GOD IS THE DELIVERER
PSALM 91:14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. 91:15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble; I will rescue them and honor them.91:16 With long life I will satisfy them and show them my salvation.
Once Jesus saw a man blind from birth. “His disciples asked him, ’Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind’ ? Jesus answered, ‘This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him.’ "
In the ancient mindset, sickness was always a consequence of sin, walking hand in hand.
It was not really a superstitious rumor, but technically God, in the Book of Exodus, promises the people of Israel, that “You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
That is why the disciples asked that maybe his parents or grandparents sinned, that this man is blind from birth? It is true that often we suffer for the reason of the sins or mistakes our great-grandparents committed or made.
This, for some, evokes a cruel image of God, but actually the statement makes sense utterly, since even science talks about genetically inherited diseases and bad choices regarding environment, pollution, biological warfare, economical disasters and so on.
Nonetheless, the first part of the question of the disciples is even more interesting.
They said, that maybe this man sinned and that was why he was blind from birth.
This question logically implies that they believed that the man was able to commit sin before his birth. This may carry the notion that he sinned in his mother’s womb, which is not very likely, or he sinned in the spiritual world, where the souls wait for being born on Earth.
This second choice is not very likely either, but not completely impossible, as though not having a body, makes it harder to transgress the law of God, nonetheless the Tenth Commandment stays there, that not doing anything wrong is praiseworthy, but the requirement is, that you shall not even think about it. Thus, in the spiritual world there are many opportunities to covet, though the physical action is very limited.
So, the third possibility is that the blind man sinned in his former life.
The possibility of having former lives is not explicitly stated in the Bible, however it has been never denied, moreover in many stories it is hinted. Here we are not going into details, though even Jesus’ answer does not deny any of the possibilities embedded in the question of the disciples.
Jesus declared, that “neither this man sinned nor his parents," (though the cases can not be excluded as mere possibilities), (however) but this happened so, “that the works of God might be revealed in him.”
It would give us a cruel God, who used an innocent man by putting his sufferings on display. However, this blind born man’s case from the Gospel story is not a rare exemption, because it happened often, that some people were born blind, lame, disfigured or with inherited genetic disorders. Some others were born with great physical features, strong and athletic body type, high IQ, or even obvious beauty in their stature or having a harmonious face, or having strong psychological structure to persevere in hard times, or having good natured attitude, all inherited.
It is almost impossible to answer the question why God made the world like this, so unequal, that is why the Greek invented the term fate, when even their Greek gods were subjected to it, and the Indian sub-continent invented the term karma.
Beside these most religions hold that reincarnation is real, and that the cause of all inequalities are the sins or the merits of the former lives. Whether reincarnation is real or not, the Bible talks about the bad consequences of sin through three and four generations, and the good consequences of obeying God’s laws through thousands of generations.
Science says the we simply inherit biological facts from the deep past, like even from our Neanderthal ancestors, but recently they also started to talk about specifically inherited genetic memories that are encoded into our cells as an addition to our genetic code.
The genes we inherited from our parents, grandparents or even far more further back in time contain not only strictly the reproductive codes of the body structure, but their life experiences as well. Science recently acknowledges, that our ancestors live with us not only by inherited biological material like our genes, but also as spiritual memories present right in our cells.
Jesus’ answer should have meant, that folks, does not matter who sinned, the parents or this man in his former life, all that happened were pointing forward to this event, when this man was healed by the power of God. Jesus, based on his meritorious prayer, invoked God’s healing power on the man who was blind from birth, and recreated his eyesight from scratch.
And it is written in the Gospel of John, chapter 9, the authorities heard what happened and went berserk, because it was a Sabbath day when Jesus opened the man’s eyes, thusly they told the man that ‘your healer can not be a prophet because he broke the Sabbath.’
The man answered them: "We (all ) know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God, and does his will, he listens to him.”
It is really getting interesting what science says nowadays, about the work of the Spirit. Science says, for example, that a serious sickness kicks off when a sickening but sleeping genes gets awakened. The cause can be manifold, like diet, stress, pollution, other environment issues, lifestyle etc. The same science says, healing but sleeping genes can be awakened by social interactions, giving and or receiving a generous smile, acting on good will, offering other help and receiving help from others.
And that is what science says about the healing power of the natural good will. Then we can just imagine how much healing power belongs to the supernatural good will, manifested in Jesus, descended from the Father in Heaven, by the channel of the Holy Spirit.
Israel was promised in the Scriptures, if they keep the commandments of God, the illnesses, diseases, sicknesses, pestering the Egyptians will not enter the Land of Israel.
May the Holy Spirit help us be true worshipers of God, following Jesus into the depth of holy prayers in order to be empowered by the Spirit to act according to the Divine Will, which is always Charity and Healing, Peace, Blessings, Understanding, Compassion, Providence.
AMEN.
