Just before Christ Jesus ascended he passed on to his disciples and future followers this imperative mission: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.… And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:15, 17, 18).
In a phrase, Jesus called on us—all of his followers—to be healers. But to understand the full meaning of that call requires us to look at his whole life. Of the many terms that will help us understand all that is meant by healing, I see three as especially useful: life, spiritual mindedness, and light.
In one sense, we might say that everything about the Savior, beginning with his virgin birth, was a type of testimony to the world. Jesus’ life testified to what God was revealing, through Jesus, about God’s own reality, and about our reality as God’s creation. A verse in the book of Deuteronomy provides an insight into the nature of our relationship to God: “For he is thy life” (30:20). Everything about Jesus’ existence testified to this truth. Truly, God was his Life. And he expected us to accept this as true about our own existence too. He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
What is this life, even this abundant life, Jesus was referring to? The Apostle Paul provided a helpful pathway to understanding these words when he challenged the conventional view of death by explaining that material mindedness is itself death. But then he went on to affirm the truth that “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).
We see in Jesus’ example that genuine healing has more to do with gaining spiritual consciousness than with losing material discord.
If we read the Gospels from the standpoint of how Jesus was teaching us to be spiritually minded, we begin discovering what real life is all about. It isn’t at all about the functioning of organs in a body of matter. It’s about how we choose to think. We may not have thought of it, but we are making life and death decisions every day. That is, we’re continually having to choose between being spiritually minded (which is life) and materially minded (which is death). Knowing this, we may be a little more thoughtful in how we respond to an unkind comment, or how we deal with a headache, or how we confront a fear about some supposed limitation, if we see it as a choice between being materially or spiritually minded, and therefore a choice between life and death.
The ministry of Christ Jesus is an incredible lesson about how to think as, and actually be, a healer. What he taught and lived of God’s perfection, and of man as His perfect image, was a model of ministry vastly more significant and all-encompassing than the model many of us may use today. We may have overly formalized or narrowed our sense of what it means to be a healer. The work of a Christian Science practitioner is not at all about providing the patient with a “metaphysical pill” to make a material body better. Primarily, it has to do with living a life of spiritual mindedness. This kind of life does result in healing, and a practitioner’s work indicates that, as Christians, we are all called on to be practitioners of healing.
Jesus healed with his life, with his divine nature and spiritual mindedness. He healed because he had a pure consciousness of God as his Life. He understood that the perfection of God was being made manifest in his life—as well as in the life of every individual. It was Jesus’ continuous spirituality and purity of thought that enabled him to be discerning of individual needs and to naturally bless those around him. This made him the greatest healer the world has ever known. And so, we see in Jesus’ example that genuine healing has more to do with gaining spiritual consciousness than with losing material discord. But the loss of that material discord is a natural outcome of the gain of spiritual understanding and spiritual consciousness.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote to her student James Neal of a yearning she felt. It seems to me that she was seeking the kind of healer who was consistent in rejecting deadly material mindedness, and who was willing to live the fullness of life that heals through spiritual mindedness and purity. Here is part of her letter:
“To this glorious end I ask you to still press on, and have no other ambition or aim. A real scientific Healer is the highest position attainable in this sphere of being. Its altitude is far above a Teacher or preacher; it includes all that is divinely high and holy. Darling James, leave behind all else and strive for this great achievement. Mother sighs to see how much her students need this attainment and longs to live to see one Christian Scientist attain it. Your aid to reach this goal is spiritualization. To achieve this you must have one God, one affection, one way, one Mind. Society, flattery, popularity are temptations in your pursuit of growth spiritual. Avoid them as much as in you lies. Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: ‘Lead me not into temptation,’—scientifically rendered,—Leave me not to lose sight of strict purity, clean pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek,—spiritually minded. With this altitude of thought your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality, and this is the state of mind that heals the sick” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, pp. 189–191).
As I study Jesus’ life, it seems to me he was calling on us to be so spiritually minded—that is, so filled with Christly light—that we would heal with our life.
If we set out in our ministry first and foremost to be spiritually minded, that gets at the essence of Jesus’ life. And it is this essence that leads to the natural outcome of spiritual mindedness: healing. The Master demonstrated practical results from all the godliness that characterized his consciousness. Sin, disease, and death are patches of darkness. Spiritual mindedness is light. Jesus declared himself to be “the light of the world” (John 8:12), but he also insisted, “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). When we have this spiritual light, the understanding of divine truth that Jesus’ life revealed, we find it destroys darkness and shadows. This light of Christ dissolves sickness, redeems and transforms the sinner, and even raises the dead, and it can do so today, just as it did in Jesus’ day.
As I study Jesus’ life, it seems to me he was calling on us to be so spiritually minded—that is, so filled with Christly light—that we would heal with our life. Jesus called on his disciples, including us today, to heal. His call to heal is incredibly direct, and we read it in several places in the Gospels, including his pre-ascension directive. Take these words, as another example: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
Here’s what I see behind those words as I think about them today: “You can and must be spiritually minded. I’ve taught you how to live a life of spiritual mindedness; now go out and let that light heal.” I hear his words spoken with great emphasis. And I take his term “works” to mean healing in the fullest sense of the word, including working out my salvation.
Mrs. Eddy writes about being a healer, and she says, elaborating on those words of Jesus: “The fulfilment of the grand verities of Christian healing belongs to every period; as the above Scripture plainly declares, and as primitive Christianity confirms. Also, the last chapter of Mark is emphatic on this subject; making healing a condition of salvation, that extends to all ages and throughout all Christendom” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 192).
That last chapter of Mark includes the assurance, “He that believeth [entrusts his life to Christ] and is baptized [has purified and spiritualized his thought] shall be saved” (16:16). And then Jesus testifies that this will enable us to fulfill our spiritual purpose, including healing.
And so we have here in the book of Mark the last words of Christ Jesus before he ascended, words that summarized all that Jesus lived and taught about being spiritually minded and healing. Jesus uttered these words for all his disciples, for all time. And as Mrs. Eddy describes it, this work of healing, in its largest and fullest sense, of transforming our lives from material mindedness to spiritual mindedness, is “a condition of salvation.”
We heal with this light in our lives. If we live a life committed to recognizing there is just one Mind, or God, we will be someone who helps unite. That’s being a healer. If we live a life that manifests divine Love, our compassion will lift fear from our neighbor’s thought. That’s being a healer. If we feel the peace and harmony of Soul, we’ll dissolve disease. That’s being a healer.
If we live a life that manifests divine Love, our compassion will lift fear from our neighbor’s thought. That’s being a healer.
We call ourselves Christians. This means we believe what Jesus said. That being true, it’s natural to commit ourselves, as fully as we can, to following the words Jesus uttered throughout his ministry, especially the mission he assigned to us just before he left us. That’s the least we can do in light of all he did for us.
I can’t think of anything more inspiring, more joy-fulfilling, more meaningful and purposeful, than for Christians to follow Jesus’ example as a healer. That means living a life so filled with the light of spiritual mindedness that everyone around us is blessed with healing. One way you can strengthen your ability to live this life and to heal in this way is to remember, believe, and accept the divine mission Jesus left us in his departing words, the command he spoke as he was lifted out of mortality.
