THE hosts of heaven heralded the birth of Jesus with joy and praise of God: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2: 14). Their message transcended sound. It awakened the wondering shepherds to the spiritual consciousness of Truth's realm, where God's sons dwell together in eternal peace. The Love which encompassed the infant Jesus on that peaceful night outshone the tender affection of Mary, the reverence of the shepherds, the adoration of the Magi. Its fathomless knowing enfolds each of its sons in divine recognition of its own embodiment of the elements of peace— understanding, love, holiness. Its power bodes disquiet and destruction to false peace—material satisfaction, sensual contentment, apathetic ignorance of God's moral and spiritual demands.
Christian Science interprets the nativity of Christ as the awakening of spiritual sense to the discernment of man in God's likeness. It reveals one Father-Mother, God, whose universal family knows no individual, national, or racial disruption, but exists to express Love. It brings heaven to human comprehension. Isaiah prophesied the coming of divine Science and declared (Isa. 54:13), "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children."
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, uplifted the standard of worship at every point and taught her followers to seek the true substance and significance of religious observances and customs. In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" she writes (p. 262): "I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being."
