Loehr-Daniels Study Course

Postscript to Easter

 By Franklin Loehr

 Lazarus 

            Jesus – the Risen Jesus, the triumphantly Christed Jesus of Nazareth, is the focus of all eyes at Easter. Even the other persons on stage then - Mary Magdalene, first to the empty tomb and then first to see Him; Peter and John running to the rolled-away stone; the two on the way to Emmaus – all are but other eyes through which we see Him. 

            Very rightly does the risen Jesus hold center stage throughout the Easter story. Here is the one man the human race has produced who faced all that evil could do and emerged completely triumphant and free. Here is He Who put to route that last enemy, death. Here is the living proof that we, too, being creatures like unto Him, live after the death of our earth bodies. In time, we too shall become Christed, “perfect even as (our) Father in Heaven is perfect.” You and I shall come into that glorious spiritual maturity wherein we, as souls, can say, “I and the Father are One.” Jesus’ Easter means all this – and much, much more. But Jesus’ Easter was not accomplished by Himself alone. Jesus’ Easter was the end product of a tremendous joint undertaking by an uncounted multitude, some in Heaven, some on Earth. 

 Jesus’ Easter was in many ways like Neil Armstrong’s step from the lunar capsule’s landing pad onto the surface of the moon itself. Neil made that historic step – “a giant leap for mankind” – only because of the tens and hundreds of thousands who designed, built, tested, launched and accurately guided that rocket-thrown moon capsule across a quarter million miles of space. Jesus’ Easter likewise was a major undertaking of many teams of individuals, a victory made possible by a disciplined multitude working together for the Great Plan.

             Let us look at two or three of these others – specifically (1) Lazarus, then (2) Judas Iscariot, and (3) Mary Magdalene. Let us go now to Lazarus’ home in Bethany, just six miles from Jerusalem. Bethany, where Jesus stayed a part of the week just before Holy Week, and from which He began His triumphal Palm Sunday entry. Bethany, a safe haven with true and knowledgeable friends, to which He came once more during Holy Week. Bethany, from which He then made His final Earth walk for the Last Supper, Gethsemane, Crucifixion on Golgotha, the Tomb – and Easter. 

            Bethany was the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. (A third sister, Ruth, was married and out of the home.) Even the finest of Biblical preachers seem to miss the unusually close link between Jesus and Lazarus. It was to Lazarus that Jesus turned for understanding and a knowing companioning along His Way – not to His mother Mary, not to His disciples, but to Lazarus. It was Lazarus whose modestly well-to-do home and garden, enclosed by a high wall, was in strategic position to provide Jesus with His usual overnight accommodations, enroute to or from Jerusalem. A short six mile walk was as nothing to strong men such as Jesus and His disciples. At Bethany Jesus stayed in the home of Lazarus, and the disciples in other lodgings arranged for them by Lazarus. 

            When reading or preaching the Bible one is inclined to think in terms of supernatural power and to forget some of the human arrangements. The colt upon which Jesus rode into Jerusalem was prepared and positioned by Lazarus – with the code phrase Jesus gave the disciples who went for the colt, “The Lord has need of him.” It was a man in Lazarus’ hire who retrieved and returned the colt when Jesus reached Jerusalem and dismounted. It was another unit of the “underground” which secured the Upper Room for the Last Supper, again with a simple code signal – a man carrying a pitcher of water from a certain well. Women usually carried the water. A man did when the need arose – so a man with a pitcher would not be strange enough to provoke undue attention, but would be a clear enough signal for the disciples. The man knew the disciples, spotted them before hoisting the water pitcher to his shoulder, then led them unobtrusively to the house with the Upper Room. These things were done very practically, by human pre-arrangement. 

            One is reminded of Moses’ flight from Egypt, 1300 years previously. When his impulsive murder of an Egyptian oppressor made it necessary for Moses to flee, there were those quiet wise ones who had provided the underground that got Moses out of Egypt and to Midian and safety. No matter how much a thing is destined to be done, the doing of it must somehow be arranged. This is a cause-and-effect Earth on which we live, and even God works by the great natural laws He ordained for it…There will be more instances of the infra-structure, the small and secret spiritual groups, the quiet organization unknown to the civil authorities, which carried on then – and always – much of the destined work of the world.

             Now back to Lazarus for the further insights brought by the Loehr/Daniels Life and Teaching Readings. Lazarus, we are told, was one of the occult Masters, one of the White Brotherhood. In a former incarnation, he was a Priest after the Order of Melchizidek, and he was also the first century A.D. incarnation of the Moses-soul. Inheriting modest wealth, which he administered wisely, Lazarus was freed from earning a livelihood for himself and his sisters. As a young man he had been taken to the East – India, etc. – for careful training in the advanced spiritual knowledge held there. Lazarus, about ten years older than Jesus, then returned to Palestine to take Jesus in his late teens to the East.

 Even though the Jesus-Being by then knew much from past incarnations (one, we are told, as the Buddha) and also from His larger beingness, the Jesus-personality still had to “learn” – to have awakened within it – brought to conscious awareness – this knowledge. When Lazarus later acted as guinea-pig for Jesus to test and prove His knowledge and power of resurrection, prior to Jesus Himself undergoing death, it was because both Lazarus and Jesus knew how it was done.

             We do not find Lazarus mentioned in any of the Jerusalem events of Holy Week. Mary, yes. Mary with her complete love for the Master followed Him, was close to Him and with Him, as much as possible. Lazarus stayed home – and there did the occult work, the metaphysical work, the deep prayer work, the astral and soul projection, that could sustain Jesus. 

            Peter, James, and John with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane could not fight off sleep to stay awake one hour and pray with Him. Lazarus, in Bethany six miles away, was with Jesus all through that night; all the next day of trial, betrayal, crucifixion, death, entombment, and accompanied Him then in His journey into all realms as Master. Only then did Lazarus sleep. And an unrecorded appearance of the Risen Jesus was in the enclosed garden of Lazarus’ home, where Mary again saw Him later Easter morning, and awakened Lazarus. The two friends must have had a deeply quiet exhilarating hour together, soberly joyful in the awesome victory accomplished.

             You will remember that it was Moses and Elijah who appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, where these three great souls conversed, planned, and companioned at that point in Jesus’ ministry. The Elijah-soul is also pointed out (in the pages of the Bible) in its then-present incarnation as John the Baptist. Why have not we asked if the Moses-soul also had an incarnate expression at that time, to help The Master? … This was Lazarus.

             Let us “look farther back,” as Freud instructed his followers to do in order to understand a person. Let us take the logical step Freud and his followers yet have missed, and look at the past incarnations of the Lazarus-soul. In our Life and Teaching Readings we identify a soul not by its soul name, which would sound strange and be largely meaningless to our ears, but by some Earth incarnation personality-name of that soul. And since with a prominent soul we go to the name of its most significant or best-known Earth incarnation, we shall now refer to the Lazarus-soul as the Moses-soul. 

            Let me now introduce another term: “Solity.” Research begins with whatever is known then proceeds to discover more – so now we take the step of pointing out that not only is there a soul, which has a number of entities or personalities, but also there is a stage of soul gathering known as a solity. The word, as you see, is a combination of “soul” and “entity.” The soul, being of a nature largely foreign to the personality, makes contact with entities usually through one of its personality-expressions. For instance, the Abraham Lincoln entity, now an excarnate (out of the body) personality, can make contacts with persons on Earth because it, and we, is an entitiy. In a solity – a stage not common in Earth dealings – a soul will gather major qualities and forces from a number of its excarnate entities into a combined form which thus has greater force, ability, and scope of experience, yet is like enough to our entities to be able to make contact with and to work on Earth.

             The Lazarus entity was not drawn into the Moses solity while Lazarus was on Earth, of course – though he is now largely. And not all the past entities are drawn into the solity – only selected ones, with the strengths, experiences, and qualities of beingness that it is wanted that the solity have. (The entities also retain their individual selfhood if desired.)

 The Moses soul, we are told, is that soul closest to Jesus in the aspect of carrying out His work. In military terms we would call Moses the “Adjutant” to the Jesus soul. So as we go back into the important incarnations of the Moses soul we have two major things for which we watch: (1) past incarnations of significance enough to be drawn into the Moses solity, and (2) past incarnations in which Moses and Jesus were incarnate together.

             Let us begin with the Moses incarnation, in the 1200s B. C. Here we find the Jesus-soul (or more accurately, the Yeshua-soul – for Jesus is a translation name, and the man we call Jesus was known to his friend Lazarus as Yeshua. Not that it matters, for He responds whenever a heart or mind calls unto Him, by whatever name. Jesus – Yeshua – knoweth the heart, and what is in the mind – as He abundantly illustrated in His Earthlife in Palestine.)

             But back to the Moses-soul, in the Moses-incarnation, 1200s B.C.: Reincarnation holds answers to so many puzzles. For instance, why did not Moses reclaim the wife he had had in Midian, and their two sons? Let us look into this further: Moses, recognized by the quiet seers of the Israelites in Egypt as probably the leader who would take them back to the Promised Land (the same land from which they had come) was spirited away quickly when his hot temper ran him afoul of Egyptian law. And Moses was sent not just anywhere, but to Midian – to Jethro (also called Reuel), a “priest and king after the order of Melchizedek.” 

            Melchizedek, an important earlier incarnation of the Jesus-soul, was an ancient priest and king of Salem. Salem was an ancient city on the site of what later was to become Jerusalem. There Melchizedek lived and exercised leadership on two levels. He was a personage of importance in psychic-spiritual realms, and he was a person of leadership on Earth. This dual quality was to mark the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, recognized as superior to the Priesthood after the order of Aaron. (Aaron, brother of Moses, was the first high priest of rejuvenated Israel.) 

The priesthood of the order of Melchizedek is international, inter-faith, interracial. Its members know and can be made known to one another despite race, nationality, language, creedal and all other differences. Jethro was chosen to give Moses further preparation for his Exodus leadership. He was a priest and king after the Order of Melchizedek, and one of the widespread spiritual underground – or should we call it “overground”? – of the Mediterranean region. Moses was not sent to just anybody, but to Jethro.

 Moses, brought up as one of Pharaoh’s princes, knew the sophisticated occultism of Egypt. Then for many years with Jethro he was to learn the mysticism of many nights under the clear stars, the power of simple living away from many people, the occultism of nature and all living things, and also the age-long Wisdom and Mysteries possessed by Jethro.

             But Moses was also an incarnate virile young man, and ‘it is not good for man to be alone.” So Jethro and his wife consulted together and picked the eldest of their seven daughters, Zipporah, to give to Moses as wife during his years in Midian. Her name, “Zipporah,” is a clue to her personality. “Zippor” in Hebrew (“Zipporah” is the feminine form) means “little bird” – a friendly wren, a happy sparrow, any little bird whose cry “Zip-por, Zip-por, Zip-por” showed its glad heart. Zipporah (pronounce it either Zipporah or Zipporah) was the happy, warm, outgoing type of person Moses needed. As the Calypso song expresses it,

Moreover, in a strange occult attack on the way to Egypt to begin his mission, Moses’ life apparently was saved by Zipporah – who, with their two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, accompanied Moses at least the first part of the way.

 So why, then, did Moses not reclaim his wife and sons after he had achieved his peoples’ Exodus from Egypt! Jethro accompanied Zipporah and the boys on a visit to Moses (see Exodus, Chapter 18) but then took them back with him, and we hear no more of them. Why? Later Moses took a Canaanite woman (some versions read an Ethiopian woman) as wife – and knowing human nature as we do, we can see that many an eligible widow in Israel, and many a mother of a marriageable daughter, must have had a cap set for Moses as husband. What rivalry, backbiting, and division Moses wisely escaped by not marrying an Israelite – even though he laid down the law that Israelites should marry only Israelites! And some scholars have speculated that this Canaanite or Ethiopian woman might have been Zipporah.

 We disagree – and for objective evidence to this psychic information we point out that the sons of Moses play no part in the history of Israel. Had they been with him they would have become princes of the realm, and in that dynasty-minded time when a man’s possessions, position, and power passed to his sons, Gershom or Eliezer would have been given every expectation of succeeding their father in the leadership of Israel. That this did not take place is strong enough historic proof that the Canaanite woman Moses later married was not the bride of his young manhood, Zipporah.

 It is as we look into the relationship of the Jesus-soul and the Moses-soul that we find out why. A great truth was being enacted, taught by actual historic happening, in the history of the Jewish people. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob established the Israelites in their land, Palestine. Joseph was prepared and strategically placed to be of vital service when the Israelites had to come out of drought-stricken Palestine to granary-filled Egypt. Moses led them into release and exodus from Egypt. But it was Joshua, the 1200s B.C. incarnation of the Jesus-soul, who brought them into the Promised Land.

 I find myself singularly unimpressed by much of the far out and shallow symbolism some teachers and preachers and many metaphysicians read into things. All of life is symbolic, active symbolism driven home by factual experience, and we need not belabor small points into infinite similitudes in order to find the symbolism of ancient teachings and spiritual truth. Here, at the point in time where leadership of the Israelites passed from Moses to Joshua, is history and symbolism combined. For the Moses-soul, in its adjutant role, had brought the people of Israel to the edge of their Promised Land. And someday the Jesus-soul, fully Christed at Easter (The Anointed One, the One Sent), shall return at God’s appointed day to lead all life in time, beginning with souls, into the realm of spirit. Spirit is the native realm, the origin and the Promised Land of return, of the soul, and of all life. 

But this meant that Gershom and Eliezer – and their mother Zipporah – could not companion Moses further along the way. I think this was one of the poignant moments of history, for Moses loved Zipporah and his boys and they loved and admired him. But the divine plan for all their lives had to come ahead of personal considerations, ahead even of the deepest human attachments. Joshua was to lead the chosen people into the promised land. And since the people then thought in dynastic terms, it was only prudent to keep Gershom and Eliezer – and with them Zipporah – out of the picture.

 Cruel? In a strictly human sense, from the limited viewpoint of Earth, yes. In the spiritual purpose, in the far-seeing viewpoint of God and Spirit, no… And let me digress here to point out that Moses and Zipporah came together at a later time, in incarnation a thousand and more years later, and the forces of their love and companionship cut off at such a strong point many years before were used at that future point to further the coming of Jesus’ rule and God’s kingdom. And their sons had opportunity to know their father again, and to work with him in the Divine Plan.

 Let me mention in passing – we shall consider in another part of this series – that the Mary Magdalene soul was incarnate in this period as Miriam, sister of Moses and prominent in the Exodus.

 We find the Jesus-soul and the Moses-soul together again three centuries later, in the time of King David of Palestine. David, we are told was an incarnation of the feminine half of the Jesus soul – and his beloved friend Jonathan was the incarnation of the masculine half. Here we have soulmates incarnate together – Jonathan as son of Saul, King of Israel; David as the non-dynastic successor to Saul, the one who took the place Jonathan might well have expected to have. And we have in essence Jonathan gladly sacrificing position and his very life, in favor of David. 

The Moses soul at this time had the incarnation of Joab, captain of David’s army. The third of the persons we shall consider in this “postscript to Easter” – Judas, whom we’ll take up in another installment – we find incarnated then as Absalom, son of David, a Prince of Israel. And here we have trouble. For Absalom, with many sons of David older than he, was not in line to succeed his father as King of Israel. Taking things into his own hands, Absalom treacherously slew one rival, his older brother Ammon, and later gathered young hotbloods of the tribe around him to make rebellion against David. The old story of Lucifer rebelling against his Father God, and wanting to take over, is repeated here in Absalom.

 David had to flee for his very life. Joab, gathering the trained soldiers loyal to David, defeated Absalom’s amateurs in battle. David, in his love and superior wisdom, had strictly commanded that Absalom not be killed – but pragmatic, tough-minded Joab thought it best to get rid of this proved troublemaker, and did. Poor Joab, and the limitations of Earth knowledge! For the dark forces within the Absalom-soul of ambition, pride, hunger for power, were now reinforced by anger, pain, hate, revenge and death - until they could produce the incarnation of Judas Iscariot, betrayer of the Son of God and Son of Man. What a disservice Joab did to God and the forces of Light, in killing Absalom rather than letting David love and forgive him! Now there had to be mounted a more intensive “Manhunt for Judas,” more fully in a future installment of this Postscript to Easter. 

The Joab entity did have many usable strong forces, however, which have made worthy contribution to the Moses solity of which it now is (largely) part. That shrewdness that can protect a good man from falling prey to an unscrupulous one, courage, battle experience, military strategy, commitment to service to David – all these were strong positive forces to include in the Moses solity. 

We find the Moses soul incarnate again in the Old Testament stream as Elisha, protégé and successor of Elijah. Here the psychic element was strong; the quietness as well as the powers learned under the Midian sky were mighty in Elisha. Here the Mary Magdalene soul shows up again, as the young manservant of Elisha. The experience of Elisha confounding the enemy hosts sent to trap him strengthened the Mary soul’s faith in the Moses soul. 

As a quick aside, let us turn briefly to a little known person who makes one brief but memorable Biblical appearance in the Jesus lifetime. We are told that the second thief to be crucified with Jesus – the one who said, as all three hung there in the agony of crucifixion, “Remember me, O Lord, when you come into Thy kingdom” – was actually a member of the same cosmic family of souls with the Jesus soul. The Jesus lifetime was a very critical undertaking. Here, after due preparation for thousands of years, this preeminent soul incarnated as Jesus to accomplish that which had never before been accomplished – a lifetime as a human being, tried and tempted in every way, without letting evil get any response from him, any hold upon him.  

The Elijah soul came as John the Baptist to fulfill prophecy and prepare the way. The Moses soul came as Lazarus to serve as guide to India, companion in the mysteries, incarnate close friend and haven. And here on the cross beside Jesus we have another example of that multitude who in so many, many ways contributed to the victory of Easter. Here, in self-sacrificing fellowship, was this cosmic family member and friend! What a tremendous boost this must have given Jesus as He – as they – hung there! And what an example of the painstaking care in preparation for Jesus’ Easter victory is this last little insurance for that victory! Had Jesus weakened at all – which He did not, but which was a possibility to be guarded against – had Jesus weakened at all in the agonies of the cross, another friend was right there beside Him! 

Yes, it was one man, Neil Armstrong, who first stepped onto the moon. But it was tens of thousands of skilled workers, and two hundred million triumphant Americans, who got him there. 

It was Jesus Who won the Easter victory. But there was a vast company, in Heaven and on Earth, Who prepared the way and supported Him at every step. The project to put a man on the moon was difficult, complex, and significant. The project to put a God-Man on Earth was even more difficult, more complex – and more significant.

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