To address humanity’s great needs will clearly take something stronger and deeper than anything the human mind can come up with. From violence to disease to climate change, humanity isn’t sufficiently solving the essential problem of being human, apparently subject to material limits and unending conflict. But here’s where Christmas answers the need. It points us to God, Spirit—not just as a beautiful thought but as an ever-present power that brings to light the true idea of Life so that we can face what’s wrong in the world and heal it.
More than presents and a decorated tree, Christmas is a celebration of how Christ Jesus entered the world through the loving power of God. Beyond that, it’s a celebration of what this power did in Jesus’ life and what it does in ours. This power we call Christ, and it’s forever revealing a more spiritual idea of being—the essence of which is God’s qualities, such as intelligence, grace, and purpose.
Christ, the spiritual idea of Life, is always at work in human consciousness, and it carries us forward toward more spiritually based, secure lives marked by divine harmony and courageous love. Courageous because right in the face of the limiting, matter-based view of everything, we feel inspired to hold to a conviction of and devotion to Spirit, God, including the hope of seeing God’s goodness at work impelling changes that are so urgently needed in the world.
Christmas is a celebration of what the loving power of God did in Jesus’ life and what it does in ours.
The Christmas story is filled with testaments to the spiritual courage that we need. Mary had the quiet strength that kept her devoted to serving God, devoted to a more spiritual sense of life than the world offered. She was willing to believe and prepare for something revolutionary—conceiving and bearing the Bethlehem babe as a virgin—which went totally against human reasoning and material “laws.” Joseph found the willingness to support this right idea, and later to heed an angel’s warning to flee from Herod to protect the baby.
All of this enabled the advent of Jesus of Nazareth, which blessed and changed the world. Today we need to build on those changes by also having the courage to go against worldly thinking and serve God, by recognizing divine Spirit as the origin and Life of all. This results in lives more filled with God’s good qualities and the healing that these qualities bring about in our bodies and our entire experience.
This willingness to push against the flow of general thought has saved me on more than a couple of occasions. A few years ago it proved to be key in healing chest pains that I had experienced for some time. As I had for many years, I looked to see prayer take care of this problem.
I always pray from the basis of God, infinite Love, as the essence of our lives. This basis for thinking and praying can be comforting and healing. But I find it needs to keep expanding—to be fully thought through in order to keep healing us, empowering us.
As I did consider this spiritual basis more thoroughly and deeply, I saw clearly that, because God is both Life and Love, our lives should be a selfless expression of Love. Looked at this way, we’re not thinking in terms of simply wanting a comfortable, pleasant experience for ourselves, but rather of having a life-purpose of helping to show forth the spiritual nature of Life, and thereby contributing to bigger, broader progress for everyone. In doing this we’re embracing and living the very essence of Christmas.
As I prayed, I sensed that my heart is entirely intended to beat for humanity’s spiritual progress. My metaphorical “motor” is not intended to pursue and enable only what is good for me. That’s a mortal model that loses the strength of the Love that undergirds the universe. Our “motor” is of God. So it’s intended to keep us moving in accord with Him. I sensed that if I wanted my heart to beat strongly, I needed to see more of our innate, spiritual strength that enables us to do more today for God, good, than we did yesterday. Really, I was getting a bigger sense of Love, the divine Spirit of our lives.
This all changed my consciousness, improving my health and strength. I stopped having those chest pains. And since then, I’ve even more prioritized striving for understanding God and expressing His love. By this I mean not seeking the easy and enjoyable, but facing tough situations with the intent of seeing them redeemed, healed, so as to magnify God. This is the deep Christmas courage that the world needs, and that individually and collectively will save us from our troubles.
If we want more strength and health for ourselves and humanity, we need to keep finding more of our innate courage that means not simply wanting good for ourselves but wanting a sea change for the world. It’s a courage that keeps our focus on the light we’re bringing to the room we’re in, as witnesses to the spiritual idea that’s always in consciousness. It’s a trust that everything gets taken care of in our efforts to really love, to truly bear witness to Christ, the spiritual idea of God. It’s the courage to see that this idea, rather than the state of the world or any physical conditions we face, defines us individually and collectively. As a result, we help change the world, heal the world.
The consciousness of Love, moving us to express Love, is our true, Christly consciousness. So we need to be caught up in evidencing more of God in our lives, pushing past oppressive thoughts suggesting that only matter determines everything—suggesting that we are left merely to jockey for a pleasant corner to hang out in.
God’s qualities, including the courage evident in the nativity story, are what move us forward. And as this deeper, Christly courage is more broadly understood and lived, it brings us to the spiritual consciousness that has solutions to everything and will help secure humanity’s health, face down wars, and lift us free of the trauma of climate change.
We need to have the courage to go against worldly thinking and serve God, by recognizing Spirit as the origin and Life of all.
This is deeply biblical stuff. It’s the ascendency of supreme good over all evil. It’s the beautiful spiritual truth revealed in Christ Jesus’ nativity gaining strength in our thought and winning out over the ugly lie about man as dependent on matter. Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Isn’t this sword the spiritual understanding that cuts us free from material thinking, an understanding that very much requires the courage to stand for Truth that the Christmas message gives us?
Mary Baker Eddy writes, “After the stars sang together and all was primeval harmony, the material lie made war upon the spiritual idea; but this only impelled the idea to rise to the zenith of demonstration, destroying sin, sickness, and death, and to be caught up unto God,—to be found in its divine Principle” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 565).
We see the spiritual idea more fully represented, rising in demonstration, by means of Christ Jesus’ life. It’s this higher idea of Life that we celebrate at Christmas. And every day we can each see it more fully represented in our own and others’ lives.
