Editorial June 21, 1919 Issue

Lifting up the Christ

Ella W. Hoag

Because God is infinite Life, He must include within Himself all right activity. Man, therefore, as His image and likeness must be the expression of all such activity. To contemplate this mighty truth at once presents to consciousness an unending possibility of right endeavor, and one longs to start on the way to such accomplishment. What can bring a more joyous sense than that which holds within itself the opportunity of glorious achievement? To be doing something worth while gives to men the only satisfaction which is worthy of the name; and what could be of so great importance as the exaltation of the Christ to human consciousness?

Men have glimpsed this truth in a thousand ways, but have again and again failed to lay hold of all its possibilities. Christian Science shows men how this lifting up of the Christ is to be done, and that all good is thereby open to those who will accept the teachings of Christian Science, lay hold of its method, and practice its precepts with unfaltering faithfulness. It explains the Christ as exemplified in Jesus' life in such a way that men need no longer be deceived by the speciouse claims of imperfection; instead they may mold their living in conformity with the one who never failed, who always succeeded in accomplishing whatever he undertook.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 248), "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives." Jesus always held the perfect model before his gaze. The Christ, the image and likeness of God, was what he perpetually lifted up in his consciousness. All who would follow in his footsteps and win the triumphs he won must do the same. Error is ever presenting its counterfeit patterns, and the world had failed to understand how to discern between the false and the true. With the light of Christian Science all such difficulty is removed. Now lifting up the Christ is really a simple thing to do. Its very simplicity is that against which the human mind revolts, for it tries to say that for anything to be intelligence, to be power, it must be abstruse, difficult to understand, complex. But how simple the truth is! Just to see, as Christian Science reveals, that every time a true thought is recognized, accepted, lived; every time one clings to good, in spite of evil's claim to rage; is honest in the midst of seeming dishonesty; loves when another hates,—this is to see the Christ, Truth, as the one altogether lovely, the allsatisfying, the alone-to-be-desired; this is to lift up the Christ. Surely Jesus proved all of this and more when he demonstrated its complete power over every falsity, over all evil, over sin, disease, death. It was this simplicity of being true to Truth which enabled Jesus to accomplish all the wonders of his work. There is only one way out of evil for anyone, and that is through similar demonstration.

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