WHEN word was brought to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was sick, he said (John 11:4), "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." He gave no thought to what the demonstration of God's power might do to exalt himself as a human person. Rather was he thinking of glorifying God by proving to mankind that the real man never dies. The record of his life shows clearly that he never yielded to the temptation to consider what would be the most expedient thing for him from a human point of view. "I seek not mine own glory," he announced simply (John 8:50). He dedicated his life to the glorification of God.
No more did Mary Baker Eddy allow belief in a human selfhood to blind her to her great purpose of glorifying God by showing mortals His presence, power, and goodness, that they might be freed from the effects of their own limited concepts of Him. As she progressed in the work of establishing the Christian Science movement, our Leader saw the danger to the Cause which the glorification of human personality would place before her and her followers. Finally she withdrew from all public contacts in order to discourage this idolatrous tendency and carry on with as few interruptions as possible the great work yet to be done. How clearly she understood the truth she expresses in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 282), "Remember, it is personality, and the sense of personality in God or in man, that limits man."
While the aggressive efforts of individuals to forward their own selfish aims may sometimes seem to result in their gaining the attention of the world, one finds, as he pursues the study of Christian Science, that he does not know what life really is until he begins to rise above the belief in a selfhood apart from God and lives to glorify God rather than himself. Had Jesus believed that he could do anything of himself and had he desired the world's acclaim above his Father's glory, could he have raised Lazarus from the grave and accomplished his other great works? And would his teachings be remembered and be of value to us had his great ambition been merely to glorify human personality? How grateful we can be that the Master clearly saw that he could of himself do nothing and demonstrated that true glory is found in unselfed reflection.
