The customs of many people today are the outcome of events recorded centuries ago in the Bible. The practice of commemorating these events keeps alive their memory. This is no doubt of some temporary value, for wherever the spark of religious devotion is kept alive, the hope of a better and holier way of life is perpetuated. So it is with the resurrection. Ceremonial observances may tend to prepare and mellow human thought until the true significance of resurrection comes to the individual. Then such observances are abandoned, since they would keep the event a thing of the past, something to be commemorated, rather than to be experienced.
Resurrection and healing have to do with, but are not attributable to, human consciousness. Everything which tends to save or redeem has its origin in the divine Mind. The spiritual idea, or Christ, which emanates from God, comes to the consciousness of mankind with its message of deliverance from all that is ungodlike. Its inherent power to deliver from all the evils of materiality lies in its demonstrable truthfulness, its intrinsic freedom. The spiritual idea of Life and man has never been incarnate in, and so does not need to be redeemed from, the flesh. Human consciousness must, however, be redeemed from the mysticism of materiality—and its redeemer is the Christ Science.
The so-called mortal mind of men is not the Mind which is God. Men are therefore under the necessity of giving up what appear to be their own personal minds for the one infinite divine Mind. The Christ reveals man's unfallen state and spiritual nature and thus delivers men from beliefs which would obscure their spiritual individuality. When no longer deceived by the serpent of material sense, scientifically designated as animal magnetism, human consciousness joyously responds to the spiritual idea of being. Resurrection and healing give evidence of the reconciliation of men to the divine Principle of man and the universe.
