It is always inspiring to get fresh light from our prayerful study of familiar Bible passages. In The New English Bible we read Jesus' words "If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my disciples; you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." He added, "I am revealing in words what I saw in my Father's presence."John 8:31, 32, 38. The King James Version reads: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ... I speak that which I have seen with my Father."
We can see how true this is. Christ Jesus was so at one with the Father that he spoke, taught, and healed with divine authority. He brought to light as present reality the truths of God's perfect creation and well-ordered kingdom. He proved for us that no mortal illusion, sin, illness, or even death can darken the consciousness that is dwelling consistently within the revelation of divine Truth, God. This was the radiance from which Jesus did his marvelous healings.
We know he loved the truth and challenged evil. He rebuked evil and sin in their opposition to the Christ. He lifted the weight of pain and suffering from people and comforted them with God's all-embracing love. He brought to light, through healing, the present perfection of the sons and daughters of God.
Wasn't it the revelation of Truth that illumined Mrs. Eddy's life when she was in great need? She was healed by the power of Christ, when it looked as if her life would be snuffed out by an accident. She turned to the Bible in her extremity, as she must have done many times before, and read the account of the healing of the palsied man.See Matt. 9:1-8. She gained a measure of understanding of the divine nature, which Jesus proved in his healing work, and it was sufficient to raise her instantly from her sickbed. She wrote: "That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 24. It was this revelation of Truth—bringing to light man's actual life in God—that was to prove such a huge breakthrough for the human race in this age. It gives mankind a wholly new way of looking at health and salvation—the Christ way, which Jesus himself so carefully demonstrated for his followers. It establishes a practical, scientific Christianity.
Mrs. Eddy didn't just rejoice in her healing and leave it at that. She too felt the anguish that held men and women in bondage to mortality—the belief of living in matter instead of in Spirit—and she longed to help. From the earliest days of her discovery, even though she herself was still going through many personal and financial struggles, she started to heal others.
One of the most touching healings took place right on Lynn Beach near the house where Mrs. Eddy lived at the time. In his biography of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery, Robert Peel speaks of these early days: "For even as she walked through some very deep valleys, the upper heights were springing into light. We catch a sudden glimpse of this in an incident recounted by a Mrs. James Norton of Lynn. On one summer day in 1866 Mrs. Norton took her seven-year-old son George to Lynn Beach and left him there while she hitched the horse and went for water. The child had club feet and had never walked. When she returned she was stunned to find him walking hand in hand with a stranger. The mother and the strange woman looked in each other's eyes, then both of them wept and joined in thanks to God."Discovery (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966), p. 201.
It was this revelation of
Truth—bringing to light
man's actual life in God—
that was to prove such a
huge breakthrough for the
human race in this age. It
gives mankind a wholly new
way of looking at health and
salvation—the Christ way.
We know the challenges our Leader had as she worked to articulate the spiritual truth she had discovered. And we may well marvel at the sheer courage and perseverance it took to accomplish this. In her home on Broad Street, Lynn, in that little attic room, she wrote a new section for the first edition of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, dealing with the subject of animal magnetism. This marked the end of nine years of consecrated labor to elucidate her discovery. When this final addition was complete, the textbook was published in 1875.
Later, in revising her book, Mrs. Eddy developed a chapter called "Animal Magnetism Unmasked." This chapter exposes the age-old claims of evil that have held mankind in bondage to belief in a hypnotic, self-justifying power apart from God. Imagine the courage of this lone woman coming to grips with the subtlest forms of sin and evil and then reducing them to total unacceptability, thus showing evil's banality and nothingness.
It was Mrs. Eddy's love for God and her sheer devotion to the Christ ideal, as well as her long hours of communion with God in prayer, that made her work successful. Later she explained her discovery in these words: "The term Christian Science was introduced by the author to designate the scientific system of divine healing.
"The revelation consists of two parts:
"1. The discovery of this divine Science of Mind-healing, through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master.
"2. The proof, by present demonstration, that the so-called miracles of Jesus did not specially belong to a dispensation now ended, but that they illustrated an ever-operative divine Principle. The operation of this Principle indicates the eternality of the scientific order and continuity of being."Science and Health, p. 123.
So what should be our starting point as healers? We need to begin with spiritual discovery too—with the revelation that our true spiritual selfhood is always at one with God and governed by His law. Our deepening understanding of God, through diligent study of the Bible and our Leader's writings, gives us the spiritual direction that forwards our own regeneration day by day.
In Science and Health the chapter "Christian Science Practice" shows us the qualities of thought that are needed in the healer. The chapter emphasizes that the basic ingredient is the expression of divine Love: "If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine." Wasn't it through divine Love that Christ Jesus reached the sufferers who called on him for help? The blind, the lepers, the lame, and many others must have felt Love's touch breaking the shackles of limitation and fear that bound them, thus enabling them to go on their way whole and free. Don't we long to do the same kind of healing work?
There is another instruction in the paragraph quoted above that will help us: "If the Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon, and such commendation as the Magdalen gained from Jesus, then he is Christian enough to practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the result will correspond with the spiritual intent."Ibid., p. 365.
What are the Magdalen qualities Jesus commended? Mrs. Eddy mentions quite a lot of them in this chapter: contrition, affection, goodness, purity, reverence, penitence, meekness, consecration, gladness, and gratitude, to name but a few. As we make these Christlike qualities our own, they enrich us spiritually and equip us for our healing work. We seek them in our deep prayer and our communion with God, and we strive to live them conscientiously each day.
When we dwell consistently within the radiance of the revelation of Truth, which Christ has given us, we will not lack the healing power to demonstrate the Science of Christianity.
