TWO young men were passing a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, one Sunday just when the congregation was dispersing after the service. One said to the other: "Have you noticed the happiness in the eyes of these Christian Scientists? I always thought religion made people sad. There must be something to a faith that gives its believers so much joy."
"Well," said the second young man, "if you are interested, you should talk to my mother."
"Why?" questioned the first.
"Because she was healed of cancer through Christian Science," replied his friend.
The first young man soon had an opportunity to see and talk with his friend's mother and was told of a beautiful healing in Science. This conversation was followed by a visit to a Christian Science practitioner, and in a short time he had a healing of his own for which to be grateful.
The quickening which accompanies spiritual healing is the most glorious thing in the world. Everything looks new. The very leaves on the trees seem to wear a more lovely green. Home seems radiantly happy. Friends appear more beautiful, and we have no sense of enmity. The kingdom of heaven, which we have found within ourselves, brightens all our ways. When we admit that God is ever-present Love, that He has all power and is ever available to heal us, error fades away and the glow of love brings to light true joy. Is it to be wondered at if further healings follow? It was the evidence of this joy which first attracted the young man. He never lost the realization that one of the most unmistakable identification marks of a Christian Scientist is joy.
It always makes one happy to spend the day in an atmosphere of human love. How much deeper and more permanent is the joy which comes to us when we learn in Christian Science that we are always in the presence of divine Love! The realization of the great fact which this Science reveals, that man is the perfect expression of divine Love, dissipates mortal sadness, heaviness, and burden, replaces them with the spiritual consciousness of security, peace, and buoyancy, and thus brings an increasing sense of joyousness and lightness of heart into our everyday life.
Remember how the father in the parable of the prodigal son spoke to his complaining elder son. He said (Luke 15:31), "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." This declaration of the everavailability of God's goodness, which the light of Truth reveals, awakens one to demonstrate man's ability to express everything that is of God.
Spiritual joy is secure because it is an element of the perfect and eternal spiritual creation and is not founded on any human, imperfect concept of life. As light is dependent upon its source, so man is dependent on God alone. Light is not responsive to darkness; instead, it destroys darkness. Love is not responsive to hate; it eradicates hatred. Truth is not responsive to a lie; its activity in human consciousness includes destroying lies.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 304): "This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. The perfect man—governed by God, his perfect Principle—is sinless and eternal." Man's joy is as permanent as God, because it is of God. And so man, the outcome or reflection of God, is subject to and moved or governed by God Himself. Our sense of oneness with this joy of God, which is ours by reflection, is threatened if we allow any of the suggestions of mortal mind to make us feel separated from Him. Joy must be protected from these erroneous suggestions, which come from the false belief that there are two kinds of man, one spiritual and one material. There is but one God, Spirit, and there is but one man, the spiritual. The spiritual joy and dominion which are man's are found only by separating all thought of man from the belief of birth and death.
Our Leader writes Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Science and Health, p. 14), "Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth." This Life divine is man's by reflection, and the joy of being man is inviolate when the beliefs of human existence are rejected and the facts of spiritual reality are seen and demonstrated.
The Christian Scientist is always ready to examine his thoughts to determine their origin and to reject any thought which does not come from the divine Mind. He refuses to go over and over the details of any experience to excuse himself for wrong thinking. Sometimes he may be tempted to justify anger by recounting the bad treatment he has received from a supposed friend. At other times, especially in the night watches, he may be tempted mentally to write letters or have conversations, putting others "in their proper place" and vindicating himself. Self-pity and resentment seem to make it legitimate for him to entertain these critical thoughts; but he refuses to justify any wrong thinking whatever.
Spiritual discernment teaches us to say in substance: "As the actual child of God, the image of perfect Mind, the expression of divine Love and joy, I cannot entertain a single thought which is unlike God. Hence, I will not permit any such thought entrance into my consciousness." This firm stand for the truth destroys self-justification and opens our thought to the sweet assurance of Love's presence and power. It makes us impervious to the blandishments of mortal mind and establishes a state of complete protection against the wiles of error.
When we turn away from the mortal and look to the divine; when we drop our belief in error and all its seeming ramifications and accept the spiritual fact of existence; when we know that man is the spiritual idea of God and has the Mind of God as his only Mind, what a victory is ours! Then nothing that mortal mind presents to us can make us believe that man has a mind which thinks the joyless thoughts of materiality, of fear, self-pity, hatred, and resentment.
In the garden of Gethsemane our Master, Christ Jesus, had to struggle against the temptations of a human selfhood. However, knowing his divinity as the Son of God, the Christ, he refused to allow the human sense of life to weigh him down. He. rejected all that would have hindered his expressing divine Life and accepted only God's thoughts of Love, Life, and Truth.
The Christ, his spiritual selfhood, knew no sorrow, no heaviness, no burden, but only the joy of God's fatherhood and motherhood. While the human may have seemed to struggle, the spiritual never did. The Christ-consciousness is aware only of the presence of Spirit. While he was still under the shadow of Gethsemane, Christ Jesus told his disciples (John 15:10, 11): "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Here Christ Jesus promises to all those who obey his commandments the joy of the Christ, the permanence and fullness of that joy. Who would not surrender the uncertainties and trials of human existence for the joy of being man, of being God's expression?
Let us put off the old and put on the new. In the words of the Psalmist (51:10-12): "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit."
Let us rejoice in salvation from the deceptive burdens and sorrows of mortal existence. Let us accept the "clean heart," the "right spirit," and the presence of God and yield to the sustaining force of God's "free spirit." Thus we may feel the joy of being man.
