ON THE SUNDAY just before Christmas in 1888, a sermon written by Mary Baker Eddy was given in Boston's Chickering Hall. See Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, pp. 161–168 . Her subject was "The Corporeal and Incorporeal Saviour." Her text was Isaiah's: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ...." Isa. 9:6. The sermon was eloquent, incisive—and utterly revolutionary. Nothing ever before or since has so boldly and effectively cut through centuries of scholasticism and confusion about Christ Jesus in the way this did.
It was as though the sermon was freed to take flight and soar from the impetus of an entirely new premise: Christ Jesus was able to do what he did, not because he was both God and man, but because he was fully conscious of something extraordinary about God and man that every human being must ultimately come to know. Jesus knew that not only was he the Son of God—and all his intelligence, goodness, and capacity to heal were, in fact, God's own direct expressing—but that all of us were to find this out about ourselves. It was the true idea of God, or the Christ, Mrs. Eddy said, that uniquely illumined and empowered the human Jesus.
Here was a new, enlarged vision of the dimensions of Christ Jesus' meaning for the whole of humanity. It had an assurance and immediacy that must have been breathtaking to those listening. It still does. It shows us why and how we can actually be disciples or followers in Christ Jesus' footsteps—not simply by loving and assisting our neighbor or committing to a religious creed, but through living what is essentially a new life in Christ.
"We are not Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ," Science and Health, p. 192. wrote Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. Her Christmas sermon articulated the extent of what she knew to be required on this front. She said of Jesus, for example: "To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of human self." Mis., p. 162. So must we, if we are to come into the power of the Christ to heal, to change our lives and the course of the world.
Mrs. Eddy, who discovered the Science of Christ, showed the Christ to have a far greater role than inspiring and comforting humankind. Yet to many today, the sentiment of the Bible, while appealing, seems impractical in the medicalized world of the third millennium. Christian Science healing, however, did not arise because of the inadequacy of early medicine. Christ is God's message, and it is making known to us now, as definitely as it did for Jesus centuries ago, the spiritual reality that has God, Spirit, as the Principle of the universe, rather than blind material cause and effect.
Naturally, every healing is deeply meaningful to a Christian Science practitioner, but sometimes circumstances conjoin to make a healing a powerful illustration and humbling lesson for the person who has been asked to pray. Earlier this year I had a call from someone I didn't know who was in a local hospital. It turned out to be a woman who didn't know me either, but was just reaching out for help from anyone who was a Christian Scientist. She explained that she'd studied and loved reading Christian Science literature for many years but that she wasn't a churchgoer. Her love for God, however, was obvious.
The woman had gone to the hospital for an operation that had supposedly been successful. But now there was a desperate situation resulting from the operation. She asked if I would pray with her. It wasn't a moment for trying to explain important distinctions between prayer and Christian Science treatment. So I listened for God's direction for a minute and then simply said yes, I'd be glad to.
I did pray, and my thought was lifted up by Spirit. I saw that what was most significant and influential for this woman was God Himself, not the extremely complex material situation she found herself in. I knew that she belonged to God, and therefore she was, in fact, spiritual, not material. Later the next day she called again. The doctors were saying that the longer she waited, the more drastic another operation would have to be in the morning.
After telling me all this in some detail, she suddenly paused. "But," she said, "doesn't the Bible say 'where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them'? Matt. 18:20 . Now," she continued, in a childlike way, almost like counting up, "there's you and me and then there's the Christ, and that's enough! From what you've been telling me, we can resist and deny any power to all these symptoms and problems, can't we? And Christ will help us do that. We can do that right now, you and I together."
So we did. Right there on the phone—we talked it through. There was a noticeable, new quality of strength and expectation in her voice. After I hung up, I continued to pray until late at night and then early the next morning, as well. At the close of my praying, I wrote on a piece of paper: "Thank you Father for what has already been given to us. Our job now is simply to dwell in Love's care for her." Since it was Sunday morning, and I had to leave early to teach Sunday School, I called the hospital. I got the woman's husband.
His voice is strong and clear. He tells me that the doctor has been there and that there's been a "miracle." The fever is gone, the blood-cell count is normal, and the doctor says she can get out of bed and walk around. The husband passes over the phone to his wife, and we rejoice together. From that point, all the way to church, I am full of a joy that isn't just happiness and gratitude, but a response to the sheer realness of good. I am seeing more of what it means to stay within the light of Christ and how much is being given us in that light from God.
Mrs. Eddy described the Christ as "the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness." Science and Health, p. 332. This living Christ is doing more than strengthening a sinful and weak mortal. It is transforming our human sense of a material existence by making evident the Christianly scientific fact that God never actually created a man and woman likely to be weak and undeserving of His vast goodness. In fact, God's man has the selfhood that Jesus knew as his own—and that belongs to all.
Being wakened by Christ makes us conscious of life and the universe in the hand of God, where good is natural and thoroughly real.
Yes, it's a very "new" view of man. But it was Jesus' own view and helps to explain practically how his healings of sin and of sickness came about. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" John 8:32.—shall release you from the dreamlike state of apparently deserving to live at some inordinate distance from the Divine.
Being wakened by Christ often makes sharp demands for more obedience, focus, and honesty. But above all, it makes us conscious of life and the universe in the hand of God, Spirit—and of our simple need to enter into that universe where good is natural and thoroughly real. Then we are not so impressed with all that we have to do, to know, to initiate and persist in, as we are with what God has already made us and His universe to be. It feels something like sitting with Christ Jesus and seeing through his eyes, like finding a new selfhood in the light of Christ.
