When Christ Jesus encountered a man with "an infirmity" at the pool of Bethesda, he asked, "Wilt thou be made whole?" John 5:5, 6. This question might seem startling in view of the man's physical condition and the duration of it, which the Bible tells us was thirty-eight years. Under such circumstances, who wouldn't want to be made whole? Yet instead of giving an affirmative reply to Jesus' question, the man told the Master why he hadn't been healed. He thought the only way he could be cured was by getting into the pool when the water was disturbed, and being first in the pool. He lamented that he had no one to help him into the water.
Jesus knew the excuse given by the man had no bearing on God's spiritual idea, the real and only man. It was no more than a superstitious belief. Jesus healed him of the mistaken beliefs that had held him in bondage all those years. Even the duration of the infirmity didn't matter in the least to the call of the Christ. How decisively the Master cut through the red tape of false beliefs with his injunction "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk"! John 5:8.
The Christ-power, expressed by Jesus, evidently roused the man to see something of his God-given perfection, untarnished by sickly beliefs. And this is the basis of the Christly method of Christian Science healing—man's present perfection as God's spiritual likeness. The Bible tells us in its first chapter that God made man in His own image and likeness, and that God saw all that He had made as "very good."
Because man—our true selfhood—has never lost his whole, perfect state as God's reflection, sickness must, in the final analysis, be illusory, unreal. So destroying the illusion that sickness is real is what is needed to effect healing. Working from this basis, we can cure illness and disease through prayer, prayer that acknowledges the all-power of God and the perfection of what He has made. This enables us, through divine power, to cast out of our own thought, or the thought of anyone who comes to us for help through prayer, the belief that there is reality in sickness.
Jesus must have discerned the readiness of the man by the pool, for as far as we know from the Scriptural record, this was the only "patient" the Master took on that occasion among a crowd of people with various troubles. Didn't the others want healing too? Yet, were they truly willing to be made whole—ready to let go of their false beliefs?
Science and Health says, "The Bible teaches transformation of the body by the renewal of Spirit." Science and Health, p. 241. Sometimes an individual is not immediately aware that spiritual renewal, brought about by divine Spirit, God, has taken place, so glad is he of physical healing. But always there is transformation within, for without it healing would not occur. Why? Because disease, discord, any inharmony, is fundamentally a false mental state—a belief in a power apart from God and in a condition contrary to His infinite goodness.
All inharmony, be it sickness, grief, loss, lack, is solely the result of believing in a reality apart from God's wholly good creation. It is belief in some aspect of the fictional concept of creation that begins in the second chapter of the book of Genesis. This allegorical account of creation sets forth a wholly mortal, material concept, which is the opposite of the real, spiritual account found in the first chapter of Genesis.
The mission of Christ Jesus wasn't, then, just to heal a host of infirmities or to give his followers exhibitions of supposedly personal powers. As the Son of God, his mission was to awaken humanity from the false sense of existence in matter. His life presents a pattern for every one of us to follow in order to become Christlike and thereby work out our salvation. Jesus was the perfect model for you and me to emulate.
We should ask ourselves often, "Wilt thou be made whole?" Are we leaving all for Christ, or are we clinging fearfully or longingly to some idol such as a drug, a bad habit, hatred, lust? As such materialistic tendencies are laid off, "the new man"— our true selfhood—appears.
Whatever would put a stumbling block in your path to wholeness is removed through the power of Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love. In reality, God's man could never harbor false beliefs, for his consciousness is the pure reflection of the divine Mind, of Truth itself. But there is the need to prove this, the demand to demonstrate salvation from all tyrannical and oppressive beliefs associated with so-called material life. We must lovingly yield to God's government, turn away from earthbound materialistic thinking, as from a bad dream, and realize spiritual existence as the eternal and only fact of our being. It is certain that to the degree our thinking is spiritualized, evil can't control our experience.
Whatever would put a stumbling block in your path to wholeness is removed through the power of Christ.
Jesus evidently discerned that the man at the pool was receptive to the laying aside of earth-weights. All the man truly needed was to be lifted out of the false beliefs that had kept him down. The Bible tells us that after the Master commanded him to rise and walk, he quickly responded. 'And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked." John 5:9. So we too, as we're receptive to the Christ, will experience regeneration and put on "the new man." See Col. 3:9, 10.
There was a period in my life when I struggled constantly with numbness and tingling in my legs. This condition began prior to my becoming a student of Christian Science. Though I could still walk, I wasn't steady on my feet and was always in pain. The first thing I learned about healing when I found Christian Science was the need to cast fear out of my thinking. The fear yielded as I came to understand my unity with God, the inseparability of God and man. I knew that in the all-presence of God, good, fear must be totally absent. As I thought about the truth of man's immutable, incontestable wholeness in God, I began to give up all sorts of undesirable tendencies. Not only was fear overcome, but such things as a false feeling of guilt, indecisiveness, impatience. These and many other traits gave way to a new view of myself and others as purely spiritual, without a taint of matter or error. I vividly remember becoming aware one night while in bed that for the first time in years I felt no pain in my legs. At first I was alarmed, thinking that perhaps my legs had lost all sensation. However, when I got out of bed and stood and then walked, I realized I was completely healed. This healing has remained permanent.
What might hinder you from realizing your wholeness? What would keep you from experiencing your divine right of freedom? In truth, any error that claims to do such things is powerless. And you can prove this as you maintain with conviction that nothing harmful can ever touch the royalty of your being. As we recognize ourselves as the reflection of God and of nothing else, we realize our God-given wholeness. We come to know we have never really been anywhere but in the Mind that is God. Mind, God, conceives man as idea. And since God is exclusively good, it follows that His idea, man, is also purely good. There is nothing outside of God's allness—there is no dualistic existence. Whatever seems discordant (no matter how real it appears) is a lie, and it can be denied and dismissed on that very basis. Science and Health says, "The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike." Science and Health, p. 200.
Jesus clearly recognized only one creation, the spiritual. We can turn wholeheartedly to Spirit, God, to discern this reality and recognize our true nature and status in His kingdom. We can offer on the altar of Truth the false beliefs and traits that would hinder our demonstration of wholeness. This can be done as we lovingly yield to God's holy plan and purpose, as we yield to the divine will, maintaining allegiance to Spirit alone in thought and deed, "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." II Cor. 10:5.
The rewards of laying aside all that is unlike God are unspeakably beautiful and lasting. Who doesn't yearn to know the wholeness of joy, harmony, assurance, peace, health—the kingdom of heaven?
