While many Christian churches perhaps have failed to grasp the deeper implication of the resurrection and ascension of the Master, Christ Jesus, nevertheless they all celebrate with joy the risen Saviour, and so does the Church of Christ, Scientist. Joy is the salient note of the Easter season. It is spring. Easter in many parts of the world is symbolized in earth's renewed awakening. The budding trees and the fresh green shoots, the crocus and hyacinth, speak not of death, but of life revealed in nature's glad renewal. Each unfolding leaf and springtime flower brings to us a lesson, an indication or hint of the eternal continuity of being.
More than all else Easter brings home to the student of Christian Science the debt of gratitude we owe to Christ Jesus for his loving life of service to mankind, culminating in his triumphant victory over evil and its accompanying proof of man's immortality.
When the dark suggestion comes to anyone that death is inevitable and unavoidable and that it might mean the end of existence, let us not forget the words of the Master (John 17:3), "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." And again, the clear statement of his mission (John 10:10), "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." He taught and demonstrated the eternality and continuity of life. Easter, with all that it so beautifully signifies, brings to us the conviction that because Life is one and infinite, it is inevitably continuous, and that therefore death is obsolete, having no real basis. Jesus' own example shows that we do not gain eternal life by dying, but by living.
