Article February 24, 1923 Issue

Lifted Up

J. WILL CARR

HUMANITY is always struggling to raise itself. Nations have resorted to material warfare, men have braved every hardship and danger, and, too often, have even committed crimes, in order that they might rise in worldly power and personal aggrandizement. Under the false plea that it is business, men lie, cheat, and oppress one another, influenced by the belief that in this material world of supposedly limited supply somebody must go down in order that another may go up.

Very often, if one examine his thought carefully, he finds that, humanly speaking, while he is thinking of being lifted up, it is in comparison and competition with his fellows, whom he is to leave behind and, sometimes, even stand upon in his would-be upward struggle. Even in intellectual, moral, and religious activity, this wrong sense of competition for superiority over other persons sometimes finds an entrance, as it did in the days of Jesus, who uncovered this phase of evil when he rebuked the Pharisees for their tyranny, false pride, and self-righteousness. To be raised by material methods and means for the satisfaction of personal ambition is not really to be lifted up at all; for such supposed upraising is like that of the one who built his house upon the sand (shifting mortal belief),—its reward is destruction. Paul, writing to the Galatians, warned them against "emulations" and "strife," or a sense of competition. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 239) Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Let it be understood that success in error is defeat in Truth."

What, then, is the lifting up which may legitimately be sought by the struggling masses of mankind? Jesus once said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." What is this lifting up of which Jesus was thinking, and which he was prayerfully anticipating? His immediate disciples thought he was to be raised to a temporal throne located in the Jewish capital, whence he would issue his beneficent edicts to the uttermost parts of the earth; and Matthew records that the mother of two of them sought that the highest honors on that occasion might fall to the lot of her sons. The Way-shower, however, explained that his path led through self-abnegation, meekness, and true humility to spiritual, not material, exaltation. During the whole of his earthly career, Jesus was lifting up the Christ through continuously increasing spiritual understanding and demonstration of Truth, until, one day, still on his upward journey, he climbed the hill of Calvary, where he conclusively proved that hatred can be completely overcome by Love. Later, by rising from the sepulcher, he showed that death can be conquered by the understanding of Life. From that point the process of elevation of thought continued until, every human material belief overcome, he ascended, or was lifted up, beyond human perception, having realized man's perfect spiritual selfhood, at-one with the Father.

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