Morontia Appearances of Jesus

190:1.1The apos­tles did not want Je­sus to leave them; there­fore had they slighted all his state­ments about dy­ing, along with his promises to rise again. They were not ex­pect­ing the res­ur­rec­tion as it came, and they re­fused to be­lieve un­til they were con­fronted with the com­pul­sion of unim­peach­able ev­i­dence and the ab­so­lute proof of their own ex­pe­ri­ences.

190:1.2When the apos­tles re­fused to be­lieve the re­port of the five women who rep­re­sented that they had seen Je­sus and talked with him, Mary Mag­da­lene re­turned to the tomb, and the oth­ers went back to Joseph’s house, where they re­lated their ex­pe­ri­ences to his daugh­ter and the other women. And the women be­lieved their re­port. Shortly af­ter six o’clock the daugh­ter of Joseph of Ari­mathea and the four women who had seen Je­sus went over to the home of Nicode­mus, where they re­lated all these hap­pen­ings to Joseph, Nicode­mus, David Zeb­e­dee, and the other men there as­sem­bled. Nicode­mus and the oth­ers doubted their story, doubted that Je­sus had risen from the dead; they con­jec­tured that the Jews had re­moved the body. Joseph and David were dis­posed to be­lieve the re­port, so much so that they hur­ried out to in­spect the tomb, and they found ev­ery­thing just as the women had de­scribed. And they were the last to so view the sepul­chre, for the high priest sent the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards to the tomb at half past seven o’clock to re­move the grave cloths. The cap­tain wrapped them all up in the linen sheet and threw them over a near-by cliff.

190:1.3From the tomb David and Joseph went im­me­di­ately to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they held a con­fer­ence with the ten apos­tles in the up­per cham­ber. Only John Zeb­e­dee was dis­posed to be­lieve, even faintly, that Je­sus had risen from the dead. Pe­ter had be­lieved at first but, when he failed to find the Mas­ter, fell into grave doubt­ing. They were all dis­posed to be­lieve that the Jews had re­moved the body. David would not ar­gue with them, but when he left, he said: “You are the apos­tles, and you ought to un­der­stand these things. I will not con­tend with you; nev­er­the­less, I now go back to the home of Nicode­mus, where I have ap­pointed with the mes­sen­gers to as­sem­ble this morn­ing, and when they have gath­ered to­gether, I will send them forth on their last mis­sion, as her­alds of the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion. I heard the Mas­ter say that, af­ter he should die, he would rise on the third day, and I be­lieve him.” And thus speak­ing to the de­jected and for­lorn am­bas­sadors of the king­dom, this self-ap­pointed chief of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­tel­li­gence took leave of the apos­tles. On his way from the up­per cham­ber he dropped the bag of Ju­das, con­tain­ing all the apos­tolic funds, in the lap of Mat­thew Levi.

190:1.4It was about half past nine o’clock when the last of David’s twenty-six mes­sen­gers ar­rived at the home of Nicode­mus. David promptly as­sem­bled them in the spa­cious court­yard and ad­dressed them:

190:1.5“Men and breth­ren, all this time you have served me in ac­cor­dance with your oath to me and to one an­other, and I call you to wit­ness that I have never yet sent out false in­for­ma­tion at your hands. I am about to send you on your last mis­sion as vol­un­teer mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, and in so do­ing I re­lease you from your oaths and thereby dis­band the mes­sen­ger corps. Men, I de­clare to you that we have fin­ished our work. No more does the Mas­ter have need of mor­tal mes­sen­gers; he has risen from the dead. He told us be­fore they ar­rested him that he would die and rise again on the third day. I have seen the tomb—it is empty. I have talked with Mary Mag­da­lene and four other women, who have talked with Je­sus. I now dis­band you, bid you farewell, and send you on your re­spec­tive as­sign­ments, and the mes­sage which you shall bear to the be­liev­ers is: ‘Je­sus has risen from the dead; the tomb is empty.’”

190:1.6The ma­jor­ity of those pres­ent en­deav­ored to per­suade David not to do this. But they could not in­flu­ence him. They then sought to dis­suade the mes­sen­gers, but they would not heed the words of doubt. And so, shortly be­fore ten o’clock this Sun­day morn­ing, these twenty-six run­ners went forth as the first her­alds of the mighty truth-fact of the res­ur­rected Je­sus. And they started out on this mis­sion as they had on so many oth­ers, in ful­fill­ment of their oath to David Zeb­e­dee and to one an­other. These men had great con­fi­dence in David. They de­parted on this as­sign­ment with­out even tar­ry­ing to talk with those who had seen Je­sus; they took David at his word. The ma­jor­ity of them be­lieved what David had told them, and even those who some­what doubted, car­ried the mes­sage just as cer­tainly and just as swiftly.

190:1.7The apos­tles, the spir­i­tual corps of the king­dom, are this day as­sem­bled in the up­per cham­ber, where they man­i­fest fear and ex­press doubts, while these lay­men, rep­re­sent­ing the first at­tempt at the so­cial­iza­tion of the Mas­ter’s gospel of the broth­er­hood of man, un­der the or­ders of their fear­less and ef­fi­cient leader, go forth to pro­claim the risen Sav­ior of a world and a uni­verse. And they en­gage in this event­ful ser­vice ere his cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives are will­ing to be­lieve his word or to ac­cept the ev­i­dence of eye­wit­nesses.

190:1.8These twenty-six were dis­patched to the home of Laz­a­rus in Beth­any and to all of the be­liever cen­ters, from Beer­sheba in the south to Da­mas­cus and Sidon in the north; and from Phil­a­del­phia in the east to Alexan­dria in the west.

190:1.9When David had taken leave of his breth­ren, he went over to the home of Joseph for his mother, and they then went out to Beth­any to join the wait­ing fam­ily of Je­sus. David abode there in Beth­any with Martha and Mary un­til af­ter they had dis­posed of their earthly pos­ses­sions, and he ac­com­pa­nied them on their jour­ney to join their brother, Laz­a­rus, at Phil­a­del­phia.

190:1.10In about one week from this time John Zeb­e­dee took Mary the mother of Je­sus to his home in Beth­saida. James, Je­sus’ el­dest brother, re­mained with his fam­ily in Je­ru­sa­lem. Ruth re­mained at Beth­any with Laz­a­rus’s sis­ters. The rest of Je­sus’ fam­ily re­turned to Gal­i­lee. David Zeb­e­dee left Beth­any with Martha and Mary, for Phil­a­del­phia, early in June, the day af­ter his mar­riage to Ruth, Je­sus’ young­est sis­ter.