Article December 19, 1936 Issue

"Unto us a child is born"

LAURA M. DOWNEY

These words, "Unto us a child is born," are ever associated with the season of Christmas; but with what is Christmas associated? Generally speaking, the song of the angels, "On earth peace, good will toward men," has come to mean largely a healing—perhaps but temporary—of estrangements, and an exchange of material gifts, which has grown to such proportions that the true significance of the holy season is frequently missed entirely. To the student of Christian Science, Christmas is not a recurring season to be celebrated by an over-plus of material things. The Christian Scientist celebrates Christmas, the coming of the Christ, every day of the year.

Our revered Leader saw this clearly, and she wrote in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 259): "Mere merry-making or needless gift-giving is not that in which human capacities find the most appropriate and proper exercise. Christmas respects the Christ too much to submerge itself in merely temporary means and ends." It is always a good thing when estrangements are healed, but the means and the motive by which they are healed must be examined if the process is to be assessed at its true value. The human counterfeits of peace and good will are like the house built on the sand; they cannot weather the storm of daily living. But with the spiritual concept of Christmas there comes the true meaning of the angel's song, the peace that the world cannot give and cannot take away, and the good will which is the outcome of the realization that all men are children of the one Father-Mother, Love.

Here we see the true foundation for peace and good will, and resting thereon we can indeed rejoice that "unto us a child is born." When Christmas is observed, not as a time of feasting and material gift-giving, but in commemoration of the birth of Jesus, it is a step in the right direction, but only a step. The true Christmas joy is experienced when we hail the coming of the Christ, without beginning of years or end of days, which was manifested in the human Jesus. Our Leader says (ibid., p. 260), "In Christian Science, Christmas stands for the real, the absolute and eternal,—for the things of Spirit, not of matter." When we attain to this concept of Christmas we shall indeed rejoice, but we shall also see that spiritual things are not to be commemorated only at yearly intervals, but continuously, for to Spirit time does not exist.

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