At Easter time thought turns with reverent gratitude to the contemplation of the greatest triumph the world has seen, when God's witness, Christ Jesus, overcame death and vanquished it in the glory of the resurrection. Easter is also a time of gladness and rejoicing because through the teachings of Christian Science we learn that the resurrection is a state of consciousness all may attain by yielding up material beliefs and by spiritualizing thought and life.
Jesus made many statements concerning the divine power and authority that enabled him to overcome every phase of error. Among them are his important declarations of preexistence. He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."John 8:58; On the eve of the crucifixion, his severest trial, he prayed, "Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." 17:5; In this connection Mrs. Eddy writes, "The meek Nazarene's steadfast and true knowledge of preexistence, of the nature and the inseparability of God and man, —made him mighty." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 189;
If our Master for one moment had entertained the thought that his beginning was his human birth, he would have had to face death as a reality. The understanding and certain knowledge of his coexistence with God, the only cause and source of being, was his starting point for destroying all error as illusion.
