Primitive Christianity ... still healing today
“ ‘Primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing’ – what are you talking about?” asked a friend. “What does this have to do with our life today, in the 21st century?”
He was quoting part of the stated purpose of the Church of Christ, Scientist – to reinstate such Christianity and its healing works (see Mary Baker Eddy, “Manual of The Mother Church,” p. 17).
Christian Science reveals that the message Jesus shared with humanity has a spiritual meaning, which I’ve found it most helpful to consider. It opens a practical way to find more health, peace, and solutions in our lives. Mary Baker Eddy is the Christian pioneer who, in her discovery and founding of Christian Science, rolled up her sleeves to follow in the trail blazed by Jesus, showing the world that Christian healing as demonstrated by Jesus is possible, even today.
So what is Jesus’ message? His message speaks of God. And what a contrast with other beliefs about gods common during his time. The God portrayed by Jesus is Spirit and Truth. This God includes nothing material. And as God’s creation, expressing Spirit and Truth, each of us is entirely spiritual.
Have you ever felt the kind of selfless love (through the actions of a loved one or a friend) that floods your day with light? Such love is very real, very tangible, but has nothing to do with materiality. Similarly, Spirit has nothing to do with materiality. Spirit is substance, infinitely so; but this substance is not material.
To speak of God as Truth is to speak of a universal spiritual reality that unites us because it is the same for everyone.
The essence of Jesus’ sublime message is to make us understand better our relation to the supreme source of goodness and life, to God. And Jesus’ teachings even include the specific affirmation that anyone who understands what he knew can heal as he did (see John 14:12). We can actually prove our true, spiritual nature as the expression of infinite good, of God, in our daily lives.
A few years ago, I was involved in a serious scooter accident. I was immediately taken to the emergency room, and while I’d been wearing a helmet, the doctor feared traumatic brain injury. When I was discharged from the hospital, I was asked to watch for any abnormalities related to my head in the coming weeks. A few days later, my father noticed I was having memory lapses. I would often ask him the same question several times in the space of a few minutes.
Instead of going back to the doctor for additional exams, I decided to rely on prayer. Many healings of difficult situations I’d already experienced through Christian Science made me comfortable with making this choice.
In our prayers, my parents and I affirmed it is always God that heals. We also affirmed that what presented itself as a serious problem was in fact a misperception of my real, spiritual nature – my whole, pure, perfect existence as God’s offspring. The source of all true being, God, does not cause disease or suffering. On the contrary, as we become more aware of our unity with this divine source of all good, this change in consciousness manifests itself as a change in the body, which becomes more harmonious, reflecting this spiritual unity.
It was also important for me to grasp the idea that intelligence is not created by a biochemical reaction in the brain. Rather, it originates in the limitless divine consciousness, infinite Mind, God, which is expressed by each of us. This intelligence, including clarity of consciousness, can no more be cut off than a shooting star could be stopped with bows and arrows.
This way of praying not only brought great inner peace, but also the certainty that everything was in order. And indeed, after a few days, the episodes of memory loss had completely stopped. A few months later, I started my second year of law school, which involved memorizing a substantial number of court decisions, which I was able to do without any difficulty. The problem never returned. Deep study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, coupled with prayer that humbly acknowledges our unity with infinite good, continues to bring me unspeakable benefits.
Jesus’ magnificent spirituality is not a theoretical conceptual construct that belongs to the past, but quite the opposite. It is a spiritual Science, demonstrable by you and me, today. “Primitive Christianity,” exempt from hierarchy and ritual, heals disease of all kinds by bringing us an exceptional sense of our unity with the infinite, God. It’s for right now!
Adapted from an article published on the website of The Herald of Christian Science, French Edition, Dec. 28, 2020.
