The Rod and the Serpent

We read in the fourth chapter of Exodus that when Moses held a material rod in his hand—which was apparently a symbol of spiritual power—God bade him cast it on the ground, and the rod became a serpent. As the Bible is an inspired history of progressive understanding of the one God, it is of small moment to us, in our present day endeavor to reach the Horeb height, whether mortals ever saw a material rod turned into a serpent, but it is of immense importance to learn the lesson such a narrative conveys to us here and now. All periods are alike to God. He that made an everlasting covenant with His people, made it for all eternity, and it can never end. To every student of Christian Science, therefore, the help and teaching afforded by the well-known and loved Biblical incidents are of practical, hourly utility. In the one now being considered metaphysically—and Christian Science proves such to be the only correct understanding of the Bible—we, individually, may lay down, or cast down, our rods, our human material beliefs in any help or power outside of omnipotence; we, too, can handle the serpent, evil, and destroy its asserted power.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 321) our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has given us a most inspired definition of Christian Science. She says, "When, led by wisdom to cast down his rod, he saw it become a serpent, Moses fled before it; but wisdom bade him come back and handle the serpent, and then Moses' fear departed. In this incident was seen the actuality of Science." Even as Moses was bidden to handle the serpent, the symbol of evil, and not flee from it, so must each student of Christian Science understandingly face every claim of the lie that there is intelligence and sensation in matter. Only thus can we realize and prove God's rod of spiritual power in place of the serpent—material sense—and joyfully sing, "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Now that evil is stirred from its hidden depths of iniquity and is running to and fro in the earth, seeking whom it may devour, and the hearts of many men are "failing them for fear," those who understand the teachings of Christian Science and are daily studying the Bible together with its divinely bestowed key, Science and Health, can recognize the "still, small voice" of Truth, Principle, even now saying to each one, "Flee as a bird to your mountain"—spiritual at-one-ment with divine Love. We can so rise in the consciousness of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience that we can know and prove the unreality of all that would oppose itself to the one and only divine Mind, of which spiritual man, the only real man, is the true and perfect expression.

One needs to be powerfully awake to the mental suggestions of the serpent. The effort of evil is to try to make us accept material sense evidence as true, and thoughts that will not bear the test of Principle as being our own consciousness. How joyful to know that in reality there is but one consciousness, a wholly good and perfect one, never proceeding from ourselves, but always God, Principle, Love, intelligence reflected. We can refuse to entertain any but pure, good thoughts, and thus bring to the surface our true heritage, even that "now are we the sons of God." Pure thoughts and desires must inevitably externalize themselves and thus enable us to obey Paul's injunction to the Romans, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The word holy certainly includes health, wholesomeness. God's work is done, and it is wholly good; it therefore remains for each one individually to work out his own salvation, and the greater our willingness to stand alone with Principle and so rely less upon one another, the sooner and the more easily will this great and inescapable task be accomplished.