In the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (pp. 40, 41), "The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions." We find that entrance into the kingdom requires right activity on our part and an individual effort to look beyond the material sense of things, as the Master did—to behold infinity and the truth of being, the perfection of God and of man as His image.
To follow in his footsteps we must understand that Jesus made no concessions to matter. He never became passive in his earnest pursuance of good. He knew that his oneness, or unity, with the Father was the actual fact of his being and that he was, in reality, the expression, the very manifestation, of true activity and the emanation of that which is wholly good. His "'advance beyond matter" was accompanied by the sorrows and afflictions of mortal belief; but by constantly abiding in the Shekinah of Spirit he brought to light the joys of the kingdom of heaven, which are ever at hand.
What is this Shekinah into which our anchor of hope must be cast and which is beyond the veil of matter? One meaning of the word Shekinah is "abode" or "dwelling." A modern dictionary of the Bible says, "As religious thought advanced to recognize that God is infinite and invisible Being, and that 'the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands' (Acts 7:48), the word Shekinah came to mean the radiant 'glory of the Lord, (which) filled the house of the Lord' (I Kings 8:11, 27)." This radiant light and glory of God's presence illumines our hope, and we rise into the realization of the allness and oneness of God.
