When speaking at an Easter service in her Church, Mary Baker Eddy said that the service spoke to her not of death but of Life (see Miscellaneous Writings, p. 180). In the resurrection, Jesus was demonstrating his deathless being.
Basing its conclusions on the testimony of the Bible and of Jesus himself, Christian Science teaches that the crucifixion was only one of the final steps in the Way-shower's great activity of proving man's eternal and indestructible unity with God. Jesus' career would have lost its great significance had it ended with his burial in a tomb. He had overcome for others sickness, lack, and other discords and had raised some from death. But he still had to raise his own body from the tomb and thus show that physical death, so called, is not a factor in man's real existence. He himself had to overcome the challenge of the carnal mind's pronouncement, "You are dead."
All material evidence pointed to the fact that Jesus' body was dead. He had stopped breathing on the cross, his body had been pierced with the spear and bound about completely with the winding sheet. Furthermore, three days had elapsed between the crucifixion and the resurrection—the time accepted by his contemporaries as indisputable evidence of the certainty of death. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul states plainly regarding the resurrection of Jesus' body (1 Cor. 15:12, 14): "If Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? . . . And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."
But what of the Christ, the true selfhood of Jesus—his spiritual, immortal nature? Nothing could touch this pure, sinless consciousness of good. The Christ is above all the false claims and beliefs of life in matter. Because of his clear understanding of the eternal and indestructible nature of his true being, Jesus never accepted the belief that his body could die or had died because of the evil acts of his enemies. He proved in the resurrection that this experience called death does not destroy the mortal concept of body, for he showed to the disciples the same body which he had before the crucifixion. He proved in this great demonstration of the resurrection and ascension that the mortal body is not material but mental. To the disciples, Jesus' body appeared to rise from earth to higher regions at his ascension. But the teaching and demonstration of the Master bear evidence to the fact that he surrendered every belief of life in matter and in the ascension found himself in his perfect, spiritual identity, without material accompaniments.
This was his final demonstration of man's purely spiritual and eternal nature and existence as the child of God. In this great achievement, he not only had overcome the world, but had proved matter to be nothing. Jesus' demonstration over matter and his proof of divine sonship constitute the way, in which all men must follow step by step to realize their complete individuality and identity as ideas of God.
He is risen! When we hear this glorious message of the angel to the women who came to the tomb, it should have more than historical significance to us. We should ask ourselves: Has the Christ, the true nature of man's being, become clearer to us during the past year? Have we increased in spirituality? And are we exemplifying daily the true nature of resurrection, in which the beliefs of materiality are giving way to the spiritual truths of scientific Christianity? Are we fulfilling the dual purpose of our Christ-like mission: to bring spiritual enlightenment to our fellow men and thereby cast out sin, sickness, and other mortal discords? Are we progressively demonstrating Life, sinless, perfect, eternal, and indestructible?
Our Leader has given us an aid to growth in spirituality in one of the By-Laws of the Manual of The Mother Church. She writes under the heading "Easter Observances" that in the United States the members of The Mother Church should not engage in festivities or special observances, nor should they offer gifts on this occasion. And then she gives us a rule for daily observance and practice (Art. XVII, Sect. 2): "Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years. Those sacred words of our beloved Master, 'Let the dead bury their dead,' and 'Follow thou me,' appeal to daily Christian endeavors for the living whereby to exemplify our risen Lord."
Here, then, is our daily duty: constantly to express love and gratitude, abandon the beliefs of life in matter, and follow the Christ in all our ways.
Are there some today who are bound with grief over the loss of some dear one, over hopes unfulfilled, disappointments, failures, lack, and threats of calamity? These conditions are corruptible and mortal beliefs, which must be buried. They should give place to gratitude and love, for love is unselfish, self-forgetful; and gratitude comes from the understanding of the ever-present goodness and provision of God for all of His children. The demand is to follow the Christ daily. In doing this, we glory in the enjoyment of our true inheritance as sons of God and also in the recognition of the spiritual nature of His entire creation.
At this new Easter morn let us resolve that we shall go straight on, with our eyes fixed on the goal of eternal manhood in Christ. Our Leader writes (Unity of Good, p. 41), "The sweet and sacred sense of the permanence of man's unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with a continual presence and power of good, opening wide the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall appear 'we shall be like Him,' and we shall go to the Father, not through death, but through Life; not through error, but through Truth."
