Je­sus. Few of the peo­ple who had en­joyed his vis­its and min­is­tra­tions as he had gone up and down in the land ever sub­se­quently rec­og­nized in the pub­lic teacher the same per­son they had known and loved as a pri­vate in­di­vid­ual in for­mer years. And there was a rea­son for this fail­ure of his early ben­e­fi­cia­ries to rec­og­nize him in his later role of pub­lic and au­thor­i­ta­tive teacher. For long years this trans­for­ma­tion of mind and spirit had been in prog­ress, and it was fin­ished dur­ing the event­ful so­journ on Mount Her­mon.