Not long ago, the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson included a verse in Matthew, chapter 14, which spoke to me in a fresh way and from which I gleaned a helpful spiritual insight. “And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone” (verse 23). The context involves Christ Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand after which the disciples got into a ship to go to the other side of the sea of Galilee.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “The most distinguished theologians in Europe and America agree that the Scriptures have both a spiritual and literal meaning” (p. 320). The note in the margin next to this passage here is “Interior meaning.”
To me, the phrase “when he had sent the multitudes away” suddenly took on an “interior,” or spiritual, signification. Christ Jesus must have sent away the thousands whom he had fed both spiritually and literally by directing them to disperse, to go back to their homes. But the thought that came to me that particular morning during my study was that sending “the multitudes” away could be spiritually interpreted in a way that would be applicable to each of us.
Don’t we all have multitudes of suggestions, often fearful and aggressive, clamoring for our time and attention? Does it often seem as we face a new day that there are multitudinous demands upon our time, our strength, and our abilities? Don’t we need to send these multitudes of mortal suggestions away and go “apart,” or take some private time to pray? We can go up into a “mountain,” a higher spiritual altitude, and listen for divine ideas that will banish fears and provide the wisdom and spiritual strength that will enable us to meet the pressing demands of each day.
I was reminded that when we feel besieged by multitudes of fears about our health, beliefs associated with aging, a troubling relationship, financial concerns, the mounting demands of our work, etc., we can send these fears away by replacing each aggressive suggestion with the spiritual counterfacts that abound in the Bible and Science and Health, which serve as the Pastor of The Church of Christ, Scientist. “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).
That standard is divine Truth. For every one of the multitude of aggressive suggestions, there is a specific spiritual idea, an angel message from divine Mind, with which to counteract it, disperse it, and send it back to its “native nothingness” (see Science and Health, p. 281).
