Christ Jesus came lifting up a standard for the people. Throughout his whole experience on earth as the Son of man this standard was never lowered. "'And I," he said in divine confidence of his great mission and example, "if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
During his Messiahship, he did indeed draw men unto himself. On one occasion so great were the crowds thus drawn that there was no means of reaching him except by uncovering the roof and letting down the sick man who had come to be healed. Sometimes thousands followed him into the desert, forgetful of their own need for food and shelter in their desire to hear him; sometimes they would climb to the top of a mountain, carrying their sick with them, that they might be healed of him.
And even after he was no longer visible to their human vision this did not cease. Onward through the centuries, that which had been lifted up by him, the inspiration, the tenderness, the nobility, the all-satisfying completeness of the Christ-message, remained to draw men to it in wonder and in gratitude. For its sake they were prepared to face untold persecution and martyrdom; they were prepared even to sacrifice their very existence and that of those they most loved. In the truths he taught, in the way he had taken, they knew lay the sure promise of eternal life.
It was the purpose of Jesus not only to lift men up, but to awaken that within them which would enable them also to impart this great gift to others. Had the world accepted and understood the full meaning of what had been brought to them, all false and fleeting standards would have been swept away. In their thoughts and in their deeds, men would have been found maintaining only the perfect standard to which Jesus consistently bore witness. For this was what he demanded of his followers. As the Father was perfect, so they also must express perfection.
On page 470 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy has stated with dynamic intent: "The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?"
The tendency of the individual instructed in the theology of the schools has been to acknowledge divinity in reverence and devotion, while adopting without question an immeasurably lower standard of expectation and accomplishment in his own life. Thus the separability of God and man has been accepted not only as natural, but as inevitable.
Many hundreds of years before the coming of Christ Jesus, Isaiah had assured God's people that "when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." What was this standard that was to turn back the flood of the enemy, not by material means, not by a great show of counteracting violence, but by "the Spirit of the Lord"? Whatever it might be—and men, if they thought of it at all, connected it with some distant divine intermediary—Jesus possessed its secret. In his destruction of all forms of evil, in his every mighty, evil-banishing announcement, he sought to draw men out of the darkness of fear and suffering into the light of Truth; to establish standards of health and sinlessness where sickness and evil held sway. It was because he knew that Truth was available for them as well as for himself, omnipotent and omnipresent, that he could speak in no tentative, experimental way.
Mrs. Eddy has spoken with a like authority. On page 93 of "Retrospection and Introspection" she writes: "At the present epoch the human concept of Christ is based on the incorporeal divine Principle of man, and Science has elevated this idea and established its rules in consonance with their Principle." Here she sets forth the fact that through the teachings of Christian Science the divine Comforter has been brought to mankind, as Jesus promised that it should. The "I" of Spirit which he lifted up, not merely for worship but for emulation and for adoption, has been revealed, so that all men can understand and practice it.
Christian people are often startled and perturbed at the evils of hatred and suffering which they behold in the world. Not in horror, in despair, in useless bewailing, but in the courage and determination, the compassion and selflessness, of individual character, will that be raised up which alone can bring salvation and establish peace. As men come to identify themselves with this Christ-ideal, uplifted, limitless, eternally informed of the Father's will, they will know that they are possessed at all times of the perfect standard, against which no enemy efforts, however subtle and relentless, can succeed.
On page 290 of Science and Health our Leader in confirmation of this has written, "Perfection is gained only by perfection." In the recognition of man as the son of God, not fallen but one with the Father, perfect because God never made aught but perfection, this true nature is revealed.
As this standard is lifted up, all enemy floods must yield to that which brings with it not only the might of Spirit, but also the might of Love. It was to show men how this must be done that Jesus consecrated his whole human destiny; from the time of her discovery of Christian Science we know that Mrs. Eddy held no other goal in view.
For those who have learned through the teachings of Christian Science to think of man not as remote from God, discredited, fallen, but as one with divine Principle, ever gaining perfection because to him perfection has been revealed, there must come the tender assurance which came to Jesus, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Thus, obedient and faithful in the mission which they have undertaken, they will follow steadfastly, unremittingly, in the footsteps of him who, being lifted up, knew that thereby others were lifted up also.
