Morontia Appearances of Jesus

190:2.1From the time of the mor­ontia res­ur­rec­tion un­til the hour of his spirit as­cen­sion on high, Je­sus made nine­teen sep­a­rate ap­pear­ances in vis­i­ble form to his be­liev­ers on earth. He did not ap­pear to his en­e­mies nor to those who could not make spir­i­tual use of his man­i­fes­ta­tion in vis­i­ble form. His first ap­pear­ance was to the five women at the tomb; his sec­ond, to Mary Mag­da­lene, also at the tomb.

190:2.2The third ap­pear­ance oc­curred about noon of this Sun­day at Beth­any. Shortly af­ter noon­tide, Je­sus’ old­est brother, James, was stand­ing in the gar­den of Laz­a­rus be­fore the empty tomb of the res­ur­rected brother of Martha and Mary, turn­ing over in his mind the news brought to them about one hour pre­vi­ously by the mes­sen­ger of David. James had al­ways in­clined to be­lieve in his el­dest brother’s mis­sion on earth, but he had long since lost con­tact with Je­sus’ work and had drifted into grave doubt­ing re­gard­ing the later claims of the apos­tles that Je­sus was the Mes­siah. The whole fam­ily was star­tled and well-nigh con­founded by the news brought by the mes­sen­ger. Even as James stood be­fore Laz­a­rus’s empty tomb, Mary Mag­da­lene ar­rived on the scene and was ex­cit­edly re­lat­ing to the fam­ily her ex­pe­ri­ences of the early morn­ing hours at the tomb of Joseph. Be­fore she had fin­ished, David Zeb­e­dee and his mother ar­rived. Ruth, of course, be­lieved the re­port, and so did Jude af­ter he had talked with David and Sa­lome.

190:2.3In the mean­time, as they looked for James and be­fore they found him, while he stood there in the gar­den near the tomb, he be­came aware of a near-by pres­ence, as if some­one had touched him on the shoul­der; and when he turned to look, he be­held the grad­ual ap­pear­ance of a strange form by his side. He was too much amazed to speak and too fright­ened to flee. And then the strange form spoke, say­ing: “James, I come to call you to the ser­vice of the king­dom. Join earnest hands with your breth­ren and fol­low af­ter me.” When James heard his name spo­ken, he knew that it was his el­dest brother, Je­sus, who had ad­dressed him. They all had more or less dif­fi­culty in rec­og­niz­ing the mor­ontia form of the Mas­ter, but few of them had any trou­ble rec­og­niz­ing his voice or oth­er­wise iden­ti­fy­ing his charm­ing per­son­al­ity when he once be­gan to com­mu­ni­cate with them.

190:2.4When James per­ceived that Je­sus was ad­dress­ing him, he started to fall to his knees, ex­claim­ing, “My fa­ther and my brother,” but Je­sus bade him stand while he spoke with him. And they walked through the gar­den and talked for al­most three min­utes; talked over ex­pe­ri­ences of for­mer days and fore­cast the events of the near fu­ture. As they neared the house, Je­sus said, “Farewell, James, un­til I greet you all to­gether.”

190:2.5James rushed into the house, even while they looked for him at Beth­page, ex­claim­ing: “I have just seen Je­sus and talked with him, vis­ited with him. He is not dead; he has risen! He van­ished be­fore me, say­ing, ‘Farewell un­til I greet you all to­gether.’” He had scarcely fin­ished speak­ing when Jude re­turned, and he re­told the ex­pe­ri­ence of meet­ing Je­sus in the gar­den for the ben­e­fit of Jude. And they all be­gan to be­lieve in the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus. James now an­nounced that he would not re­turn to Gal­i­lee, and David ex­claimed: “He is seen not only by ex­cited women; even strong­hearted men have be­gun to see him. I ex­pect to see him my­self.”

190:2.6And David did not long wait, for the fourth ap­pear­ance of Je­sus to mor­tal rec­og­ni­tion oc­curred shortly be­fore two o’clock in this very home of Martha and Mary, when he ap­peared vis­i­bly be­fore his earthly fam­ily and their friends, twenty in all. The Mas­ter ap­peared in the open back door, say­ing: “Peace be upon you. Greet­ings to those once near me in the flesh and fel­low­ship for my broth­ers and sis­ters in the king­dom of heaven. How could you doubt? Why have you lin­gered so long be­fore choos­ing to fol­low the light of truth with a whole heart? Come, there­fore, all of you into the fel­low­ship of the Spirit of Truth in the Fa­ther’s king­dom.” As they be­gan to re­cover from the first shock of their amaze­ment and to move to­ward him as if to em­brace him, he van­ished from their sight.

190:2.7They all wanted to rush off to the city to tell the doubt­ing apos­tles about what had hap­pened, but James re­strained them. Mary Mag­da­lene, only, was per­mit­ted to re­turn to Joseph’s house. James for­bade their pub­lish­ing abroad the fact of this mor­ontia visit be­cause of cer­tain things which Je­sus had said to him as they con­versed in the gar­den. But James never re­vealed more of his visit with the risen Mas­ter on this day at the Laz­a­rus home in Beth­any.