Followers of Christ Jesus today are much like other people. They sleep and eat, go to work and shop, read and interact in community affairs. But in other ways they are profoundly distinctive. The views they hold about God and man, repentance and forgiveness, evil and heaven, while diverse among themselves, still provide a unique view of existence so unlike that held by many others on this planet. They are also different because of the feelings they sometimes have. They experience the kinds of feelings the Founder of Christianity felt.
For instance, Jesus struggled with some of the most difficult of human emotions in the garden of Gethsemane just before his crucifixion. How understandable that anyone, even this unequaled servant of God, would shrink from being nailed to a cross. He prayed that such a cup might pass from him. He agonized. Perhaps he wept. But he finally yielded. He gave up any personal will, any reluctance to face that awful event.
Jesus' followers relate to those feelings. In sympathy, a few have actually themselves been literally crucified. Through the centuries, Christians have wrestled, sometimes torturously, over what Jesus endured. Mary Baker Eddy's teachings are occasionally thought by fellow Christians not to appreciate fully what the cross symbolizes. Those Christians clearly have not taken seriously her writings, especially her chapter 'Atonement and Eucharist" in Science and Health.
