THE mission of Christ Jesus was to bring freedom to mankind— freedom from all that is unlike God. In fulfilling this mission he not only unfettered those in bondage to materialism,—sin, sickness, sorrow, and distress,—but in addition, in his specific healing work, he proclaimed the glorious fact of a universal salvation in the divine promise, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
In the four Gospels, which record the words and works of Christ Jesus, we find more frequent mention of the healing of physical sickness and disease than of some other evils which beset humanity. Unquestionably, however, there pervades these treasured records the central fact of the universality of God's laws applicable to the meeting of all human needs. Thus we lovingly wend our way through the Gospel records, pausing here and there to contemplate those wondrous accounts of physical healing; and as we turn the pages we find vividly recorded, also, healings of sin. And how marvelous were those healings of sin! The unregenerated human thought, purged, purified, and spiritualized through the mighty power of God!
Again, we find the great Master expressing that tenderest of all qualities, divinely reflected love, comforting those in sorrow and distress, and unfettering the burdened sense bowed down in grief, or perhaps in loneliness and loss. How truly did his gentleness and kindliness reach out to rescue those whose suffering, to human sense, was far greater than physical suffering ever could be—the mental anguish that God's love alone can assuage! In this great work even death itself was proved a lie, and the glorious fact of man's eternal and deathless nature became manifest. So, whether at the bier of the young man of the city of Nain, or at the tomb of Lazarus, the Christ-presence was shown in a twofold functioning, that of the restoring of the individual manifestation of life on the one hand, and, on the other, of bringing back the smiles of those sorrowing loved ones from whose hearts hope and joy had vanished.
