DEDICATION of an individual or a church to God's service implies an unequivocal declaration of allegiance to God and an unremitting effort to maintain that loyalty.
Turning to the Bible and our Leader's writings for further light on this subject and studying them with the help of dictionaries and concordances, we find the word "dedicate" closely allied to "devote" and "consecrate." Davis's Bible dictionary describes the "feast of the dedication" (John 10:22) as "an annual festival instituted by Judas Maccabæus in 165 B.C. to celebrate the purification and renewal of the temple, exactly three years after it had been desecrated by the introduction of Greek idolatry and other pollutions." Smith's Bible dictionary concurs in stating the essential purpose of the festival as commemorating the "purging of the temple and the rebuilding of the altar," and adds: "Like the great Mosaic feasts, it lasted eight days, but it did not require attendance at Jerusalem. It was an occasion of much festivity, and was celebrated . . . with the carrying of branches of trees and with much singing."
Our feast of dedication is also celebrated with rejoicing. But unlike the "feast of the dedication," which was celebrated annually, ours requires constant purification and renewal of our thought of temple, or body, our thought of tabernacle, or church. We can resolve to work each day for the purging of our temple of thought and the rebuilding of our altar. As we spend more time thus occupied, dwelling in "the structure of Truth and Love," which is part of Mary Baker Eddy's definition of Church (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583), its visible manifestation among us will be hastened. We shall see it first in lives redirected and uplifted through the study and practice of our Leader's teachings, and later in the construction of dignified and beautiful Christian Science churches in the community.
