After the Master, Christ Jesus, was arrested and taken to Pontius Pilate to be tried, he stated: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." Pilate then asked Jesus, "What is truth?" John 18:37, 38 Jesus replied with silence, a silence that over the centuries not a few have tried to fill with their own expositions of truth, many of which have fallen quite wide of the mark, and none of which have matched the works of Jesus.
Jesus lived a life of love by healing sin and disease, and even raising the dead. In doing so he revealed the truth—the absolute facts of God and man—proving God, Spirit, to be ever present and all-powerful, and man to be God's unflawed, spiritual likeness. But he did something else as well. By demonstrating the truth that man is wholly spiritual, his works also uncovered and proved powerless the lie of mortality, showing matter's claim to create, constitute, and control man to be no more than a dream, an ignorant, mortal belief. And herein lies the origin of the opposition Jesus encountered; for in exposing matter's unreality through his healing works, he was challenging the basic assumptions and foundations of world thought. The carnal mind could not tolerate this, and the materially-minded sought to kill him. In Science and Health Mary Baker Eddy writes, "This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's antagonism." Science and Health, p. 345
Suppose Jesus had acted differently. What if he had simply been a good man espousing a philosophy of love rather than actually demonstrating the supremacy of Truth over physicality? Would he have been crucified? Many who came after him and did no more than that were not so threatened. With this in mind, we might consider the healing of Lazarus. Jesus went to rouse Lazarus from the dream called death. But suppose upon arriving at Bethany and encountering Martha and Mary, Jesus had done no more than to comfort the grieving. If he had simply told those assembled not to worry, that Lazarus was with God, that life is eternal, and that God would sustain them in their hour of sorrow, would anyone have objected? Undoubtedly not. But Jesus would not be restrained within the confines of mortal belief. By his awakening Lazarus from his dream and giving immediate and tangible proof that life is indestructible, the very essence of the belief of life and intelligence in matter was disrobed; and for this, Jesus was the object of error's hatred.
