Healing the Official's Son (Rabel)

(Back) Rabbi, Eat The First Rejection at Nazareth (Next)

John 4:46-54

I want you first to see if you can tell what I am thinking of as the mystery. By the way, remember friends that in the Gospel of John every event recorded is primarily metaphysical in meaning, the most important level of meaning is always the metaphysical, it may or may not have a literal, historical importance or factuality but it is always the metaphysical that counts. In the other Gospels it may not be quite that, sometimes the historical level is the more important factor but it too will have a metaphysical meaning, but in John it has a metaphysical meaning first, then it may or may not be applicable on the other levels, but this one, let's look at it on the literal and see a mystery here. ('Read here the whole passage). Now, look at that as an historical, biographical event. Do you not see an unexplained mystery here? This is the second public work Jesus performed, the first one was just turn water into wine. Now, take a look at this noble man. The only thing Jesus had done was to change water into wine, now did this noble man have in his mind about Jesus here that makes 'him believe that his son who was at the point of death could be healed by Jesus? The mystery is, if that (the turning water into wine) was the first work that Jesus performed and that was all, that was not enough to warrant this amount of trust and belief on the part of the noble man, and that noble man might even have been a Roman, we are not told that, which would give him all the more reason for skepticism, we have no record of any kind of healing work being done before, there is no existing evidence why this nobleman should connect Jesus with healing, if we are dealing with the literal, historical level. You get further reason now why I am totally committed to the metaphysical level of interpretation because there is no literal, historical way that you can reconcile that Jesus had only done this one thing and that now he has a man whom is entrusting the healing of his dying son, so we have to look at it metaphysically.

A little while before you heard me saying that if any individual, no matter who he is, where he is, what culture he belongs, to what religious affiliation, if in his own way he reaffirms his commitment to what to him is Spirit or God, in this case it may be Jehovah, it may be Apollo, who knows, but it is his God-thought, to him that represents Spirit. If this individual gives his total commitment to what to him is God and in his own way he believes in what we call the Superconscious, regardless of what system he is involved in, he will receive an increased capacity to know, to believe, and, something ... to verify or to fulfill it will manifest. Alright, we can very easily believe that here we have a father, a noble man whose son becomes ill and is in danger of dying, is it not reasonable to assume that that father will turn within himself and reaffirm his commitment to God in his seeking of help? And is it not very logical to assume that this individual in his need for help in his recommitment to God or Spirit in him he also reaffirm the Superconscious level of his own mind and got this increase of consciousness, this increased capacity, then he encounters Jesus, and that will be the infilling, right there, he will know, his intuition, his Superconscious would somehow informed him, this is what is needful here. Then he could go ahead and made the connection, state the request, keep the belief alive which Jesus keeps talking about here and he gets the thing his heart desired, the healing for his son.

Now let's get even more into the metaphysical. It is not wise to try to understand the healing, the teachings of healing that Jesus offers by taking an isolated incident and try to get the secret from it. It doesn't work that way. We had a Silent Unity Pamphlet years ago called "The Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ" and all it was was an enumeration of the places in the Gospel where Jesus heals, just a literal reproduction of them in sequence and they didn't teach much about healing just in that form. The thing that I have found about Jesus and healing is that each incident in which he is involved in the healing work contains a special point, a special kind of instruction, not any one contains the whole thing. The reading over the healing works and words of Jesus has accumulative effect and you begin to see that in each case he brings out another aspect of what will add up to what we call a healing consciousness. It is spread out over the whole of the Gospels and we garner and garner and if we absorb and accumulate these different points that Jesus is making by not taking them out of context but by viewing the whole body of his healing ministry and we see that over and over again Jesus does not teach how to heal, he simply teaches what you must need, accept and incorporate to build the healing consciousness. "The works that I do ye shall do also, and greater works ..." As we go along I will point out these different factors as they are brought out through the metaphysics of Jesus, and here we have unmistakenly the thing called belief in healing: "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will in no wise believe." It is not a put down, it is a challenge, stimulation, check on your belief, are you one of those who have to see the kid healed first before you will believe, and Jesus will only gives these challenges when he knows the person will live up to them, if he would feel that the person couldn't live up to them, he wouldn't say it, he would not invite failure, he would invite success. It is just like later he says to that woman who asked for healing for her daughter because he knew she would live up to the challenge, "it is not right that we take the children's food and give it to the dogs." He knew what her reaction would be and she came through with flying colors and she got a healed daughter. So with this man, he came through with flying colors and he got a healed son. So, here is the first step in Bible sequence of what Jesus is teaching about developing, cultivating this thing called healing consciousness. First we must believe, we must believe in healing. Healing, of course, is a process, but what is the divine idea which is the origin of the process of healing? The divine idea of wholeness or health, the perfect life idea. Remember, everything in human existence has its origin as a divine idea. Find and upon that acceptance and commitment to that divine idea you will be able to build anything good and right in the processes of your consciousness, so in building a healing consciousness you must first believe in that divine idea which makes healing possible, the divine idea of life, wholeness and health, add to that God's will, the divine idea of God's will, and what must be God's will for his children, his image and likeness? All good, health, wholeness, and man's acceptance or rejection will be first, primarily a matter of choice, and I choose to believe, "Choose ye this day whom you will serve." Do you believe in the inevitability and permanence of sickness? or do you believe in the divine idea of health and wholeness? So, you choose to believe and this is the first step in the establishment of a healing consciousness. Now, following this line of reason folks, can you see how at first this commitment to the divine idea of life and wholeness will work through you as healing consciousness, healing power because that is what needed in our world, because sickness is still becoming fact, so healing is necessary, but can you see how this will not always be necessary? You are committed to the idea of life and wholeness and God's will is perfect expression and manifestation of that rather than always remaining with healing of sickness. This is the regeneration, the emerging out of even the need, for healing because of the consciousness of life and wholeness not being interfered by sin and therefore producing these undesirable conditions of sickness. So keep in mind that we have belief first, we are going to have four more qualities: Love, Faith, Willingness, and Forgiveness.

(Lecture 9, January 30, 1976 begins here)

Ed speaking about Mr. Fillmore's system of teaching, in this case about Judgement.

In Christian Healing 119 Mr. Fillmore speaks about judging others, and you know, it is a very simple matter to say, well, just don't judge others because, "With what judgement ye mete, ye shall be judged." This is all very true and of course all of our projections and inclusions that proceed from our judgment faculty do come home to us, we know this, but that does not solve the dilemma when you have to. I mean, suppose that life places you in a position where it is your turn kid, you make the decision here, you pronounce the judgment, you are parents, you know all about this, you are center leaders, you know that there are times when life places you in a role where you must do the discerning, the evaluating and arrive at the decision making pronouncement and it is just not good then to say, well, I don't want to judge, I won't accept the responsibility. But Mr. Fillmore, if you look carefully and study his books, you will notice that he never leaves you hanging on the horns of the dilemma. He always comes through with some kind of an alternative, some kind of a choice that is offered for your consideration bless his heart he really does this on his chapter on judgment and justice, but you have to have read the whole chapter, we cannot insist that Mr. Fillmore always be faithfull to direct sequence of ideas, he is but he skips around and in the Chapter on Judgment and Justice in Christian Healing, after he tells you, under no circumstances judge any man and he quotes Jesus and he goes on and then he comes back to that and he offers the alternative and again he places it on Jesus and says in effect, if you must judge another person, if another person must become involved in your judgment he says, judge him in the way that Jesus calls "in the Christ" or "In the Father" and in a more contemporary language this means, go ahead and fulfill your responsibility to exercise your judgment but do it completely within the framework of principle rather than opinionating, side-taking, and certainly not with any kind of condemnation, not even a taint of that but within an awareness of the principle is absolute. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." You are acting, not as an agent of vengeance but as an agent of God awareness, or Christ awareness, you will discern and evaluate, you will pronounce judgment as you see it, but you are doing it all with the right motivation, the right purpose in life, the right attitude, you are doing this with an awareness that Principle always has the final act. Spirit always has the final say so. As Mr. Fillmore puts it, then you will be guided by that Principle which you have committed your judgment faculty to, with right judgment. If it is lot it get away with it, let it get away with it it is, but the Principle itself, because you have aligned your judgment faculty to it as being the supreme bizarring factor will then express through you and you will deal with no guilt or comdemnation. We could call this judgment Spiritually objective judgment. It is the whole purpose of that chapter on Judgment and Justice. It is judgment where needs to be but love always there and love for the Principle first, and the Principle will utilize your commitment to do the right thing, to say the right thing.

Q. Do you think that we could ever judge in this spiritual way with this righteous judgment if we are emotionally involved in the challenge we are trying to solve?

A. Ed: It seems to me that it will make it a thousand times more difficult. Mr. Fillmore brings that out too, he doesn't develop it but he touches on it and he says, if there is a strong emotional involvement in this judgment thing, he does not say, then you cannot go ahead, you cannot follow through but he mentions that it is a danger, it is a pitfall, but my feeling is that even with that you can still turn your attention to the Principle even if not for a long period of time but at least long enough to establish the commitment and then the emotional involvement will be overcome for the moment for the purpose at hand. But if you keep allowing yourself to be swallowed up in the emotional involvement and don't bother with your commitment to the Principle, then I don't think you could be a very good judge, but it is always possible for you to be, you also can work in exercising your power of detachment, which is a part of the judgment faculty itself.

Review of the Healing at Cana of the Son of a courtier at Capernaum.

This incident at Capernaum is very important, it is the first step in the building process leading toward a true spiritual healing consciousness. I am going to read these very old notes (12, 13 years old perhaps).

"The main metaphysical point in this account would be Jesus' comment on the probability of the father of the boy needing to see signs and wonders in advance of his believing that his son could be healed through spiritual realization. Instead of arguing with Jesus or denying his implications the father simply urges Jesus to proceed and do the necessary work and so the boy is healed. Signs and wonders would be the equivalent to proof given in advance which does not strengthen faith and spiritual power, signs and wonders only help the intellect and the senses to become impressed and acknowledge what has already been done, big deal, how difficult is it to acknowledge through your senses that which has already been accomplished, there is no effort there, there is no exercise, therefore, there is no growth. Belief and faith in things spiritual must be exercised while results are as yet invisible, potential. Spiritual power is silent and invisible, our faith must be in this or it is not faith. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Also this encounter illustrates the non-necessity to justify, explain, defend, or deny thinys when one is appealing to spiritual power whatever the circumstances."

I pause here. By this I mean, a lot of times in our prayer times or in our asking we waste time digressing, we want to explain to God why it is important that he pays attention to us, or why it is I am asking for this thing even though I could be wrong in doing so but I need more justification, or we make excuses in prayer times where it is totally irrelevant, totally unnecessary, getting to the point is the main thing and this is what this father does, he doesn't stop and chat about Jesus' opinion that he needs signs and wonders to believe, he just says, "get on with it, talk about me after the kid is healed." It is like when you talk about healing with some of the absolutists in our own movement and they get very irritated when you talk about healing the condition as soon as possible, and they get all uptight about it, no, we don't want to do that, we want to remove the error from consciousness so that it never recurs again; that is fine but let's do that when we have a little more time, when the pressure isn't so great and the pain isn't so intense, when the life isn't in danger, the bills are piling up, let's get that condition healed first, if you have to do it through Mesmerism let's do it and then we will reform the consciousness. Jesus healed first, then forgave the sins, he healed and continued teaching Truth knowing that the deeper healing would be the healing of consciousness which would be the purification which would result in non-ocurrence of certain symptoms, but never he hesitated to get symptoms healed, to get a person in a state where they could be teachable again, not that one can't be teachable while sick, but if relief from sickness is asked for, a relief from sickness can be given, but then, go and sin no more, replace error with Truth and then you will not have to handle this over again.

"Spiritual law does not operate according to the merit of the ohe asking for his help or skill used in the way of asking, it operatas only aacording to the genuinness of the request and the willingness to receive on the part of the one making the request. The noble man of our story perfectly meets these two requirements and his prayer resulted in a perfect answer. "Go thy way, thy son liveth." Here is a very subtle point that has been brought up in previous classes: but what about the consciousness of the kid, did he deserve to be healed, how do we know; well, he was healed, through his father's request. The kid was at the point of death, I don't think the child had too much going on in his mind all the time, and, I don't think the child merits or demerits we should even worry ourselves about, the child was healed, every human being is always worthy of being healed or no human being is worthy of being healed, we are either one or we are not one, and we know we are one.

Text of the original transcript from paragraph 2 on page 50 through the bottom of page 55.
Transcribed by Mark Hicks on August 8, 2013