Article August 28, 1920 Issue

About the Father's Business

BERNICE W. CARTER

When Jesus gave utterance to that great question which revealed the keynote of his human experience, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" what was it that Mary and Joseph had found him doing? In Luke's gospel we read: "And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers." Although to mortals Jesus was at that time only a boy twelve years of age, he had already developed in human consciousness the true idea of service. Joseph was a carpenter, and so to none of those who heard Jesus at the time did his words convey any meaning, except perhaps to Mary, who, the record tells us, "kept all these sayings in her heart." During his three years' ministry, however, it became clear to many what his "Father's business" was. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," he said in answer to the Jews who persecuted him for healing the impotent man on the Sabbath day; and notwithstanding persecution,—the ever more aggressive opposition to the Christ, Truth,—he healed the sick, cleansed lepers, raised the dead, and cast out devils, correcting through his spiritual understanding of the allness of God every lie of mortal mind which was presented to him. Moreover he said that every one who believed on him—that is, who really understood his teachings—should do the works which he did—and greater works.

It is upon this promise of the Master's that Christian Science depends for proof of its divinity. Jesus left no written instructions or rules for healing, and although his disciples and those who understood his teachings healed the sick and raised the dead for about three centuries after the ascension, still the fundamental rule back of the healing effects was wrapped in mystery, so far as the lay mind was concerned, until to Mary Baker Eddy came the revelation and the divine command, as voiced by the prophet Isaiah, "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." Thus it was that "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" came to be written. In it Mrs. Eddy reveals the spiritual laws which govern true living—the ever operative Principle of all that really is. And as Moses, through the moral law which he inscribed on tables of stone, led the children of Israel out of their slavery and Egyptian darkness, so Mrs. Eddy through her writings is leading mankind to-day out of their misery, sickness, and sin.

True service, however, does not always or necessarily imply that one must be a teacher or leader of multitudes. There must of necessity be way-showers and pioneers, but the task of following in the way marked out is also of prime importance, lest the work of the way-shower and pioneer be lost to mankind. Every individual, for instance, who day by day is exemplifying in his living the Beatitudes and the Golden Rule, is as truly about the "Father's business" as was the Master himself, and upon his sincerity and consistent striving will depend his progress toward the degree of spiritual understanding which Jesus manifested. His whole life will then be an expression of the prayer: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Equally true is it that the progress of the Christian Scientist depends upon his demonstration of the healing power which accompanies the understanding of Mrs. Eddy's teachings. In a wonderfully lucid article entitled "The Way," beginning on page 355 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy says, "Less teaching and good healing is to-day the acme of 'well done'; a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure. This absolute demonstration of Science must be revived." Then, anticipating the human query, "But how?" she delineates the three stages of growth through which mankind must pass before reaching the spiritual height where healing work is effectively and instantaneously accomplished. Most clearly she shows that one's own thought must be purified and strengthened through self-knowledge, true humility, and love. "Thy way," she says in conclusion, "is absolute Christian Science: walk ye in it; but remember that Science is demonstrated by degrees, and our demonstration rises only as we rise in the scale of being."

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