Article September 25, 1926 Issue

The Undivided Garment

MARJORIE N. BUFFUM

IN studying the Bible it is very helpful to note the use of the word "garment." When Jesus the Christ called the blind Bartimaeus, we are told that "he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus." At another time a sick woman came behind Jesus in the press, touched the hem of his garment, and was healed of a sickness with which she had been afflicted many years. When Peter was led out of the prison, he was told by the angel to cast his garment about him. There were no places in the seamless garment of Jesus which could be ripped or easily torn; so the soldiers at the crucifixion cast lots for it. If we took these sayings merely in a literal sense, we might think that the word "garments" referred only to the clothes the people were wearing. But when, in the light of the teachings of Christian Science, we realize that the underlying spiritual meaning of the Scriptures is the important one to grasp, these passages may take on a much deeper significance.

Now Christ Jesus was quite evidently clothed with the power of God more than any other who ever walked the earth. But to assume that the material garment which he wore had healing power in itself, savors of that superstition which marked the dark ages, when spiritual power seemed almost totally submerged. It was indeed divine power with which Jesus was clad, and which drew to him the sick and sinning to be healed. He taught this gracious power to his disciples, and said plainly that all who believed on him should do the works that he did. His was the garment of full salvation—salvation from sin, sickness, and death. But what became of it as the centuries rolled on? Truly it seemed as though violence and hate had indeed rent the garment in pieces. The healing of the sick was relegated to materia medica; the saving of sinners was left to a scholasticism which admitted helplessness in the face of disease, notwithstanding Jesus' commands; and death was taught to be God's will, in spite of Jesus' resurrection. What a shock it would be to many to think that they had at least acquiesced in the attempt to divide the garment of the Christ! But as he himself said during his supreme moment of trial, "They know not what they do." And that precious garment has never been divided; it was only hidden.

To this state of things came Christian Science in the year 1866, the discovery of Mary Baker Eddy. Through her own healing of the effects of an accident, and her search thereafter of the Scriptures, she was able to reveal the garment of Christ-healing to us again, whole and untouched. Those who, through the study of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," are learning of the divine Principle which underlay every word and work of Christ Jesus, are being healed and are healing others of sickness and sin. By applying the truth taught in this textbook many are succeeding in casting away the encumbering garments of self-pity, self-will, and self-love, and like Bartimaeus are rising up, receiving their sight, and following Christ in the way. The Christ is always calling us, if we will only hear, as it stands clad in that seamless dress of perfect healing for all.

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