When I was about four or five, someone pointed out a small portrait of Christ Jesus on the wall of church one day. I didn't know much about Jesus at the time, so I kept looking at it, thinking, and wondering, Who was he? What was he like? I can recall clearly how I felt at that moment: serious, curious, reverent. It didn't really matter to me what Jesus looked like (the picture was quickly forgotten). But I knew there was something unique about him, something very important, and that it had to do with God. I wanted to know more. I really wanted to get to know him.
Soon, at home and in a Christian Science Sunday School, I began to learn the story of Jesus' life and character, of his healings and teachings. Early on I was introduced to the Sermon on the Mount, See Matt., chaps. 5-7 . especially the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes. Getting acquainted with this sermon, with its assurances of God's care and practical requirements for Christian conduct, served as a window on the Master himself. The sermon includes such teachings as "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted"; Matt. 5:4. "Judge not, that ye be not judged"; Matt. 7:1. "Love your enemies . . . do good to them that hate you . . ."; Matt. 5:44. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8. The message that came through clearly in the early training I received was that Jesus' life was a ministry of God's grace, a gift a divine Love.
We often sang a familiar hymn in Sunday School that says in part, "I love to tell the story . . . of Jesus and his love . . . It satisfies my longing/As nothing can do." Christian Science Hymnal, No. 414. Certainly my initial desire to know Jesus was being satisfied, to a degree, by learning his wonderful story. I loved that story (still do!), and the hymn, too. But knowing all about someone is not necessarily the same as knowing, or understanding, who he or she really is. As I grew up, what I'd heard before but didn't "get" right away began to sink in: there's more to knowing the Saviour than being able to "tell the story" of the personal Jesus, or knowing his words by heart. I had to go deeper. I needed to understand and accept more fully in my own life the eternal Christ, the spirit of Truth and Love, which Jesus embodied and demonstrated. And I needed to put into practice what I understood of Christ in order to demonstrate the power of God myself. "Christ illustrates that blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth," Science and Health, p. 316. Science and Health explains. I found that as I "walked the walk" with Christ in daily life, the gospel message became more of a practical reality to me than just a story.
