Jerusalem is indescribably lovely. To one standing on the Mount of Olives looking across the Kidron Valley at the Old City, the white limestone buildings and the impressive Muslim shrine, the golden Dome of the Rock, give the city a special glow. It looks like a beautiful jewel.
As I drank in its beauty, some of the many Biblical phrases about the city came flooding into my thought. From Isaiah: "Be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Isa. 65:18. And from the Psalmist: "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." Ps. 147:2, 3.
That verse can be seen as having special meaning from the standpoint of Christian Science, for the New Jerusalem, which is written of in the book of Revelation See Rev. 3:12; 21:2 . and in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, is understood in this Science to be a wholly spiritual idea. No one is left out of this holy city. No one is an outcast, kept away from his heart's desire for healing and home. The Glossary of Science and Health spiritually defines New Jerusalem this way: "Divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony." Science and Health, p. 592.
In order to help resolve through prayer the continuing challenges in the Middle East, we might deeply consider this spiritual reality of divine Science, of God's oneness and allness, as the basis for our prayers. We don't necessarily have to have traveled to the Holy Land. Although Christ Jesus didn't travel far beyond the Palestine of New Testament times, his God-derived thoughts and life brought healing to the world. Right in his own consciousness he overcame the concept of the world and mankind as being at the mercy of evil. He rose above the belief that evil has reality.
Too often, perhaps, our prayers to heal a conflict in the world are based upon the belief that the evil is a big reality that must somehow be laboriously tackled. But the Master didn't approach healing that way. His standpoint was a spiritual one. He showed that through becoming so conscious of good, so conscious that God, divine Truth and Love, is the only reality, we find the belief in evil fading out of our consciousness. Jesus' ascension proved that he finally rose above the entire belief in evil's so-called reality.
To thought that is rising above the material view of things, there just isn't any sinning, mortal, troubled man. The consciousness of the Christ includes only the true vision of man and the universe as God's perfect and eternal spiritual idea.
Isn't this lifting up of thought to God's allness and goodness what we need to do to be of the most help to mankind? Salvation is individual, but the leavening influence of God's power is certainly felt in the community at large. For instance, one day our little tour group was in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. This is the church that commemorates the place where tradition has suggested that Jesus was born. There we were—a group of Christian Scientists, being instructed by a Jewish guide, in a church edifice under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church. Just below us in prayerful procession walked a group of Franciscan monks singing Gregorian chants. And we could hear a loudspeaker from a minaret outside calling faithful Muslims to their Friday noon prayers. It was quite an impressive mix of religiously minded people! But from a material viewpoint, from just looking at and listening to that diverse group of people, it appeared that the various traditions, religions, and cultures were so deeply ingrained in each individual that there could never be any real unity among us.
And yet, I asked myself, isn't everyone here longing to have a more real, practical understanding of God come into his or her life? What would Jesus do in the face of such a crowd? Or more accurately, what did Jesus do in similar groups—for he encountered differing cultures and was surrounded by different religious beliefs. Didn't he take the higher viewpoint that all individuals are, in truth, God's man, God's beloved sons and daughters? As an example, at the time of Jesus' resurrection he told Mary Magdalene, who first saw the risen Jesus, that she was to go to his brethren and tell them what he had just said: "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." John 20:17. The Master's way of helping others was to understand that all people have an already established relationship to God as their Father. To Jesus, what was spiritually and scientifically true of himself as God's own Son was just as true for the individuals who surrounded him in the villages, in Jerusalem itself, and everywhere.
In Jesus' abandonment of the material viewpoint of man, he was in no way being an isolationist. There were, of course, times when he went away by himself to pray and commune more deeply with God. But we read that he was soon again in the villages and towns, walking and talking with the people. His way of leaving evil behind was not to go off in selfish indifference to people's needs; it was not to ignore the world. Rather, he consciously abandoned evil in his thought. To the great Master and Saviour of mankind, evil—whatever its form—was allowed no reality, no substance, no power. He abandoned the false beliefs of disease, sin, and death through accepting God, or good, as the only reality, the only substance, the only power. And this higher, true consciousness of divine good, being the very substance of his thought, not only healed people who were receptive to God; it also lifted Jesus himself above the belief of life in matter.
The Master showed us that we can bring healing to the world, too. We can heal our own concept of it, and this can be tangibly felt in the betterment of human conditions. We can stop giving evil—the belief of life in matter—reality in our own consciousness. As Mrs. Eddy writes of her own first healing when she discovered Christian Science, "... I awoke from the dream of Spirit in the flesh so far as to take the side of Spirit, and strive to cease my warfare." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 180.
And so I decided that instead of carrying around troubling thoughts of how all the differing cultures, as represented by the group of people in that church, were to be united, I would cease my own warfare. Instead of believing that there was a world badly in need of healing, I could strive to rise higher in my own consciousness of the allness and goodness of God encompassing the universe and all mankind right now.
I decided that instead of carrying around troubling thoughts of how all the differing cultures were to be united, I would cease my own warfare.
This idea reminded me of a phrase in James A. Michener's historical novel The Source. The Source (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 934 . Our guide had suggested that reading that book would give us a deeper understanding of the history of Israel, and the place that the Jewish concept of one God had in that history. A particular phrase, "... next year in Jerusalem," had touched me rather deeply. In the context of the novel, the phrase is used to represent the Jewish people's desire to have their own homeland established. But in a deeper sense the phrase might refer to the longing everyone has for the Jerusalem that Science and Health spiritually interprets as "home, heaven." Science and Health, p. 589.
Not only the Jews, Muslims, Franciscans, and Christians who were mingling in and around the Church of the Nativity that day, but Chinese, Americans, Russians, Brazilians, Arabs, Hindus, Catholics, Christian Scientists, all over the world—don't we all have an anticipation that if not now, then surely sometime, maybe next year, our prayers will be answered, and we will find our "heaven," the answer to those difficulties that haunt us; and the love of God will be revealed to us?
How wonderful, though, as Christian Science reveals, that one never has to wait longingly for "next year" for the answers to come. God, or good, is ever available here and now, the omnipresent, active, living divine Spirit who does meet the needs of His "children of Israel." And surely children of Israel is what we all are if we understand and demonstrate this phrase in the way Science and Health spiritually defines it: "Christ's offspring." Ibid., p. 583. Even if the material senses' limited view sees man as Jew, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or any other religion, or no religion, man is actually, always "Christ's offspring," because man is always the offspring of divine Truth and Love.
The book of Isaiah acknowledges the fact of God's presence with man when it says, "Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem." Isa. 52:9. The prophet was speaking from the standpoint of spiritual vision, because anyone seeing through the material sense of vision might surely have said then—and say now—that the conflict in that region indicates that God has not redeemed Jerusalem—at least not yet.
And that's where Christian Science can be of such help to praying people everywhere. It shows us not to pray from the standpoint that God's goodness has not yet come and that our prayers will help bring it to pass. We cannot bring to pass that which already truly is. Yet we can exchange a material viewpoint for the spiritual viewpoint, as Isaiah must have. How do we do this?
We do it by cultivating in ourselves a love of God, good—of Spirit, not materialism. We do it by learning to have faith and trust in God's living, active being in His own universe. Through a deepening study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, we gain a stronger conviction that God, good, really is All-in-all, everywhere. We begin to realize more fully that all men and women are, in truth, one family dwelling together in one home—the all-inclusive oneness of infinite, divine Love. Through our prayers we can acknowledge continually God's supremacy, power, and constant love for, and care of, His spiritual idea, man. In these ways, the material viewpoint of man as a mortal with intractable human opinions begins to yield to the spiritual sense of man as the individual expression of the one, infinite divine Mind, which governs its own creation. In this spiritual understanding of creation there are no deep-seated prejudices or rigid mortal opinions; there's just God's love being expressed and felt.
For example, our guide on this trip was a very fine Jewish man. We all thought he was the best guide ever—considerate, knowledgeable, intelligent, compassionate. He knew we were Christian Scientists, but he didn't know much about Christian Science itself. And when he found us likable, intelligent people, he asked a few questions about our religious convictions. When he heard that Christian Scientist believe in one infinite, incorporeal God, he was delighted. That's exactly what the Jewish concept of God is, he stated—one infinite, incorporeal God. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," Deut. 6:4. the Old Testament so clearly states. He didn't try to convert us, nor did we try to convert him. But there clearly developed an affectionate bonding between this man and his tour group of Christian Scientists. And to me, this was a simple hint of the love that can unite those who understand something of God's oneness.
The Bible says to each of us, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." And that verse continues, "They shall prosper that love thee." Ps. 122:6. Why do we prosper when we love the spiritual idea that Jerusalem signifies? Because we're coming into agreement with the truth that God's allness includes all individuals, and we ourselves are included, as God's reflection, in that divine oneness. We find home and heaven in the consciousness that God is all good, and as we abide in that joyful consciousness, we find ourselves experiencing more of the divine good that God is constantly being and unfolding.
As we do seek, through prayer, the peace of Jerusalem by letting our thoughts be lifted up through the study and practice of Christian Science, gradually we come to the understanding that the "city" is really our own consciousness of the Christ. This Christly consciousness is the spiritual understanding that all people have one God, one Father, one Mind. Such an illumined realization brings its own immediate, healing answers to mankind's deep needs. This is the way we begin to see the world the way Christ Jesus saw it. We see the whole world, and all its inhabitants, as the holy city, which is never left behind in our daily ascension above the belief of life in matter. Rather it is always with us in consciousness—as the perfect and peaceful expression of God, divine Truth and Love.
