The vital element of a Christian Science lecture is its healing mission. The lecture combines the sowing of the seed and the gathering of the harvest of Truth, rich in health and holiness.
Jesus must have loved the wide fields of grain, grown full through the months, ready for reaping, for grinding into flour, and finally for making into bread. As Jesus looked across the fields at harvest-time, his thought must surely have turned to the spiritual harvest which was to be gathered, for he said (John 4:35), "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."
Mary Baker Eddy too must have loved the rolling farm lands of her family homestead at Bow, New Hampshire. As a child, she must have thrilled to the rich harvest of fall, the ingathering of all the crops. And in later years as she looked out upon the valley and hills at Pleasant View, her home in Concord, New Hampshire, she saw the carpet of crimson and gold covering the countryside in the autumn of the year, and the waiting grain, ripe for harvest.
The harvest never meets a need, however, until the workmen enter the fields and cut the grain. And so it is with a Christian Science lecture. The lecture does not fulfill a need or satisfy a longing after righteousness unless we as church members go into the fields—open our thought to the expectancy of healing through the message of the lecture and ask the stranger in our community to share the harvest.
Every activity functioning under the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy was established for the purpose of bringing the healing truth to mankind. Spiritual healing, as demonstrated by Jesus, was reinstated for the benefit of this age by Mrs. Eddy. She says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 370): "In different ages the divine idea assumes different forms, according to humanity's needs. In this age it assumes, more intelligently than ever before, the form of Christian healing. This is the babe we are to cherish."
The purpose of every Christian Science lecture is to glorify God, and as it does so, the omnipotence of God will be manifested in whatever ways are needed in order to heal human ills. Nothing that God has made is in need of healing, for everything He made is permanently perfect. But mankind are in need of healing. They are not, as they think they are, the victims of sin and disease, but rather of their belief in these errors. At every lecture the warmth and perfume of our gratitude may find such full expression that all present will feel the healing atmosphere of divine Love. Then the earnest seeker will no longer feel unloved or unloving, and each one will go away refreshed, with new strength and freedom of thought, which will give vigor and freedom to the body.
The acknowledgment of divine Mind's control will silence false beliefs of many minds operating at cross-purposes. Divine Mind, understood and applied, demonstrates the falsehood of such beliefs as inflammation, inherited diseases, and irritation. The fear that chance or accident can rob one of his joy is wiped out as the listener to the lecture discovers that the one Mind, God, is guiding all of his right activities.
He who has wearied of false doctrines and has failed to find the answers to his questions about existence will have new vistas of life opened to him at a Christian Science lecture. He will discover that the man whom God creates manifests the completeness of eternal Life; the understanding of this truth ensures a continuous unfolding of good in daily experience. The listener's thought will be awakened from the belief that death is real, and he will glimpse the truth that man's only substance is Spirit—the substance of all of God's spiritual ideas. In the substance of Spirit there is no pain or poison, and health is indestructible.
The lecture signifies something more than a mere human event. It is more essentially a spiritual experience, a spiritual quickening, and as such it is not subject to the vagaries of personality or the weather. Those hungering for a higher understanding of God and man will be nourished by the truth presented in the lecture. Their questionings will be stilled by the understanding of the unvarying law of God, good, operating in all situations with love.
The earnest seekers for Truth will find that there is no discord that cannot be healed, no problem that cannot be solved through the application of Christian Science. They will learn that "a Christian Scientist's medicine is Mind, the divine Truth that makes man free" (Science and Health with Key the Scriptures, p. 453). They will discover their real identity as the children of God and see man as possessing all the nobility, joy, and beauty of Soul.
So it is with an abiding sense of gratitude and joy that one should look forward to attending a lecture: gratitude for what Christian Science has done to enrich his thinking and his life and the lives of those around him. And one should prepare for a lecture with unlimited joy, the expectancy of good that will be strengthened by the holy experience of attending. Both Jesus and Paul insisted on the absolute expectancy of healing. In effecting many instantaneous healings, Mrs. Eddy demonstrated the same expectancy. And one should expect the lecture's healing mission to be fulfilled.
As we deny the suggestions of timidity that would keep us from inviting the stranger, overcome the inertia and apathy that would interfere with taking him, surmount fear of disapproval or opposition —all mortal mind beliefs that would limit the healing activity of the lecture—we ourselves are free, as well as the stranger, to receive the message contained, in the lecture.
A beautiful promise in the Bible says (Mai. 3:10), "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." This great blessing is with us now. Where the Word is spoken to receptive hearts, there is healing.
The message of the lecture and its healing effects go hand in hand; the sowing and the harvest are one. The healing effect of Truth, Principle, through a Christian Science lecture can open the windows of heaven, and blessings untold can pour forth to bless not only the hearers at the lecture but an ever-widening circle in the community.
