THE
PRAYER OF THE RIGHTEOUS -
Gospel of John 9:31-33 -
“We
know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a
worshiper of God, and does his will, he listens to him. Since the
world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of
someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do
nothing.”
The story about the blind man, called
Celidonius, who was born blind, has at least three major aspects,
regarding three major questions, like why he was sick?, how he got
healed?, why only the prayer of the righteous is granted? The story
is a practical parable with the moral of a fable, that a visibly
blind might be wise in heart, and the people who think of themselves
that they are wise, like some of the Pharisees in the Gospel, still
can be blinded by pride and overconfidence in their own wisdom.
So, let us investigate, why he was blind from birth ? Modern medicine would say that his blindness could have been caused by several factors, like preexisting conditions, human genetics, trauma in the womb, injury during birth, infection during birth, environmental issues, mistreatment in the hospital or by the midwife, or anything else, but all probable causes must have been natural or physical. The at that time contemporary belief system, called second Temple Judaism, believed that all sicknesses were caused by sin or at least by supernatural causes or at least by fate, by which today we would mean the hidden hand of the universe, it is as it is.
That is why not even the Pharisees, but the very Apostles of Jesus asked their at that time logical and almost scientific question, worded in the Gospel of John, chapter nine, that "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Beside that somebody`s sin must have caused that horrible condition of being blind since birth, as they believed, this is an emerging puzzle for us, that how they could have believed that a baby could have sinned, himself, before his birth. Especially when the traditional belief system reads that children, before their very coming of age, specified as 13 years old, are not capable to commit sin at least in religious sense.
Thus, it should have been a logical or religious nonsense to think or to state that the born blind child could have been able to commit sin before his own birth. Nonetheless, the answer Jesus gave the disciples could be a surprise for some, as it is written in the Gospel, that Jesus answered, that "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents. But, that the works of God might be revealed in him." Because, technically Jesus, himself, did not reject, that sin can cause sickness, only he stated, that it was not the case here, for this sickness happened in order to be healed by God`s power. With other words, it was mere or blind destiny. Not like God, personally ordered it to be a showcase, but God's mercy came to rescue this man from his blind destiny.
However, technically Jesus did not reject the very notion either, that otherwise it could have been possible that this man sinned, himself, before his own birth. How could Jesus have not categorically rejected that illogical idea, for that, there is only one logical answer exists. And it is, that they all believed in reincarnation. It is more than plausible not only because Origen, one of the greatest Christian church father of all time from the 3rd century, openly taught reincarnation as a self-evident doctrine, and reincarnation itself was banned from Christianity only by the Byzantian emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, but because reincarnation is still a part of Judaism as of today. We tend to forget that all the Apostles and Jesus, their master, called rabbi, were all Jews.
Nonetheless,
the born blind man got sick by blind destiny, we can call it nature,
for sure, in order to be rescued by God, as it is explained by Jesus.
Our second question is, that how he got healed? The modern
western method is to control, to amend and to repair, very similar to
an auto-mechanic workshop, with surgical tools, repair parts,
diagnostics and chemicals involved, still it is just a metaphorical
analogy.
However, in the Bible story we can see that Jesus applied the prophecy level healing method, using the creative power of the spirit over the molecular structure of the human body. He did not repair the non-functioning eye of the man, but he recreated it.
This interpretation comes from the description of this event in the Gospel that Jesus spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man's eyes with the mud, and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (...). So he went away, washed, and came seeing."
Making mud represented the Earth and the water as major components in the creation of life, as Jesus symbolically, like many other prophets, repeated the action of creation, so the blind man was healed by the recreation of his eyes, or the recreation of the ability of seeing by the cells of his eyes.
Interestingly the recreation of a human organ is not that far-fetched nowadays, even from stem cells in a lab or just in the regular biological way as most of our cells live around 7 years, thus technically our organs must be recreated in every seven year on the cellular level.
Nonetheless, the supernatural recreation of the eye of the blind man needed the blind man to be reconnected with the Creator.
The connecting interface to God was Jesus himself, the connection needed to be energized and that energizing energy field was the life giving and life creating Holy Spirit. The dead eyes became living eyes. Light replaced darkness.
Third
question, that why the statement is true that only the prayer of the
righteous is granted? Actually, this is derived from the blind man
statement, which is not quite accurate when he said that “We
know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a
worshiper of God, and does his will, he listens to him. Actually,
God
listens
to all prayers, as God hears and knows everything, but God does not
grant the wish expressed in a prayer, which is against God’s will.
As the Apostle James wrote about it that “You
don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask, and don’t receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your
pleasures.”
Thus,
in order that a prayer be granted, the praying person must fully be
in accord with God’s will. Even Jesus prayed in the Garden, that
Your will be done and not mine, and we are also supposed to pray
every day with the Lord’s Prayer, that Oh God, your kingdom come,
your will be done, and
not ours.
The people, who are weak, like
we almost all are, we need
a mediator, like a prophet in
the old tradition,
or Jesus himself, to judge the content of the heart of the needy,
whether the prayer is in accord with God’s will, or
not.
When
the explicit
miracle
happens, that the praying person,
and
the
mediator, and God all are in one
accord,
then the miracle of having the prayer to be granted, also happens.
Just as Jesus said: “Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of
you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it
will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. ”
May
the Lord’s name be blessed in God, by the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
