The touch of the Christ

JESUS was so aware of God's love for man that his compassionate spiritual outlook, his Christliness, healed people. The Christ, the divine influence Jesus so fully expressed, is always present with each one of us. The urge to help, to bless, to be of service, to heal, is evidence that the Christ is present within us. It is the Christ at work today that is producing healings through spiritual means alone, just as in Jesus' time. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, ``Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness.'' 1 As you and I pray each day for this tender influence to be active within our consciousness, we are inevitably led by God, the all-knowing Mind, to those who are ready to respond to Christ. Jesus so expressed this divine influence that he drew multitudes to him who were eager to hear what he taught about God, the Father, and to be healed. Can we follow his example today? Yes, if with all our heart we yearn to be Christly and adhere to the teachings of the Master, which are summarized in his Sermon on the Mount.2 Here we see that Christliness is characterized by mercy, forgiveness, compassion, unselfed love, purity, peaceableness, and so on. The Christ prompts us to identify ourselves and others as spiritual beings, formed and maintained by God, infinite Spirit, perfect and eternal. It is the Christ that reveals to us the absolute goodness of God and the fraudulence, the impotence, of evil. And this spiritually uplifted standpoint heals, as Jesus showed through his works. When someone is particularly loving, humane, honest, or sensitive to the needs of his fellowman, this is evidence of the Christ in action. For example, in a supermarket one day a four-year-old friend of mine and his mother were witnessing an unhappy scene. A little girl was having a temper tantrum. Her mother was ignoring her and finally said to the child, ``All right, I'm leaving you here,'' and walked away. An older sister was almost in tears, trying to get the mother to do something, running back and forth between the mother and the little girl. My little friend viewed all this and said to his mother, ``Mama, fix that baby!'' The mother said, ``I don't think I can. She needs love.'' The boy said, ``I'm going to love her,'' and he moved gingerly toward her, avoiding kicking legs and flailing arms. He got down on the floor and kissed her on the cheek. She stopped the disturbing behavior at once, and they began to talk to each other. An onlooker said to the mother, ``If I hadn't seen this myself, I wouldn't have believed it.'' Isn't that evidence of the Christ? The urge to comfort, to express healing love, to bring peace--that is the operation of Christ. The anti-Christ, as the counterfeit of the real, is that which would claim to oppose God. It stands for vengeful, hateful, lustful, selfish thoughts and acts. But this false claimant is powerless to destroy God's Christ. Jesus proved that in the resurrection. The only power the anti-Christ has is to destroy itself. In the face of God's omnipotence, any destructive impulse can only bring itself down. The touch of the Christ brings out harmony where discord appears to be, silences fear with gentle assurance, lifts the heart out of the confusion and darkness of materiality into the light of Truth. Can you feel that touch? Yes, everyone can, though the divine influence often seems hidden by materiality. We need to awake to it through prayer and purification of thought. This troubled, hungry world needs the tender touch of the Christ more than any material resource on earth. That touch is more powerful than armies and armaments will ever be. 1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 332. 2 See Matthew, chaps. 5-7.