LET US SEE
MARK 10:46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 10:47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 10:48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 10:49 Jesus stood still and said, "Call him here." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you."
Sometimes even the disciples complained that Jesus often talked to the crowds in parables which means of using educational puzzles. Some Bible researchers include some profound gospel stories in this category of figurative speech or over arching metaphors. Three of these are the Chasing out of seven demons from Mary Magdalene, the healing of the blind man who was born blind and the resurrection of Lazarus.
The Gospel of Luke mentions Mary Magdalene as a companion to the Apostles, who was present not only at the crucifixion but also is a witness or even the very first and very special witness of the resurrection of Jesus. The mentioning of the seven demons by Luke sounds scary, but they might be not really the kind of fairy tail demons with horns and hoofs and or dragon features, but these demons might be rather spiritual flaws. There is an ancient or medieval list of the seven demons, who are called The Seven Princes of Hell, though they are depicted as seven mortal human sins, or shadows in the soul. These are:
1- Belphegor or Baal Peor. Literally the Lord of Fire, otherwise the demon of “Laziness”.
2. Azazel is the demon of Wrath. Tradition says that he fathered giants with an earthly woman. The Bible calls them the Nephilim. Most of them were killed by the Great Deluge.
3- Mammon is a figurehead demon of the sin of Greed and Avarice. And he had a sizable cult among the ancient crowd. Jesus famously said that men cannot serve Mammon and God at the same time.
4. Beelzebub literally means the Lord of the Flies and one of the most powerful Demons only behind Lucifer. His unquenchable hunger pushes him into a relentless devourer. The plagues brought by the demon devour everything in its path. He is the demon of the Sin of Gluttony.
5. According to tradition Asmodeus was incarnated in the king of Sodom the Sin City. Asmodeus as the most corrupt of men was elevated or degraded to a demon when he descended into Hell. He became the driving demon of the Sin of Lust.
6. Leviathan used to be a dreadful sea monster. his description can be found in the Book of Job as a water dragon. Nonetheless, it became the demon of the deadly sin of Envy.
7. Almost everybody heard about Lucifer. It literally means the Bearer of Light, or the One Who carries the Light. According to tradition Lucifer appeared to be the most beautiful of all spiritual creatures. For this, as a so-called rebelling and falling angel he became the demon of the Sin of Pride, as he imagined himself equal to God and so he instigated a rebellion against God. Nonetheless, Lucifer and the rebelling spiritual forces were defeated by the Angelic forces of the Archangel Michael and the rebelling dark angels or demons were expelled from heaven and thrown into Hell.
Christian mythology says that these demons keep waiting for the day when the Antichrist will be born, preceding the return of Jesus Christ when these demons will invade the earth led by the Antichrist reigniting the war against God.
If we can get that these demons are the so-called fatal sins found in humanity, like laziness, wrath, greed, gluttony, lust, envy, pride, that will pervadingly invade the planet, then we will also understand, that it very well may happen that they may multiply on EARTH, and also that these very flaws were cleansed from Mary Magdalene.
Against the contemporary habit, that the Rabbis did not have female disciples, still Jesus had many female followers, which was unusual in Judea, except at a Jewish sect in Egypt, called the Therapeutaes or the Healers.
However, according to tradition, Mary Magdalene was on another level, so to speak. The number of the seven of these flaws may indicate that Mary Magdalene was cleansed completely, almost from all human flaws, as the seven is the number of perfection, which would have made her one of the greatest disciples, like ever.
It is very likely that she was a part of the inner circle as it is written in the Gospel of Thomas, that Peter, one of the pillars even complained about it, by saying that 114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary (Magdalene) leave us, for females don't deserve eternal life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
Some researcher say, because this is the last verse in the Gospel of Thomas, it is a later addition to the Gospel, nonetheless, the early tradition emphasizes on the inner circle level importance of Mary Magdalene, and on Jesus' willingness to allow the presence of female disciples.
Metaphorical demons or not, we may exactly know how hard it is to transform the human heart for the better, even when it is our own heart or it somebody else's heart, including family members. In the same way, we can say that it could have been an extrordinary miracle among other miracles to heal the blind man who was born blind.
But as we can see in the Gospel of John, the formerly blind man witnessed to the Pharisees that he was healed by Jesus the prophet from Nazareth.
The Pharisees rebuked the formerly blind man, that he did not know what he was saying, meanwhile he replied that God listens only the prayer of the righteous. Thus the Gospel made it visible that the formerly blind man became able to see the spiritual truth as well, while the Pharisees seemed to be blind to it.
It is certainly not easy to give back the vision to a blind-born man, but it is certainly harder to enable someone to see the spiritual truth, as it is written that if someone has ears to understand, let him hear.
In the same way, we can consider the temporary resurrection of Lazarus metaphorical and real life resurrection in the same time. As people, outside of grace, might have been considered as spiritually dead, like not having been reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Thus, awakening from the spiritually deadly sleep, might be considered as awakening from death to the eternal life through the rebirth by the Holy Spirit.
Through the case of Lazarus, we can see how Jesus was able to call back people from death to this contemporary life which is certainly one of the greatest miracles, ever, but we should understand that it is even greater to awaken somebody from the deadly spiritual sleeping to the eternal life. May we have life in the Lord on Earth, and may we have life in the World to Come, AMEN.
