Article September 13, 1930 Issue

"Lord, if thou hadst been here"

JOSEPH CARL MARKSTEIN

IN the eleventh chapter of John is recorded one of the many wonderful healings in Christ Jesus' great ministry, namely, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. As Jesus approached the town of Bethany, he was met by Martha, who greeted him with the words, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."

In the practice of the divine Science which Christ Jesus lived and proved, and which Mrs. Eddy elucidated, it is not necessary that the one needing to be healed be physically present with the practitioner. Time and space, as humanly conceived, are not factors in Christian Science practice, and what is called absent treatment is therefore as efficacious as that which is called present treatment. Why, then, one might ask, did Jesus travel some distance in order to be present with Lazarus, instead of healing him through absent treatment? As recorded in the Bible, Jesus' healing were virtually instantaneous. If, then, upon hearing of the sickness of Lazarus, Jesus abode yet two days in the place where he was, and then journeyed to the home of Lazarus, surely it was for some good reason. Might it not have been to give more sublime proof that a fuller realization of God's omnipresence would prove His omnipotence even over "the last enemy that shall be destroyed," namely, death? When the presence of the Christ, Truth, was clearly manifested through the exalted thought of Jesus, who knew the utter nothingness of death,—knew that the child of God forever reflects infinite, Life, which is God,—death's claim to reality, presence, and power was completely refuted.

To human sense Lazarus was dead; yet Jesus said, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." So, then, Lazarus was asleep; and, just as Martha and those about her were asleep, so to-day is mankind asleep—asleep in the belief of the reality of matter and death. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes on page 230 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "If sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick."

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