High Stakes (8 page)

We now come to a miracle in which Jesus raised the son of a widow of Nain from the dead (Luke 7:11–15). The son was being taken on his death bier with his mother weeping behind him, followed by a great crowd. Jesus, taking pity on the mother because it was her only son, touched the bier and commanded the young man to arise and he sat up and started speaking. Luke 7:16 then says,
And there came a fear on them all: and they glorified God, saying: “A great prophet is risen up among us: and, God hath visited his people.”

As Christ was performing all of these miracles, he was becoming a bit frustrated, as many who saw them still did not believe him to be the Messiah. As the above passage denotes, people were seeing him as a great prophet and healer for God. It is at this time that Jesus in his frustration starts to become bolder in his telling others that he is the Son of God and the Messiah. As evidence of this we see a bit later, in Luke 7:19–23, what Christ says to two disciples of John the Baptist who ask him on behalf of John whether or not he is the Messiah. He replies to them,
“Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, to the poor the gospel is preached: and blessed is he whosoever shall not be scandalized in me.”
Now here again we run into inconsistency in the Bible, for John the Baptist was convinced at Christ's baptism that he was the Messiah and even proclaimed it to all who would listen. Now we have him doubting and having to ask Christ if he is the “one to come?” It doesn't make any sense, but then the Bible many times seems to contradict itself, and to many who see these contradictions and inconsistencies the literal interpretation of the Bible becomes less and less valid.

We have many more miracles performed by Jesus…the healing of a man's withered hand (Matthew 12:9–13; Mark 3:1–6; Luke 6:6–11) again on the Sabbath; the healing of a blind and dumb man possessed by a demon (Matthew 12:22), after which Jesus is said to be the devil by the Pharisees. But Jesus says to them,
“Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you”
(Matthew 12:25–28).

Francine says that Jesus did not believe in an entity called the devil and knew that these “possessions” were nothing more than mental illness or disturbance; but he had to answer the Pharisees with their own superstitious beliefs in the devil, so he used their belief in the devil to make his point. She also says he knew very well that the evil in the world was caused by men, which is why he was so against the Pharisees and Sanhedrin who were spouting hypocrisy. According to Francine, Jesus knew he was fighting the powers that be and that he would ultimately suffer his Passion for it, but he fought against stupid Judaic laws and their hypocrisy with every breath he took and tried to delay his fate as long as possible.

We now come to another type of miracle performed by Jesus…that of controlling the physical forces of nature. We first hear about this type of miracle in Matthew 8:23–27; Mark 4:36–40; and Luke 8:23–25; when Christ and his disciples are going across a sea in a boat. According to the above three gospels, while they were crossing the sea a storm came up and threatened to sink their boat; Jesus was sleeping and they wakened him and he supposedly rebuked the wind and water and the storm immediately turned calm.

We also hear about Jesus walking on the water (Matthew 14:22–33; Mark 6:45–51; John 6:17–21), when he sent his disciples ahead in a boat and told them he would join them after going to pray on a mountain by himself. Matthew elaborates on this incident and has Peter trying to walk on water to Jesus when they see him, but Peter's faith is such that he starts to sink and Jesus rescues him.

In Mark 8:22–25 Jesus heals a blind man with spittle. According to Francine he found water that was very high in alkaline content and dipped his hands into the water and washed the man's eyes. This took away cataracts and the crusts that had formed in the man's eyes due to flies. Even today, whenever I go to Kenya, I see Maasai and other tribes, such as the Samburu, with flies crawling all over their faces, arms and hands and they never swat them away. It makes me so nervous, but I guess they feel it's useless because there are so many flies, and then the flies lay eggs in the moist tissue. But consider this, isn't it miraculous to learn that he knew exactly what would cure the problem? Some of his healing knowledge and methods came from his time in India, but he also got direct knowledge from God. He wasn't a trained physician, but his guidance from God gave him methods and healing abilities, as well as some insights into herbs and their uses. That is what all true messengers lived by…their knowledge, their visions and their acts.

Jesus also cured two other blind men (Matthew 9:28–30) by the laying on of hands and, according to the Bible, because of their faith. We see so many healings of Jesus described in this manner. As I have related in other books, the mind can be a powerful tool for self-healing. I have seen hypnosis work wonders on many clients, who have cured themselves of cancer and other illnesses. Meditation methods that harness the mind's capacity to visualize are being used by holistic medicine, with marvelous success against illness and disease. If the mind is convinced, it relates to the body this conviction and cures can occur. If, in this case, the men are convinced in their minds that Christ can heal them, they thereby are healed, not only by the healing abilities of Jesus but by their own belief.

In this incident we also read about Christ instructing the men to not tell anyone about the healing or that he had done it. We read about Christ saying this constantly to those he heals…don't tell anyone that I healed you. Human nature, of course, took over and those who were healed generally went out and told everyone they met that Jesus had healed them. I'm sure Christ did this in an effort to try and diminish his ever-growing fame, but as we read in the Bible, it was useless and his fame continued to spread far and wide.

Jesus did many more miracles during his travels through Galilee: he expelled a legion of demons out of a man in Gadara and they entered swine, which killed themselves in the sea (Matthew 8:28–32; Mark 5:2–13; Luke 8:27–33); he raised the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue, from the dead (Matthew 9:18–25; Mark 5:22–42; Luke 8:41–56); he healed a woman with a hemorrhage problem by her just touching his garment (Matthew 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48); he healed a mute who was supposedly possessed by a devil (Matthew 9:32–33); he again healed from afar the possessed daughter of a woman who had faith (Matthew 15:22–28; Mark 7:25–29); he healed a deaf-mute (Mark 7:32–37); he healed many who were dumb, blind, lame and maimed (Matthew 15:30–31); he cured a woman who had a deformity in her spine, on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10–17), and this again was a story in which Jesus justified doing his work on the Sabbath day against Jewish custom and law; he raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1–44); he healed a man with dropsy (edema), again on the Sabbath, in front of Pharisees (Luke 14:1–6); he healed ten lepers (Luke 17:12–19); he again healed two blind men sitting by the road (Matthew 20:30–34), and this incident is also mentioned by Mark and Luke, but in their version it is only one blind man (Mark 10:46–52; Luke 18:35–43); and he healed the ear of a servant of the high priest that had been cut off by one of his disciples when Jesus was arrested (Luke 22:50–51). There are also several miracles that Jesus performed that I want to go into more detail on.

Jesus cured a possessed boy (Matthew 17:14–20; Mark 9:16–28; Luke 9:38–43), and when we read this story, it is very clear that this is not a case of possession but of epilepsy. The boy has a grand mal seizure right in front of Jesus, with foaming at the mouth and rigid contortion. If anyone knows or reads up on epilepsy and its many forms, many of these “possessions” in the Bible are descriptive of certain types of epilepsy. Jesus knew after he healed the boy that the boy should sleep. When I was teaching school and had an epileptic student, his doctor informed me after an episode in school that he should sleep. Now, this advice was given in the twentieth century and Christ knew this treatment almost two thousand years ago. We must remember that when the Bible was written, people were ignorant of illnesses such as epilepsy and instead called people who had these episodes “possessed by the devil or demons.” The ignorance of these types of illnesses grew into a belief that is still perpetuated and believed in today and just shows how superstition can be carried over from generation to generation.

Jesus turned several loaves of bread and a few fishes into enough food to feed thousands. This actually happened twice in the Bible, once when he fed five thousand people (Matthew 14:15–21; Mark 6:36–44; Luke 9:12–17; John 6:5–13) and once when he fed four thousand people (Matthew 15:32–38; Mark 8:1–9). Francine says Jesus also healed Bartimaus, a man born blind, by taking clay and mixing it with spittle and putting it on the eyes of Bartimaus and then telling him to go wash his eyes in a nearby pool. Bartimaus does this and finds that he can now see (John 9:1–44). The Gospel of John considers this an important miracle, for it devotes a full chapter to it.

Scholars say the four gospels of the Bible were written from as early as 50–70
A.D
. to as late as 120
A.D
. Most scholars believe that the first book written was Mark, followed by Matthew, Luke and John. The Gospel of John is somewhat unique in comparison to the others, which is why the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the
synoptic gospels
—for they all tell the story of Jesus basically the same. The Gospel of John also tells the life of Christ, but sometimes differs with the other gospels in the telling—especially in timelines and in bringing up other incidents in Christ's life that the others do not. Such is the case in the healing of Bartimaus, which the other gospels do not mention.

It is also interesting to note that John mentions fewer miracles than any of the other gospels, but the ones he does mention seem to be important ones. We also see that the Gospel of John is much more philosophical in nature and takes great pains to convey that philosophy. For instance, in the story of the healing of Bartimaus we read in John 9:1–3 about, again, the premise of reincarnation and karma…
And Jesus passing by, saw a man, who was blind from his birth: And his disciples asked him: Rabbi, who hath sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Here we have the disciples asking matter-of-factly if the man had sinned (in a past life) or his parents had sinned (incurred karma by having a son blind from birth) because the man had been
born
blind. Christ then replies that it is neither of these reasons…knowing that the man was born blind so that Jesus could heal him at an appointed time so that people would see the power of Jesus and God. This is what he meant when he said that the “works of God should be made manifest in him”…meaning the works of Jesus and God in the healing.

The chapter features more philosophical points when Bartimaus is brought before the Pharisees to explain how he was healed and who had done the healing. One of the main premises of reincarnation is that sometimes advanced souls choose lives that hold some dismay (blind, handicapped, Down's syndrome, etc.) in order to help others around them perfect their souls. Without these wonderful people, many would not be able to learn and progress their own souls by being in close contact with them as parents, siblings, friends, etc. The person who incarnated as Bartimaus came into life blind so that he would be a shining example to all of Christ's healing ability and God's power.

I would also like to address the miracle of the Transfiguration of Christ (Matthew 17:1–9; Mark 9:1–8; Luke 9:28–36). This incident is where Christ took several of his disciples up a mountain and then transfigured himself and was seen by the disciples talking with Elijah and Moses. The Bible tries to explain “transfigured” by describing how Christ glowed with a heavenly light and his garments turned the whitest of white. What they were trying to explain was an out-of-the-body experience (astral projection or astral travel) that Jesus was having. Christ, with his power and training in India, would have been able to do this at will and with probably more power than most, and was consequently seen by the disciples in this astral state. When a person goes into an astral state (almost all of us do this, sometimes two or three times a week; we just don't usually remember it consciously) they assume their astral body, which is the body of the soul, and many times go to the Other Side (heaven). This, of course, is what Jesus was doing, he went to the Other Side in an astral state and talked with Moses and Elijah. All of them would have seemed to be in a glorified state because they were. As I have explained in my books, on the Other Side the colors are much more vivid (see the gospel passages that describe the whitest of whites) and glowing and countenances can change because of personal preference. The miracle here is not Jesus going into an astral state, as most of us do at one time or another; but that the disciples were able to see and hear Christ, Moses and Elijah on the Other Side. The incident of the Transfiguration then ends with God taking the form of a cloud and telling the disciples to listen to Jesus.

Now, my guide says that most of Christ's miracles were real, but that many of them were exaggerated by the writers of the Bible. She says that Christ certainly had knowledge that was far ahead of and beyond his time. Lazarus is a good example. Lazarus was not dead (the Bible says he had been dead four days in his tomb before Jesus reached him), but in a deep coma. Our Lord knew this and began to talk to him to bring him back to consciousness. (Just recently, most doctors now recommend we talk to people in a coma state, for their chances of coming back to consciousness are far better than if we leave them alone). The point I'm trying to make is, again, what advanced knowledge he had; to know these medical facts that just now have come to light.