Skip to footer

Easter and the true substance of life

The message of Jesus’ resurrection – that existence is upheld by God, not confined in matter – is a powerful and timeless basis for experiencing healing.

  • By Randal Craft

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

When I think of Easter, I think of joy, hope, and healing. I take great heart in the Gospel of John’s account of Mary Magdalene going to the sepulcher, where Jesus had been buried after his crucifixion, finding it empty and subsequently encountering Jesus, who had risen from the dead (see chap. 20).

By his example, Jesus overturned the mortal view that life is based in matter. Jesus understood that true life and substance originate in God, divine Spirit – and therefore are spiritual, not material. This spiritual view of life is conveyed during a powerful moment before Jesus and his disciples entered the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night prior to his crucifixion. He looked up to heaven and, speaking to God, said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

Genuine life – life in God – is not subject to material beliefs that matter can somehow dictate conditions for man’s harmony, health, and well-being. Rather, life is spiritual because God is Life itself, and so it is unconstrained by matter. In fact, it doesn’t include matter at all.

This understanding of life can bring us hope and healing, empowering us to follow Jesus’ teachings and prove God’s power in our own lives.

At one point, it became very hard to use my leg, and my hip was often painful when I walked. Interestingly, that week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson was on the subject of “Substance.” These weekly Lessons include passages from the Bible and from the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, who was a devout student of the Bible, including Jesus’ teachings.

As I studied that Lesson on “Substance,” one citation particularly jumped out at me: “Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence” (Science and Health, p. 311).

This helped me realize that I needed to drop a sense of life and substance as material, and instead to see life and substance as based in God. So I prayed diligently to God, affirming my true nature as His beloved, flawless offspring – spiritual, not material, having only the substance of Spirit. Our true being can never be subject to discord or injury, because it does not originate in a material body. Our true life is in God, Spirit, and so entirely harmonious and in perfect health.

As I continued praying along these lines, there came a point when I felt a clear conviction that I would be sharing this healing – that I would indeed be healed. This was a turning point, for I noticed a marked improvement in my physical condition from that moment on. I’m grateful to say that I was able to walk normally and painlessly soon thereafter.

Each of us can find joy, hope, and expectation of healing in the message of Jesus’ resurrection, the message for all humanity that true life and substance are in Spirit, not matter. Through prayer, step by step, we can prove the power of divine Spirit in our lives. These are the Easter blessings we all can look forward to – each and every day.

For a regularly updated collection of insights relating to the war in Ukraine from the Christian Science Perspective column, click here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Enjoying this content?
Explore the power of gratitude with the Thanksgiving Bible Lesson – free online through December 31, 2024. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, and (new this year) Portuguese.
Read the Thanksgiving Lesson
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Easter and the true substance of life
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2022/0415/Easter-and-the-true-substance-of-life
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe