Recently I was thinking about efforts being made to try to find the human remains of Christ Jesus—his DNA, his bones. Such efforts would try to deny the Master’s example to us of Life as spiritual and eternal, his resurrection, and his ascension. But what Jesus left behind is not material. It is his spiritual example.
The Bible tells us: “If Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (I Corinthians 15:12–14). I know that faith and spiritual understanding are not worthless. We can all be true witnesses to the power of God by following in the path Jesus pointed out to us and applying the scientific truths underlying his works, which Mary Baker Eddy discovered. This spiritual understanding has resulted in my having been healed of a variety of illnesses and injuries, and being protected and comforted.
Jesus said, “Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). So, when we look to matter for answers, we’re looking in the wrong direction. “Mary of old wept because she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre—looked for the person, instead of the Principle that reveals Christ. The Mary of to-day looks up for Christ, away from the supposedly crucified to the ascended Christ, to the Truth that ‘healeth all thy diseases’ and gives dominion over all the earth,” writes Mrs. Eddy (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 119). We have to let go of a material sense of reality and reach for a spiritual understanding of God as Life eternal, and man as His reflection, made in His image and likeness. Jesus’ ascension left nothing material behind, but it did leave his example for us to follow.
