Tuesday Evening on Mount Olivet

176:4.1Of all the Mas­ter’s teach­ings no one phase has been so mis­un­der­stood as his prom­ise some­time to come back in per­son to this world. It is not strange that Mi­chael should be in­ter­ested in some­time re­turn­ing to the planet whereon he ex­pe­ri­enced his sev­enth and last be­stowal, as a mor­tal of the realm. It is only nat­u­ral to be­lieve that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, now sov­er­eign ruler of a vast uni­verse, would be in­ter­ested in com­ing back, not only once but even many times, to the world whereon he lived such a unique life and fi­nally won for him­self the Fa­ther’s un­lim­ited be­stowal of uni­verse power and au­thor­ity. Uran­tia will eter­nally be one of the seven na­tiv­ity spheres of Mi­chael in the win­ning of uni­verse sov­er­eignty.

176:4.2Je­sus did, on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions and to many in­di­vid­u­als, de­clare his in­ten­tion of re­turn­ing to this world. As his fol­low­ers awak­ened to the fact that their Mas­ter was not go­ing to func­tion as a tem­po­ral de­liv­erer, and as they lis­tened to his pre­dic­tions of the over­throw of Je­ru­sa­lem and the down­fall of the Jew­ish na­tion, they most nat­u­rally be­gan to as­so­ciate his prom­ised re­turn with these catas­trophic events. But when the Ro­man armies lev­eled the walls of Je­ru­sa­lem, de­stroyed the tem­ple, and dis­persed the Judean Jews, and still the Mas­ter did not re­veal him­self in power and glory, his fol­low­ers be­gan the for­mu­la­tion of that be­lief which even­tu­ally as­so­ci­ated the sec­ond com­ing of Christ with the end of the age, even with the end of the world.

176:4.3Je­sus prom­ised to do two things af­ter he had as­cended to the Fa­ther, and af­ter all power in heaven and on earth had been placed in his hands. He prom­ised, first, to send into the world, and in his stead, an­other teacher, the Spirit of Truth; and this he did on the day of Pen­te­cost. Sec­ond, he most cer­tainly prom­ised his fol­low­ers that he would some­time per­son­ally re­turn to this world. But he did not say how, where, or when he would re­visit this planet of his be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence in the flesh. On one oc­ca­sion he in­ti­mated that, whereas the eye of flesh had be­held him when he lived here in the flesh, on his re­turn (at least on one of his pos­si­ble vis­its) he would be dis­cerned only by the eye of spir­i­tual faith.

176:4.4Many of us are in­clined to be­lieve that Je­sus will re­turn to Uran­tia many times dur­ing the ages to come. We do not have his spe­cific prom­ise to make these plu­ral vis­its, but it seems most prob­a­ble that he who car­ries among his uni­verse ti­tles that of Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia will many times visit the world whose con­quest con­ferred such a unique ti­tle upon him.

176:4.5We most pos­i­tively be­lieve that Mi­chael will again come in per­son to Uran­tia, but we have not the slight­est idea as to when or in what man­ner he may choose to come. Will his sec­ond ad­vent on earth be timed to oc­cur in con­nec­tion with the ter­mi­nal judg­ment of this pres­ent age, ei­ther with or with­out the as­so­ci­ated ap­pear­ance of a Mag­is­te­rial Son? Will he come in con­nec­tion with the ter­mi­na­tion of some sub­se­quent Uran­tian age? Will he come unan­nounced and as an iso­lated event? We do not know. Only one thing we are cer­tain of, that is, when he does re­turn, all the world will likely know about it, for he must come as the su­preme ruler of a uni­verse and not as the ob­scure babe of Beth­le­hem. But if ev­ery eye is to be­hold him, and if only spir­i­tual eyes are to dis­cern his pres­ence, then must his ad­vent be long de­ferred.

176:4.6You would do well, there­fore, to dis­as­so­ci­ate the Mas­ter’s per­sonal re­turn to earth from any and all set events or set­tled epochs. We are sure of only one thing: He has prom­ised to come back. We have no idea as to when he will ful­fill this prom­ise or in what con­nec­tion. As far as we know, he may ap­pear on earth any day, and he may not come un­til age af­ter age has passed and been duly ad­ju­di­cated by his as­so­ci­ated Sons of the Par­a­dise corps.

176:4.7The sec­ond ad­vent of Mi­chael on earth is an event of tremen­dous sen­ti­men­tal value to both mid­way­ers and hu­mans; but oth­er­wise it is of no im­me­di­ate mo­ment to mid­way­ers and of no more prac­ti­cal im­por­tance to hu­man be­ings than the com­mon event of nat­u­ral death, which so sud­denly pre­cip­i­tates mor­tal man into the im­me­di­ate grasp of that suc­ces­sion of uni­verse events which leads di­rectly to the pres­ence of this same Je­sus, the sov­er­eign ruler of our uni­verse. The chil­dren of light are all des­tined to see him, and it is of no se­ri­ous con­cern whether we go to him or whether he should chance first to come to us. Be you there­fore ever ready to wel­come him on earth as he stands ready to wel­come you in heaven. We con­fi­dently look for his glo­ri­ous ap­pear­ing, even for re­peated com­ings, but we are wholly ig­no­rant as to how, when, or in what con­nec­tion he is des­tined to ap­pear.