High Stakes (9 page)

With a combination of innate knowledge, knowledge from India, Egypt and the Far East, and knowledge he obtained from his Father in heaven; along with his own psychic abilities and the power from God which he drew upon, our Lord was the most powerful man to ever perform miracles in the history of Earth. His healings and miracles are certainly a large part of the legacy he left as proof to his divinity.

T
HERE WERE SO MANY
women named Mary in Israel that even the Bible can't keep them straight, for almost one quarter of them were called Mary or a derivative of Mary. In ancient biblical times people of the same name were usually identified by adding either the name of their father or the town or area from which they came. Thus we have Mary Magdalene (Mary of Magdala) and Mary of Bethany and James the son of Zebedee and James the son of Alpheus as examples of this form of identification. I mention this because for years the Catholic Church associated Mary Magdalene as both a sinner and the one who anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them clean with her hair, as well as the adulterer whom Christ saved, as put forth in John 8:3–11. They were completely wrong in all of these portrayals.

Most scholars now believe that Mary Magdalene was none of the women above and that indeed the above two portrayals are of two entirely different women. Mary of Bethany was the sister of Lazarus and Martha and is believed by scholars to have been the sinner who anointed Christ's head and feet with expensive oil as portrayed in Matthew 26:7–13 and Luke 7:37–49 and John 11:1–2. The Bible does not mention what kind of sinner she was, but most Christian scholars say she was a prostitute. The woman who is the adulterer in John 8:3–11 is unnamed and has no viable connection with Mary Magdalene or Mary of Bethany and is therefore an unnamed third woman.

Why would the Church associate Mary Magdalene with being a sinner and person of ill repute? Perhaps the Church knew what I know and wanted to hide the fact of the marriage and devotion between Jesus and Mary Magdalene for fear that it would take away from his divinity. The Church also didn't want women in prominence, and certainly didn't want her to be a true helper or partner or even the head disciple, as well as his wife. The early Church's efforts certainly had their effect, for although the Church has recently absolved Mary Magdalene from the ignominious edict of Pope Gregory I in 591
A.D.
and considers her a saint, that edict forever put forth the image that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and sinner, and many Christians still hold to that belief.

Let's also clear up the story about Christ releasing seven devils out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9). The early Church had already decided that Mary Magdalene was a sinner and prostitute Jesus would eventually redeem. In setting up this Church-acknowledged farce, they did some elaboration of the facts with their Bible editing. What better way to confirm that Mary Magdalene was a sinner than by having seven devils within her that caused the sinning? Having Jesus release those “devils” would immediately turn her into a redemptive and saved “sinner” who would be worthy of being the first to see Christ after his supposed resurrection. Francine says that this whole premise of Mary Magdalene having seven devils is completely false. As I stated earlier, Jesus had known Mary since he was a child, loved her and eventually married her.

It's also strange that the seven devils, or demons, later on became the seven deadly sins from the Church. Jesus had learned from his studies in India the belief that all illness came from bad jinns or demons because they didn't know about germs or disease. The practice of bloodletting to bleed out the bad humors or demons came from this belief. Jesus knew he was communicating with an illiterate populace and had to use the beliefs and terminologies that they would accept. Francine says he knew the difference, but no one would have understood, so he used the only resources he had available. Can you imagine how hard it would be to tell an uneducated and superstitious populace that their long-held belief in a devil and demons causing illness was not true? It would have been impossible for him to convince them out of their beliefs and he would have been laughed at and scorned even more than he already was. He took the route of expediency and let them keep their belief he was casting out demons instead of healing illness. His mission was too important to risk being sabotaged because of archaic beliefs.

In Luke 8:3, Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chusa (Herod's steward) and a woman named Susanna and many others ministered to Christ and his disciples and were women of means or substance—meaning they were wealthy. This verifies what I said earlier about Mary Magdalene being from a wealthy family. These women and others helped support Jesus and his disciples in their travels by paying their expenses and ministering to their needs such as mending, washing and cooking. Jesus and Mary Magdalene were already married at Cana and several other disciples were also married, and we must assume that some if not all of their wives traveled with them. Jesus and his disciples therefore had the resources to travel at will and it made sense in his public life to travel with women. Even though it was frowned on to have single women traveling with men, the endless multitudes that followed Jesus made it easier because they blended into the crowd, so to speak. His core group looked like a group of people altogether in a society, and Jesus in his public life was trying to show the equality of men and women.

As the fame of Jesus spread, he gathered more and more followers and disciples. His entourage numbered in the hundreds and many would be sent before him to proclaim his arrival in places in Galilee and Judea. They would send the word to the general populace that a new teacher and prophet was coming and that he could heal and perform miracles. Wherever Jesus went, crowds and multitudes awaited him, as well as many who needed the miracle of healing. Among those multitudes were also a good number of priests and Pharisees who reported back to the Sanhedrin Christ's every action and word.

Jewish law and customs were very strict, and the slightest breach of those laws and customs would cause a person to be rebuked and punished. Jesus, having studied and gained wisdom in foreign lands, felt many of these laws and customs were stupid and foolish. He especially disagreed with the law of the Sabbath, which prevented good works and deeds from being done on the Sabbath Day. He broke that law continuously many times, according to the Bible. He forgave people their sins, which was considered to be blasphemy because only God could forgive sins, and he quickly found himself at odds with the Pharisees, priests and Sanhedrin. If he was accosted by a priest or Pharisee concerning the law, he would inevitably accuse them of hypocrisy and would give them a clear explanation of why he was right and they were wrong. The general populace were awed and marveled at his teachings and explanations, and he became even more popular.

This popularity put the Sanhedrin and Pharisees in a bind. If they tried to arrest him or denounce him publicly, they could lose their stature in the eyes of the people and perhaps even cause widespread rioting. In their jealousy and fear of losing power, the Pharisees and Sanhedrin started to plot the death of Jesus of Nazareth. They knew that they had to entrap Jesus by his own words, and their spies had reported back to them numerous times about how Jesus was constantly expounding that he was the Messiah who had been prophesied. They knew he was a threat to their power, and as the popularity of Jesus grew it also became more of a threat. They knew they could not let him run rampant throughout the country spouting his heresies and blasphemies against strict Judaic laws, but they also knew he was becoming bolder and more argumentative with his preaching and words…and it was in the Law that they felt they could entrap him.

Jesus was preaching and expounding on a loving God, a God who was forgiving and kind; while the Pharisees and Sanhedrin remained loyal to the God of Moses who set down strict laws and commandments. The God of Moses was such that if you didn't believe in Him, then you would have a vengeful and wrathful God who would rain havoc upon you and you would be condemned to a life of misery in hell on the Judgment Day. But here was Jesus, sent as God's messenger to try and set the truth down once and for all. You must realize that religion at that time, as even sadly today, is based on guilt, unworthiness and fear of God.

Christ's sermons in his public life show his kindness and wisdom in bringing about “the New Law.” His Beatitudes, I feel, are even more powerful than any other religious writings. His taught the simplistic commandments of
“Love your neighbor as yourself”
and
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
These time-tested pearls of wisdom take in almost all the Ten Commandments except for the first couple, which are basically: “You shall have no other Gods before me and take no graven image of me” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord God in vain” and “Keep the Sabbath Day holy.” The Judaic concept of God attributes to Him many human qualities like love, anger, jealousy, etc. The God of the Ten Commandments is definitely an Old Testament God that has the human traits of anger and jealousy and even says He is jealous in the Hebrew text of the first commandment.

With this in mind, the teachings of Christ were too simple for the heavy dogma of that day. This is not to cast aspersions, for people only know what they have been taught. It even exists today, for when I do my readings, people in dire straits wonder if God hates them or if they have done something to anger God or if God doesn't care about them. None of the above is true, but old norms die hard, and Christ certainly had a miserable, hard journey set upon him by his Chart for God.

Yet Christ persevered, even taking on the Sanhedrin and every type of ridicule and skepticism. As I stated earlier, he was almost thrown off a cliff and several times people wanted to stone him to death because of his teachings. Christ kept moving around, trying to reach as many people as fast as he could, because he knew his time was short. He traveled mainly in Galilee, because when he went to Judea he was persecuted more often by his enemies. He was welcomed into many of the best homes, usually by people who were more inclined to Gnostic beliefs and were believers sympathetic to his ministry.

I'm sure you can find some of the Beatitudes that he gave during his public life, but I would like to include them here in the hope that you will read them maybe with new eyes, or with a deeper meaning of his ministry. There are actually two sets of Beatitudes, the more well known ones found in Chapter 5 of Matthew and the lesser-known ones found in Chapter 6 of Luke, which many times give the same wisdom but in different words. The Beatitudes cover and address all facets of life, and we will begin with what we might call the secondary Beatitudes found in Luke.

Luke 6:17–49 says:
And coming down with them, he stood in a plain place, and the company of his disciples, and a very great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast both of Tyre and Sidon, who were come to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases.
(This shows how far we might say his popularity has spread, again due to the disciples going among the people to tell them to come and hear this God-like man speak and be healed of disease or unclean spirits.)
And they that were troubled with unclean
spirits, were cured. And all the multitude sought to touch him, for virtue went out from him, and healed all.
(This shows that he was already known as a healer, and how can anyone miss the fact that healing energy (virtue) supplied to him by God went out from him like kinetic energy to heal all those around him. We also know that if you get rid of fear and doubt and have enough faith or belief, you can be healed.)
And he, lifting up his eyes on his disciples, said: