"Believe ... in me"

ETHEL WAINWRIGHT

The earnest Bible student has ever pondered lovingly over, and never failed to find inspiration from, the closing chapters of the Gospel of John. Here in a few sublime sentences the Saviour summarizes his life's work, and points out the further steps to be taken by his disciples in the realm of Mind before they can sit down with him at "the right hand of God." By parable and proof he had unfolded to them the love of God; and with the glorious consciousness of his mission accomplished, he could say to those who had been his closest followers, "Ye believe in God." Then, taking them a step farther in the understanding of the divine nature, he added, "Believe also in me."

Subsequent chapters show clearly the change this understanding made in the lives of the apostles; how it enabled them to heal the sick, and even to raise the dead; to face the priests and rulers of the people fearlessly, and to defend their faith—even those same disciples who in our Lord's hour of need deserted and even denied him. Faithfully has Christendom repeated these words of Jesus and accepted the responsibility of believing in him, but for long it was unable to repeat the works which the apostles did through that same understanding.

The Christian Scientist, however, taught by his textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, to go to the bottom of mental action, is able, through a clear understanding of what the Master required, to repeat in some measure his works. He learns to question the faith which has its basis in blind belief, and humbly strives to gain an ever deeper comprehension of Jesus' words, "Believe ... in me."

One does not study the textbook of Christian Science in conjunction with the Bible long before he realizes that it was not his personality to which Jesus referred; for everywhere we find him persistently turning thought away from personality to God, the Giver of all good. Moreover, we find that Jesus did not claim more for himself than for others, as witness his words to his disciples, "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also;" and those to Mary Magdalene, "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." To encourage belief in his own personality would have been to stultify his mission to mankind. Jesus' mission was to save mankind from belief in a corporeal selfhood. Writing of this false material selfhood in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy represents it as asserting itself thus (p. 252): "The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter."

And she continues: "But a touch, an accident, the law of God, may at any moment annihilate my peace, for all my fancied joys are fatal. Like bursting lava, I expand but to my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of consuming fire." Thus she uncovers the falsity of a material sense of existence apart from God.

Farther on in the same work she writes (p. 307): "This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death"—little indeed to give up in exchange for one's spiritual identity as a child of God. Yet how slow is humanity to recognize that man is wholly spiritual, because God, his Maker, is Spirit. Only in proportion as we gain this realization do we believe in him who rose above every material condition, and proved by his resurrection that Life or Mind is never in a material body. As the magnitude of the Saviour's life-work dawns on the student of Christian Science, a wider sense is gained of what is required if we would truly believe in him, even the entire overcoming of the false sense of mortal thinking through the consciousness of man's spiritual identity as the expression of divine Mind.

To this end we must be faithful in taking each step that is to lead us away from materiality, remembering that God in His infinite goodness and love never asks of us more than we are able to give; that when a certain demonstration seems necessary, it is because we are ready to take the step onward. Thus we can joyfully accept the necessity of giving up the belief in a mortal selfhood. Furthermore, we can measure our true progress Spiritward by the love we manifest. Christ Jesus said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Can we truly say that we are showing only that which is of the Father? How humble such a thought should make us, when we know that in asserting a mortal selfhood which claims certain qualities that seem to us good, we are often very much less than the man whom God creates, and whose every quality is a reflection of Love! But while this knowledge humbles us, it also uplifts us, and with our beloved Leader we can pray (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 184): "Oh, for that light and love ineffable, which casteth out all fear, all sin, sickness, and death; that seeketh not her own, but another's good; that saith Abba, Father, and is born of God!"

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