Finding Christmas within
It was a few days before Christmas, and I was in a long line at a grocery store waiting to check out. There were groans and sighs of impatience and shuffling of feet. The atmosphere felt far from Christmas-like! I turned my thought away from what I was seeing to God. Through my understanding of Christian Science I knew God could lift me up to see His presence right in the midst of all the discontent and annoyance. So I closed my eyes and sent up a heartfelt prayer, “Father, show me Your presence.” Just then, a stillness enveloped me and I felt a surge of love in my heart.
When I opened my eyes, the whole scene had transformed. Where I had before seen complaining and irritation, now I saw neighbors greeting each other with hugs, a mom playing patty-cake with her baby, and a young man graciously lifting a heavy bundle for an elderly woman. The activity now testified to the presence of God, good, right then and there.
So what had taken place? This was a modest but very sweet example of the sort of transformation spoken of in Mary Baker Eddy’s seminal work “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” Referring to God as Mind, it says: “Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings. To material sense, this divine universe is dim and distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light” (p. 513).
This shift in what we see and experience comes through the activity of the dear Christ. The Christ shines light in a darkened material sense of the world and reveals the actual presence and love of God. God is infinite Love, All-in-all, and man, meaning all of us, is God’s entirely spiritual and perfect manifestation, the showing forth of God’s goodness. As such, we express wisdom, harmony, health, and freedom, as God’s very own image. Without the light of Christ we would remain in the dark, ignorant of the divine heritage that is ours forever.
Christ was Jesus’ pure spiritual identity, his God-given nature. God loved the world so much that He sent His Son, Christ Jesus, to us. He was to preach and teach the fundamental truth of who and what we really are, enlightening with the spiritual understanding of man’s limitless perfection as God’s reflection.
Jesus’ promise was, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Transformation, reformation, and healing occurred. But this was not just for Jesus’ day. Prior to Jesus’ advent, many spiritually-minded prophets had been aware of God’s presence and power and witnessed great effects.
Christ is forever at work. Speaking of his true selfhood, Jesus promised, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). The spiritual signification of Christmas is a celebration of this shining light of Christ forever appearing.
Christ is with each of us because it is within us, fulfilling its holy mission to embrace and elevate humanity. As taught in Christian Science, Christ is “Immanuel, or ‘God with us,’ – a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
“To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised”
(Science and Health, p. xi).
No matter what day of the year it is or where we are, we can find the spirit of Christmas in Christ’s revealing of God’s presence in every avenue and aspect of our lives.
Each of us can experience the sweet dawning of the Christ in our experience as we are receptive to its message. Then we can rejoice as we catch glimpses of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus described as both “within you” and “at hand.”
As we cherish Jesus’ teachings at Christmastime, we find a divine assurance and promise of present harmony. Then this joyous celebration of the coming Christ ceases to be a burden or obligation. We discover an opportunity to joyfully embrace for ourselves this truth our Master evidenced of “God with us” moment by moment.
The sacred joy of Christmas can flourish within our hearts each day of the year.
