Skip to footer

A timeless sense of the Advent

As we head into December, today’s contributor shares how an Advent calendar prompted him to gain a clearer sense of the ever-present Christ and how that same understanding healed a friend of cancer.

  • By David M. Robertson

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

During a Christmas visit to Germany some time ago, I enjoyed being part of my hosts’ holiday activities. This included opening the doors of an Advent calendar, with a little window for each of the first 25 days of December.

The calendars are fun – everyone received a little gift when a new window was opened – but their deeper purpose is to build up anticipation for Christmas Day and the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

Christmas is about not just celebrating Jesus’ historical coming, but also awakening more to the Christ-spirit that animated Jesus’ life, to the hope and promise that the Christ presence is always with us. What a wonderfully expanded sense this gives to our Christmas celebrations, bringing a more timeless sense of the holiday!

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, made note of this kind of special affection for Christmas, writing, “… Christ’s appearing in a fuller sense is so precious, and fraught with divine benedictions for mankind” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 320).

This “fuller sense” with its “divine benedictions for mankind” was a promise that Jesus made to his followers. He told them: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever …. I will not leave you comfortless: … the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:16, 18, 26).

This is sometimes taken to mean that Jesus will return in the flesh at a future time to establish a new earthly kingdom. To me it indicates something that is much nearer and more immediate: that this kingdom is here, now, and is revealed as each of us discovers the truth that we are actually spiritual, the children of God. This consciousness of our spirituality is the ongoing unfolding of the Christ message, which is ever present to help humanity.

One meaning of the word “comforter” is advocate or intercessor on behalf of those in need. The Christ – the powerful healing message of God’s love – coming to argue your case for you, right when you most need it, is a helpful sense of the ongoing Comforter.

The truth of this ever-appearing of the Christ in human consciousness can have wonderful healing results, as a friend of mine proved. One summer she was diagnosed with breast cancer by several doctors. Surgery had been scheduled. But before it took place, my friend took an approach to addressing health issues that she was used to, looking to better understand her spiritual nature in relation to God. She was healed when a new insight came to her. She realized that even in the heat of summer, she was residing in the full blessings of a Christmas morning – the blessings of the Christ presence.

The ideas in this passage from Miscellaneous Writings inspired her prayers for healing: “The star that looked lovingly down on the manger of our Lord, lends its resplendent light to this hour: the light of Truth, to cheer, guide, and bless man as he reaches forth for the infant idea of divine perfection dawning upon human imperfection, – that calms man’s fears, bears his burdens, beckons him on to Truth and Love and the sweet immunity these bring from sin, sickness, and death” (p. 320).

The starry brightness of this idea reminded my friend of her true spirituality. It calmed and comforted her, and when she went for her pre-surgery examination, she was found free of any sign of a problem. And she continues to be free of this illness.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “The advent of Jesus of Nazareth marked the first century of the Christian era, but the Christ is without beginning of years or end of days. Throughout all generations both before and after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spiritual idea, – the reflection of God, – has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth” (p. 333).

This spiritual preparation to receive Christ, Truth, in the run-up to Christmas brings new insights even as it enlarges and inspires our observance of Christmas. But, as my friend proved, the healing message of Christmas – that Christ is ever present – is with us every day.

Adapted from a Christian Science Sentinel article published Dec. 19, 2005.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
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 A timeless sense of the Advent
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2018/1129/A-timeless-sense-of-the-Advent
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe