After the healing of the demoniac in the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath Day, Christ Jesus returned home with Peter and Andrew, and they were accompanied by James and John. The house was in gala attire and the seven-branched candlestick was burning for the holy meal, the noon breakfast. This weekly festival was to be especially elaborate in honor of the presence of the beloved Master. However, when they arrived at the house, as Luke writes in his gospel, "Simon's wife's mother was holden with a great fever." he came and stood over her and rebuked the fever, and then took her by the hand and raised her up; and the fever left her, "and immediately she rose up and ministered to them."
In every instance of healing the great Physician used the Word of Power, and sometimes augmented this with the touch His hand. The hands are messengers of healing and service. When the heart center is awakened, the hands become powerful channels for the inner healing forces.
Tears, colds, and similar physical conditions belong to the water element and may be traced to the lack of control in the emotional nature. Fevers relate to the fiery element and originate in a lack of control in the passional nature. Destructive or negative thinking, even insanity, pertains to the air element, and represents a failure to master the mental (especially the imaginative) processes which are closely linked with the creative energy. The physical body is but the sounding board of the inner vehicles which registers faithfully both their discordant and their harmonious notes.
Every infirmity is connected with one of the four elements. No fiery disease can exist in the water force, nor can any weakness connected with water exist in the fire element. All poisons are of fiery origin and have their center in the desire body, wherefore the spirit of poison can have no power when the lower desires have been transmuted. To such as the Disciples of the Christ who had accomplished the transmutation, the Master could say, "Thou shalt drink any deadly thing and it shall not harm thee."
Fever is a means of Fire purification, a process of cleansing the carnal desire nature. The experience of Peter's wife's mother was a dedicatory one for this woman who immediately arose and began to serve.
Love, service and sacrifice form the threefold path that leads to the spiritually creative work of true discipleship.
Christ Jesus had gone into retirement for a time and desired that no one should know where He had gone. Mark writes that although Christ Jesus had thus sought seclusion, having "entered into a house, and would have no man know of it," yet, "'He could not be hid." The compassion of His great heart always encompassed all sorrow and suffering so that He could not remain away when His succor was so much needed. Nor is He ever bidden from those who earnestly seek Him, nor heedless of any sincere call for help on any plane. "Lo, I am with you always," is His promise.
A Phoenician woman, whose name was Justa according to the Clementine writings, had journeyed one hundred and, fifty miles or more in quest of His aid for her child. She was a follower of the cult of Astarte, the Moon goddess, but the fame of the Divine Healer had reached her in her far-off home, and when she had come to the place where the Disciples were she besought them to intercede with the Master for her.
At last she was brought into His Presence. In response to her pleas, He said, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs," and in these words we may perceive the spiritual status of this woman. She did not belong to the inner circle of students, therefore she was not ready to receive the bread (deeper teaching) of the children, (inner group). That she had, however, made the complete surrender of her personal life and was determined to walk in the Way leading to the inner circle is evidenced by her reply: "Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their Master's table."
Her dedication was accepted, and her daughter was instantly healed as the Master declared, "Oh, woman, great is thy faith, be it done unto thee even as thou wilt." These words hold high promise of the attainment that was later to be hers.
In this healing Christ Jesus demonstrated to His Disciples the truth that Spirit is all powerful and that it transcends the barriers of time and space. The girl was healed at His word, though miles stretched between her and the Christ, and He had had no previous contact with her.
Faith, humility and devotion without reservation will always open the door for every aspiring neophyte: "Great is thy faith, be it done unto thee as thou wilt."
Christ Jesus, the Lord of Love, centered His work in the supreme Law which is Love. He lost no opportunity of teaching and demonstrating this fundamental truth wh~never He could and wherever He might be. On this occasion, as on a previous Sabbath, He sought to teach the literalists the preeminence of Love over the rigid and formal code which was the only Law they knew. This He achieved by healing a man of dropsy, in defiance of the Sabbatical laws which the literalists interpreted to prohibit anything in the way of labor on the Sabbath, even if it were the divine labor of healing.
The Sabbath observance was one of many customs which the Hebrews inherited from Chaldea. The Chaldeans observed five Sabbaths a month, and it was they who divided their month into the weekly period of seven days, dedicated successively to the Sun, Moon and five planets. This division of time was in use in Chaldea even so long ago as the time of Abraham, who, as a Chaldean Prince, must have been familiar with it before he heard the Voice of a New Revelation calling him to go forth into a new land. An Assyrian calendar explains that the Sabbath means "completion of work, a day of rest for the soul." It appears that it was unlawful to cook food, to change clothing, or even to offer sacrifice on the Sabbath; and the king was forbidden, we are told, to speak in public, to ride in a chariot, to perform any kind of military or civil duty and even to take medicine on this day.
As there were five Babylonian Sabbaths each month, there were sometimes more than one in a week. These Sabbaths, however, were not dedicated to any particular day, but came regularly on the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th day of the month, regardless of the day of the week on which those dates fell. Thus all the star deities received homage in regular succession, and if any Sabbath was holier than another that was due to the special reverence felt for certain gods in localities sacred to them from remote antiquity. Not only the Assyrians and Jews but also the Phoenicians shared the Babylonian Sabbath observance.
It is significant that of these Sabbaths, the Jews selected for special observance only the Day of Saturn, or Saturday, the seventh day of the week. Seven is the number of completion, enfoldment, rest, assimilation. Thus in the course of time their Sabbatical laws expressed more and more the rigidity of the Saturnian principle in its negative, or formalistic, aspect. Christ Jesus came bringing a new pronouncement, the power and light of a New Day and a New Age, based upon the Solar Principle. It has been frequently remarked by astrological students of such matters that that the word "Satan" derives from Saturn, and in the Arabic language "Shaitan" means "He who despairs." Arabic and Hebrew bear much the same resemblance as we find between Spanish and Portuguese.
The Day of the Sun sponsored by the Christ bears a much deeper significance than the average individual comprehends. The Sun is the center of life, light and love for the entire solar system to which this earth belongs. The Sun's Day therefore should be the day in which we dedicate ourselves to becoming miniature Suns, centers of radiating love, light and helpfulness as far as the radius of our influence extends.
Sunday is the first day, the New Day, the beginning of a new week, a time for the assimilation of the soul essences extracted from the experiences of the preceding week; and this assimilation is the starting point of a new process, for which it is the alchemical stone of tincture. The new Sun Laws of fellowship, equality and oneness which the Master championed, and which He immortalized in the Sermon on the Mount, are Yet, even after two thousand years have elapsed, a center of controversy wherever an individual or a group have caught a vision of their meaning and have endeavored to introduce them into practical, everyday living. Had mankind followed the Sun Laws of Christ instead of the Saturn laws of the Scribes and Pharisees the world would not be the sorry place it is today.
On another Sabbath the Master tried to teach the supremacy of Love over Law when He healed the withered hand publicly. On this Sabbath day He endeavored to soften the Pharisaic obduracy by healing the dropsical man in the home of one of the leading Pharisees where He had gone to partake of the sacred Sunday meal. But minds and hearts were closed to His teachings, hence their ultimate destiny was the loss of all those things which they put before Christ. The same fate awaits the modern followers of pharisaical law, be they Jew, Christian or pagan.
In the lesson which the Christ gives immediately following the healing of the man with dropsy, He conveys a subtle intimation as to its cause and ultimate cure. This is to be found in the parable of humility wherein He admonishes those who come to the banquet to be content with the lower seats until invited by the host to come higher. He then adds the formula for true spiritual attainment which all Masters of Wisdom have handed down since the beginning of time, but which, even to this modern day, is the most difficult for the aspirant to accept and follow: "For whosoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whosoever humbles himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14:11)
— Corinne Heline
