John’s Gospel gives a detailed account of Jesus’ last supper with his students. Jesus was clearly preparing them for the life-changing experiences of the next few days—his crucifixion and resurrection.
John reassures us that Jesus loved his students dearly. With great patience Jesus explained the true nature of his relationship to these students. He approved of them calling him “Lord” and “Master.” But there was an additional aspect to their relationship that Jesus wanted them to understand. He was “the way.” He demonstrated the kind of prayer and love and life that he expected his students to practice.
Following the last supper before his crucifixion, he modeled this love by the most extreme form of humility imaginable—washing the feet of each of his students. He explained, “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15).
Next, in Jesus’ showing of “the way,” he gave them a new commandment: “That ye love one another.” Not just any kind of love, but “as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).
This was familiar teaching territory for Jesus and his students. But that evening Jesus wanted his students to understand that he was modeling the moral, spiritual, godly path he wanted them to take: total humility; pure spiritual love; and above all a consciousness of their individual relationship to God, the Father.
Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: . . . I go to prepare a place for you. . . . And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know” (see John 14:1–11). Thomas—not mentally the swiftest of Jesus’ students!—asked, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?”
In response, Jesus patiently explained, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.”
Jesus wanted his students to understand that he was modeling the path he wanted them to take.
Hearing this, Philip broke in to ask Jesus to “shew us the Father.” This request provoked the most plaintive of Jesus’ responses: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
Central to Jesus’ teaching was understanding the absolute unity of man and God. You could even say this is the keystone of Jesus’ teachings. It was doubtless for this reason that Jesus was so disappointed that Philip had not grasped this basic concept.
Jesus came back to this idea just a few moments later, describing his oneness with God in these words: “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.”
It was a challenge for Jesus, as it is for us, to put into words the full meaning of that unity of man with God. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, uses a variety of metaphors to help us better understand the oneness that we all have with God. She writes, “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 361).
Perhaps the idea she uses most frequently to illustrate this key relationship is that of reflection. She says, “As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God” (Science and Health, p. 516). She also describes this relationship as Mind and its idea—man as the idea of God, the idea of divine Mind.
We too, as conscientious students of Jesus, can learn how to see God’s own likeness in ourselves and in others.
What a perfect way of articulating the essence of this relationship we each have to God! Philip, looking (mentally) at Jesus, should have been able to see God. He was looking directly at God’s, divine Mind’s, perfect idea or reflection. It was as simple as that.
Simple, but not easy. The physical senses keep spewing out false information about the supposed material nature of those with whom we come into contact. Those messages from the physical senses can be an enormous distraction. Mrs. Eddy explains that it was Jesus’ ability not to be distracted by these senses which enabled him to heal, and this ability also enables us to heal. She puts it very succinctly: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals” (Science and Health, pp. 476–477). We too, as conscientious students of Jesus, can learn how to see God’s own likeness in ourselves (an excellent place to start) and in others.
Shortly after I became interested in Christian Science, I had an opportunity to test this healing method on myself. For physical education at my school, I was taking fencing lessons. One day, while I was fooling around maskless, my eye was injured by a foil. I couldn’t see out of it and was afraid I was going to lose my sight in that eye permanently.
But I was a student of Jesus. For me Jesus was “the way.” Could prayer bring my consciousness of myself to the level where Jesus expected his students to have it? Would I have seen the Father while looking at Jesus, as he expected of his students?
One thing I knew was that the Glossary definition of God in the Christian Science textbook describes Him as “all-seeing” (Science and Health, p. 587). I felt I could pray as Jesus had, to be conscious of myself as being in the Father, inseparable from that all-seeing activity of God. I also prayed to see the Father in me, expressing that divine quality of vision without impediment.
That evening I began seeing shapes with that eye. Inspired by this progress, I prayed most of the night. I prayed especially to understand more concretely the nature of my relationship to God. That was what Jesus had underlined in his healing ministry.
At dawn I was able to see the sunrise clearly with both eyes.
Over the years I have come to appreciate more and more Jesus’ gentle but firm self-identification as “the way.” In the next few verses in John’s Gospel, Jesus spoke of a “Comforter” which he would ask God to send to abide with the disciples—and us—forever. Science and Health reveals this Comforter to be Divine Science. Thus we have in this Science an even more specific mapping out of our pathway. It enables us to see our unity with God with such clarity that we see His own image when we see ourselves as He made us. And it’s a way which includes the total humility, profound selfless love, indestructible spiritual vision, and countless other attributes which characterized Christ Jesus—the Messiah, or Savior. As his students, we are committing ourselves to following in the Way.
