Ongoing Resurrection

Bringing a spiritual perspective to daily life

Yes, the Easter season has come and gone. But an ongoing contemplation of the concept of resurrection can fill the rest of our year-and the rest of our days. We choose to dwell either in the resurrection or in the crucifixion. The former awakens brighter, more productive lives. I know; I've seen it.

Years ago, during a time of many tears and trials, I began to recognize consciously that God was present with me. The Christ (the understanding of God with us) aroused me from self-pity. It came to me, with sudden inspiration, that Christ Jesus was resurrected-was risen above all hatred, evil, and mortality-through his consciousness of God.

After the chief priests, in consultation with all who conspired against Jesus, bound him and carried him to Pontius Pilate to be questioned, Jesus did not speak in his own defense. He relied on God to defend him, evidently recognizing the inability of material means to rescue him. He told Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). This recognition of an omnipresent, all-powerful God was the very thing that would enable him to endure the crucifixion and burial in the sepulcher. He would rise from the tomb through this same conscious recognition of God, Life eternal. And this would lead to his ascension-his complete dominion over the flesh.

We might not feel we could approach this dominion. But today we can begin to follow in Jesus' footsteps. We can learn that God is the source of all strength, health, and happiness. Then another's (or our own) mistaken views will not bind us. We can rise above the circumstances that place us on a cross of sickness or misery.

No one can bind thought without the consent of the thinker. Keeping our thought free of encumbrances such as self-pity, revenge, and resentment frees us to lead healthier, happier lives. Independent thinking can go on regardless of what is occurring around us because we are, in reality, the image of God.

Again, power lies in thought, and your thought can't be imprisoned unless you allow it. Circumstances cannot nail you to a heavy cross of burden unless you choose to carry that cross. Others may devalue your contribution to society; but you can take comfort and shelter from any barrage of hatred by knowing God and how He made you. Awareness that you express the goodness of God is strength. Those who serve God by striving to express His nature, through honest living, loving ways, and unselfishness, are richly rewarded. God is the source of our very being. Knowing God is what brings freedom and joy.

The nails pinning someone to a cross might be the evidence that evil is real and personal. God gives us the ability to see that this evidence involves a misconception of what's actually true-that He is good and made all. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, wrote: "Nothing is real and eternal,-nothing is Spirit,-but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 71). That may seem startling to someone who is convinced that evil is real and can make us miserable. But this statement is in fact the resurrecting conclusion that arises naturally out of spiritual understanding.

Christian Science encourages us, in the words of Science and Health: "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine 'powers that be' " (p. 249). God is the infinite, divine Mind, which governs all. His sons and daughters, manifesting His nature, are loving, thoughtful, caring, intelligent, wise. They are not hateful, dominating, uncaring, foolish, blind to good.

The understanding that our prosperity, joy, health, and well-being are subject to God, and to no other power, is cause for great hope. This understanding brings a present-day resurrection of thought. Spiritual facts have all the power of God behind them. They can be put into practice scientifically in daily life.

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