Baptism and the Forty Days

136:3.1Je­sus had en­dured the great temp­ta­tion of his mor­tal be­stowal be­fore his bap­tism when he had been wet with the dews of Mount Her­mon for six weeks. There on Mount Her­mon, as an un­aided mor­tal of the realm, he had met and de­feated the Uran­tia pre­tender, Cali­gas­tia, the prince of this world. That event­ful day, on the uni­verse rec­ords, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth had be­come the Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia. And this Prince of Uran­tia, so soon to be pro­claimed su­preme Sov­er­eign of Neb­a­don, now went into forty days of re­tire­ment to for­mu­late the plans and de­ter­mine upon the tech­nique of pro­claim­ing the new king­dom of God in the hearts of men.

136:3.2Af­ter his bap­tism he en­tered upon the forty days of ad­just­ing him­self to the changed re­la­tion­ships of the world and the uni­verse oc­ca­sioned by the per­son­al­iza­tion of his Ad­juster. Dur­ing this iso­la­tion in the Perean hills he de­ter­mined upon the pol­icy to be pur­sued and the meth­ods to be em­ployed in the new and changed phase of earth life which he was about to in­au­gu­rate.

136:3.3Je­sus did not go into re­tire­ment for the pur­pose of fast­ing and for the af­flic­tion of his soul. He was not an as­cetic, and he came for­ever to de­stroy all such no­tions re­gard­ing the ap­proach to God. His rea­sons for seek­ing this re­tire­ment were en­tirely dif­fer­ent from those which had ac­tu­ated Moses and Eli­jah, and even John the Bap­tist. Je­sus was then wholly self-con­scious con­cern­ing his re­la­tion to the uni­verse of his mak­ing and also to the uni­verse of uni­verses, super­vised by the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, his Fa­ther in heaven. He now fully re­called the be­stowal charge and its in­struc­tions ad­min­is­tered by his el­der brother, Im­manuel, ere he en­tered upon his Uran­tia in­car­na­tion. He now clearly and fully com­pre­hended all these far-flung re­la­tion­ships, and he de­sired to be away for a sea­son of quiet med­i­ta­tion so that he could think out the plans and de­cide upon the pro­ce­dures for the pros­e­cu­tion of his pub­lic labors in be­half of this world and for all other worlds in his lo­cal uni­verse.

136:3.4While wan­der­ing about in the hills, seek­ing a suit­able shel­ter, Je­sus en­coun­tered his uni­verse chief ex­ec­u­tive, Ga­briel, the Bright and Morn­ing Star of Neb­a­don. Ga­briel now re-es­tab­lished per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Cre­ator Son of the uni­verse; they met di­rectly for the first time since Mi­chael took leave of his as­so­ciates on Sal­ving­ton when he went to Eden­tia prepara­tory to en­ter­ing upon the Uran­tia be­stowal. Ga­briel, by di­rec­tion of Im­manuel and on au­thor­ity of the Uversa An­cients of Days, now laid be­fore Je­sus in­for­ma­tion in­di­cat­ing that his be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence on Uran­tia was prac­ti­cally fin­ished so far as con­cerned the earn­ing of the per­fected sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse and the ter­mi­na­tion of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. The for­mer was achieved on the day of his bap­tism when the per­son­al­iza­tion of his Ad­juster demon­strated the per­fec­tion and com­ple­tion of his be­stowal in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh, and the lat­ter was a fact of his­tory on that day when he came down from Mount Her­mon to join the wait­ing lad, Tiglath. Je­sus was now in­formed, upon the high­est au­thor­ity of the lo­cal uni­verse and the super­uni­verse, that his be­stowal work was fin­ished in so far as it af­fected his per­sonal sta­tus in re­la­tion to sov­er­eignty and re­bel­lion. He had al­ready had this as­sur­ance di­rect from Par­a­dise in the bap­tismal vi­sion and in the phe­nom­e­non of the per­son­al­iza­tion of his in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster.

136:3.5While he tar­ried on the moun­tain, talk­ing with Ga­briel, the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­ther of Eden­tia ap­peared to Je­sus and Ga­briel in per­son, say­ing: “The rec­ords are com­pleted. The sov­er­eignty of Mi­chael num­ber 611,121 over his uni­verse of Neb­a­don rests in com­ple­tion at the right hand of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. I bring to you the be­stowal re­lease of Im­manuel, your spon­sor-brother for the Uran­tia in­car­na­tion. You are at lib­erty now or at any sub­se­quent time, in the man­ner of your own choos­ing, to ter­mi­nate your in­car­na­tion be­stowal, as­cend to the right hand of your Fa­ther, re­ceive your sov­er­eignty, and as­sume your well-earned un­con­di­tional ruler­ship of all Neb­a­don. I also tes­tify to the com­ple­tion of the rec­ords of the super­uni­verse, by au­tho­riza­tion of the An­cients of Days, hav­ing to do with the ter­mi­na­tion of all sin-re­bel­lion in your uni­verse and en­dow­ing you with full and un­lim­ited au­thor­ity to deal with any and all such pos­si­ble up­heavals in the fu­ture. Tech­ni­cally, your work on Uran­tia and in the flesh of the mor­tal crea­ture is fin­ished. Your course from now on is a mat­ter of your own choos­ing.”

136:3.6When the Most High Fa­ther of Eden­tia had taken leave, Je­sus held long con­verse with Ga­briel re­gard­ing the wel­fare of the uni­verse and, send­ing greet­ings to Im­manuel, prof­fered his as­sur­ance that, in the work which he was about to un­der­take on Uran­tia, he would be ever mind­ful of the coun­sel he had re­ceived in con­nec­tion with the pre­be­stowal charge ad­min­is­tered on Sal­ving­ton.

136:3.7Through­out all of these forty days of iso­la­tion James and John the sons of Zeb­e­dee were en­gaged in search­ing for Je­sus. Many times they were not far from his abid­ing place, but never did they find him.