Three Signs From Jesus?
Introduction
This post is about three signs I’ve received from Jesus. I may not be special enough to be singled out like this. Maybe all Gods send signs to everybody, but maybe everyone doesn’t pick on them. I’m a Hindu, but believe in all Gods. That’s the advantage of being polytheistic. Belief in Gods beyond your religion is not that difficult.
The First Sign
When my son, Ari, was two, we were on a trip to a village in Kerala, called Puthiyidam, which was just a long road with houses and adjoining fields on either side and shops and a quaint temple, typical of Kerala, at one end and a pond that needed to be crossed by ferry, at the other. We stayed at my mother-in-law’s ancestral home that was unoccupied at other times. The weather was hot, but it didn’t bother us much.
One morning, two women Christian missionaries visited the village. They came to our house too and handed us a pamphlet, looking expectantly at us for signs of an inclination to convert. Not finding any, they left. I noted Jesus’s image and name had been omitted on the pamphlet. He was referred to only as ‘Our Lord’. Being opposed to conversion and believing that I wouldn’t be disrespecting Jesus due to the absence of his name and image and ensuring that the missionaries couldn’t see me, I threw the pamphlet in the field adjoining our house. I didn’t want anybody to see the pamphlet and get ideas about converting.
That afternoon, Ari developed a fever. We assumed it was due to an infection caused by him playing in the dirt and not washing his hands afterwards. We took him to a hospital in Cochin and one of the doctors there prescribed an antipyretic for the fever. We returned and gave him the medicine and after sometime, we were dismayed by his fever persisting. The next day, we took him to the doctor again and she prescribed a second-level antipyretic to be given if fever persisted four hours after the first-level antipyretic was administered. That evening, fours hours after giving the first-level antipyretic, we checked his temperature. He still had a fever. So, we gave him the second-level antipyretic. Four hours later, we checked his temperature again. He still had a fever. At that time, unaware that the two medicines were different levels of treatment, we assumed that he needed both. So, we gave him the first-level antipyretic as well.
As he slept, he felt cold to the touch, like a corpse. I worried if he would survive the night. As I thought about how he had come to this sorry pass–whenever he had had a fever in the past, there hadn’t been so much trouble–the pamphlet I had thrown crossed my mind. Could this be punishment for that? I didn’t believe in Jesus then. But, what was the harm in praying to Him, especially if it might protect Ari? So, I prayed to Him to forgive my transgression.
The next day, Ari was fine and didn’t need treatment any more.
I started believing in Jesus, but didn’t feel the need to convert. Instead, I saw it as a sign not to block the spread of His name. I also didn’t think this was a sign to not block illegal conversions. My takeaway was that everyone should hear of Jesus. Whether they convert or not should be their choice. After all, religion is important only for humans. I don’t think God cares what religion we follow as long as we are good humans whom He can be proud of, like a father being proud of his kids.
The Second Sign
Eight years later, when my daughter, Sagu, was three and Ari was ten, Sagu wanted to hear stories on our Google smart speaker. We asked the speaker to play a story for kids and it started one. When it ended, the next story autoplayed and it was a story of Jesus. I found this sneaky. I interpreted the first sign as all adults, being informed individuals, needing to hear of Jesus, but I didn’t approve of innocent kids being targeted for conversion. So, we stopped the story and played a different one, but Sagu didn’t want stories any more. She wanted to go downstairs to the living room. We went down and found Ari lounging on the sofa. Mom commented about his lips, but I didn’t bother to look as he tended to have dry lips that he refused to take care of despite us providing him with lip balm and I was tired of Mom and my wife mollycoddling him. But, Mom kept fussing about his lips and I looked at them. They had swollen up like tiny balloons, suggesting an allergy. He had never been allergic to anything, so far.
His usual doctor wouldn’t be available at that time. So, we video called a doctor on Practo, who prescribed a lotion to apply to his lips and a syrup to drink. The treatment ensured his condition didn’t get worse, but it didn’t lead to much improvement, either. As I wondered about Ari’s crisis, I was reminded of his fever and I was struck by how the present problem had unfolded within minutes of my stopping Jesus’s story, just like his fever had started soon after I had thrown the pamphlet. I prayed to Jesus again for forgiveness and later in the day, Ari started making a faster recovery. I took this as the second sign telling me that I shouldn’t block the spread of Jesus’s name even among kids.
The Third Sign
A few days back, Ari was watching a Youtube short about Jesus being the only God. I found this objectionable, as even within the Christian belief system, there is another God, Jehovah. I asked Ari to block what I considered a nonsensical channel and he did. A Swiggy delivery was en route. I stepped out to collect it. Sagu, now four, followed me down the stairs. She had started taking the stairs alone sometime back. But, that day, her hands were slippery. When she had almost reached the gate, her hand slipped on the railing and she lost her balance and fell the last few steps, but wasn’t hurt much. I realised that this could be the third sign.
Conclusion
One sign could be dismissed as an incident; Two as co-incidence, But Three suggest a pattern that can’t be dismissed in haste. Does it mean all the signs are true and Jesus is the only God? What about other Gods? Are they retired? After all, if Judgement Day is approaching, when Jesus would slay all bad people, other Gods are not needed. According to Hinduism also, Kalki will kill all bad people at the end of the current era. Does it mean Christ and Kalki are the same God? I intend to explore this in the next post.