A READER'S JOURNAL GUEST ESSAY(1)
The Third Sign in the Gospel of John 5:1-18
Healing the Invalid
Go and Sin No More
An Essay for
Spiritual Science Bible Studies
by Kristina Kaine
March 15, 2006
Published by Good Mountain Press in 2006
Guest Essay Selected by Bobby Matherne, ©2006 by Kristina Kaine
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John 5:1-18 [RSV] After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za'tha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed from whatever disease he had(2). One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your pallet, and walk." And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked
So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the Sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet." But he answered them, "The man who healed me said to me, `Take up your pallet, and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, `Take up your pallet, and walk'?"
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward, Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working still, and I am working." This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God.The greatest sin of all is to reject the I AM, the Real Self. If you can't stand up and you need others to carry you then you have rejected your I AM. Then the Jews in us seek to kill the I AM. The Jews in our being can represent our habits, our habitual thoughts and actions which will resist anything new. This clinging to the past fights against the evolution of consciousness which has reached the stage where the I AM can be embraced. Here lies one of the prime causes of the anxious times we live in. Certainly the rise in mental problems can be attributed to this resistance to the I AM.
If we take this man to represent our thinking then in the story our real self says to our thinking: stop lying around, rise! In other words, stop thinking from the same position all the time. Walk, become mobile and see things from other points of view.
What a dramatic end to the past. Imagine how that would be, thinking the same thing day in day out then something disrupts your thinking, you don't know what it is, all you know is that your thinking is now mobile, it's on its feet and moving around.
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
We don't recognize the I AM in our being, what we are most familiar with is our sleepy comfortable soul. When the I AM comes into our soul and sets our thinking on its feet a huge crowd gathers. All our habits and memories would be shouting, "what about me, don't forget me, good old faithful thoughts that have served you so well for so long!" The minute these thoughts crowd in the I AM has to withdraw.
It is only when we can quieten these thoughts down — by going to the temple, that we can meet the I AM again. John says "Jesus found him in the temple" Where is the temple in our being? It is that quiet place where we contemplate or meditate and get in touch with the Christ within us. This is how the man found out who healed him. In the temple thinking can connect up with the I AM and we become aware of being healed. There is a simple way to do this. In quiet moments, close your eyes and slowly ask yourself, "Who is thinking?"
The kind of thinking that involves the I AM is that energetic thinking that embraces new ideas and continually seeks new ways to connect things up. Thinking that excludes the I AM is regurgitated memory patterns — Jesus calls it sin.
Then what is the significance of the Sabbath in this story? Why did Jesus 'work' on the Sabbath? On the Sabbath, the seventh day, we rest from our busyness. We turn our gaze from the outside world to our inner devotion. This is when the I AM has the greatest opportunity to make us aware of its presence and its identity.
This third sign in the Gospel of John reveals the grave consequences of ignoring the I AM. If we do not work hard to truly hear and recognize the I AM in our lives we will be invalids. If we do not continually strengthen our soul and make it a fit place for the work of the I AM our lower ego with its habitual thinking will destroy us.
We must continually work on the image that we are greater than our body and the ego that rules it, our real self, our true identity which leads us from life to life like stringing a string of pearls creates the agenda. In freedom we can choose to listen to it.
Jesus answered them, "My Father is working still, and I am working."Our I AM is equal with God. Our I AM was in the beginning with God and all things were created in the presence of the I AM which is light. The I AM is the light that shines in the darkness and our task is to comprehend it and sin no more.
---------------------------- Footnotes -----------------------------------------
Footnote 1.
RJM Note1: Kristina Kaine in Australia wrote this essay for the Spiritual Science Bible Studies members. She also mails it out to a list of people who request them. To get added to this mailing list, Click Here! to send her an pre-filled-out email form.
We thank Kristina Kaine for giving us persmission to publish this fine essay on Good Mountain Press in A Reader's Journal. Through her writings, many people will be brought to understand the nature and importance of the I Am in our world during this time. All of the text in this essay are by her except for my words marked as RJM Notes unless otherwise noted.
Return to text directly before Footnote 1.
Bobby Matherne, March 31, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Footnote 2.
RJM Note2: The passage "waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed from whatever disease he had." is not in the RSV with the rest of the quoted material. The author, Kristina Kaine, says about this passage's omission:
Verse four describing the angel is omitted from some versions of the Bible. The modern intellect dismisses the idea of angels. Here lies the problem. When we deny the presence of angels then they withdraw and can no longer assist us.RJM Note3: Rudolf Steiner suggests that, in today’s time, if we wish to have the Angels work on our astral body while we are awake, we must quiet our minds, stop all the thoughts, and that's the function of meditation. This process allows our bodies to heal properly — the Angels can only align the astral body with the etheric and physical bodies while three bodies are together — while we're awake. This is something that is greatly lacking in modern society where we are always either think, think, thinking, or asleep. With that kind of behavior the Angels get little time to do their healing in us. Return to text directly before Footnote 2.Even if we agree that they exist and that we do have a guardian angel, the angels still cannot approach us. It is only when we have spiritual knowledge of the angels that they can assist us through the day and more importantly, accompany us at night when we leave our body lying in our bed.
The word angelos means messenger; the angels bring us ideas from the spiritual worlds, especially ideas about the rightful progress of evolution.
There is much to know about angels but if we think about the essentials more often we will prepare ourselves to receive more assistance and guidance from these beings. Angels are a class of being above us as animals are a class of being below us. If at the same time we look at an animal we think of an angel looking at us we will begin to become more conscious of them.
Then we can wonder about the journey they have made in evolution? They have evolved through the aeons a step ahead of us, trodden the path before us, but with one difference, they did not have the I AM. They do not have the freedom that comes with the I AM. John’s story actually reveals the truth of this. We no longer have to wait on the angels to heal us, we can be healed through our own I AM. In freedom we can make this choice.
Furthermore, the role of the angels has changed, as did most things after the incarnation of Christ. It has been the task of the angels to guide and guard our higher being until evolution progressed to the point where we could take on this responsibility ourselves. We can only do this if we awaken our soul and become more conscious of the presence of our I AM.
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Any questions about this review, Contact: Bobby Matherne
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