THE opportune moment, fraught with illimitable promise, invariably comes to those who are ready for it, and happy is he who then seizes it and casts his net upon the right side. Such a propitious moment once came to the children of Israel, when, according to the third chapter of the book of Joshua, they crossed the river Jordan, the final geographical barrier that then lay between them and the "land flowing with milk and honey," which ages before had been promised to their forefathers for them.
The gross darkness of Egypt had been left behind. The Red Sea had been crossed. The wilderness had been successfully compassed. One by one, its dangers had been overcome under the guidance of the noble Moses; and now, under the trustworthy leadership of the God-fearing Joshua, they came face to face with this decisive step upon which depended the final outcome of all their journeyings.
To such as did not remember the previous triumphant passage across the Red Sea, the task of crossing the river, which was then at flood and overflowing its banks on either side, may have seemed a formidable one. That there were some forgetful ones appears highly probable, for it was not uncommon with the Israelites, when some new danger threatened, to forget God's care in the past. To such as these the present undertaking doubtless seemed a hard one, fearful, as they may have been, that at this crucial juncture God might fail them.
One at least among them had no such misgivings. Joshua, their captain, well knew that he was being divinely led by God to complete the work so auspiciously commenced by Moses; and he yielded to no thought of failure or disaster to the hosts of Israel. Such faith on his part surely went far to enable the multitude to accomplish the feat now required of them.
Sincere students of Christian Science presently come to a realization of the necessity for a complete change of mind regarding their true origin and nature, in order that they may progress out of the material to the spiritual state of consciousness. They must come to a full knowledge of the great fact that God, Spirit, is their Father, not Adam, the composite hypothetical man formed of the dust of the ground; and they must thereafter hold to a spiritual instead of a material consciousness. This may easily be the main lesson in the crossing of the Jordan, of which we read in the chapter referred to.
The account of this incident, too, appears to indicate an even greater analogy between the work of this captain in Israel and that of "the captain of their salvation," the respective names of whom, "Joshua" and "Jesus," mean, a deliverer from God, or a savior. The word "Jordan" signifies that which descends. In rising from the tomb our beloved Master proved that God's image and likeness, endowed with dominion "over all the earth," cannot be held subject to the grave. Had Christ Jesus believed that man was the offspring of Adam, he could not have arisen, and the world would still be in darkness concerning the truth of real being.
It is, therefore, surely significant that the statement made in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the third chapter of Joshua is worded in part as follows: "As . . . the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, . . . the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam." The word "city" is sometimes used to indicate a state of consciousness, and, this being so, may it not have been their captain's freedom from the Adam-consciousness that made it possible for them, under his leadership, to pass over on dry ground?
This complete change of mind is now recognized as the necessary accompaniment of spiritual progress. As long ago as the first century, some who were not Christians glimpsed its necessity, for Seneca, a Roman stoic and a man of great perspicacity, wrote, "An action will not be right unless the will is right; the will will not be right unless the habit of mind is right; the habit of mind will not be right unless it perceives the laws of the whole of life." To Christian Scientists the one law of Life is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which has made us free from "the law of sin and death."
As in the case of Joshua and his charge, it appears that even though this step out of material belief into a spiritual state of consciousness is a prime requisite to future growth, it does not necessarily mean that thereafter all work may cease. One must continue to strive onward in order that spiritual consciousness, the city of God, the new Jerusalem, may be fully won. Through taking an initial step on the right road one is equipped to overcome subsequent dangers and difficulties less laboriously than formerly. Even as the walls of Jericho could not withstand the formidable march of the Truthseekers after their crossing of the Jordan, nor the belief of the flesh impede the progress of the Master once he had arisen from the tomb, so every earnest student of Christian Science finds that after he has come to a knowledge of his real nature those things which formerly presented apparently insuperable difficulties now disappear as certainly as did those seemingly strong defenses of Jericho.
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the necessity for a radical change of thought concerning man's true nature. On page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body;" and again, on page 41, "Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being." Paul, too, warning the Colossians against certain fleshly tendencies, and giving a reason why these should no longer dominate them, says, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."
If, then, the flood of error is to be arrested, and our path made clear, it is required that each one put off the old man and his deeds, and replace this false mortal concept with God's image and likeness. Proportionately as this is done and one realizes that, in truth, he is "very far from the city Adam," he may confidently expect that his efforts toward good will become increasingly effective. This conscious change in thinking brings him near to God, Spirit, the divine Principle of his being, whereupon he discovers that he is safe in taking the tide at its flood, and that the forward step does indeed lead on to eternal harmony.
