Resurrection
Perhaps many see resurrection as something that may, or may not, really have happened to Jesus. But in its truth lies the only real hope for all of us; otherwise man is nothing but a temporary, cosmic accident doomed to strut a while on the world's stage and then disappear into a nameless void. A bleak prospect we can all do without.
But it's no use piously hoping, or even blindly believing, resurrection is a fact. One has to relate it intelligently to oneself. If Jesus really was resurrected, what does this mean to me? What should I do about it? Am I a mortal; or am I actually immortal?
A great artist will paint a great picture - but it means nothing to us if we don't have the kind of eye that can appreciate it. Was Jesus painting, in a sense, a wonderful picture, giving a marvelous example for us to see and understand?
Mortality seems to be the condition we are all trapped within - ''deathality''! Who would want to remain there if there is a way out? How do we set about removing the stone of despair and fear that lies so heavily on the heart of humanity? There are perhaps many pathways we might try, but understanding more about immortality, and about that shining, powerful, spiritual self which Christ Jesus clearly showed belongs to everyone, seems the only logical and rewarding way.
We could say the Bible is all about the way immortal being shines through and outshines the mortal. In endless ways that glorious book demonstrates that there is more to life than a reluctant downward procession from birth to the grave.
The Apostle Paul caught this vision. It sparkles and gleams throughout his writings. He touches the theme of man's immortality again and again, urging humanity to turn its inner eyes to the reality of spiritual being and away from the fears and inevitable disappointments of mortality. He wrote, ''Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.'' n1 Isn't this a call to those as yet asleep or dead to the wonder of their own real , immortal being? Jesus' demonstration of that being must point to the innate Christliness of everyone.
n1 Ephesians 5:14.
It is clear Paul never wanted to be put on a pedestal and worshiped. The urgency of his message, his deep desire to share it with all who would accept it , shows through the Scriptural record. So it was with Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Anyone who looks with honest inquiry at her life and work recognizes her determined effort to put message before person, and prevent the intrusion of mere personality. But what was her message?
The first sentence in the Preface to her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures gently thunders it: ''To those leaning on the sustaining infinite , to-day is big with blessings.'' n2 The whole of this book is devoted to revealing that sustaining infinite so that it might dawn with comforting, divine grace within human understanding. Its first effect, even its aftereffect, is often to bring healing to the human body; then it leads on to the glorious horizon of our own immortal being, showing that resurrection from mortality is a process to begin now.
n 2 Science and Health, p. vii.
DAILY BIBLE VERSE This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory . . . Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. I Corinthians 15:53, 54, 57, 58
