Article April 8, 1939 Issue

"He is risen"

MARGARET H. ANDERSON

Nearly two thousand years ago there occurred near the city of Jerusalem what is regarded as the most wonderful event in human history, namely, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. For centuries, and throughout Christendom, this transcendent event has been annually commemorated at the Easter season, when the Christian churches resound with paeans of thanksgiving, echoing the glad message delivered to the sorrowing women at the sepulcher, "He is risen." It is indeed fitting that the victory of the great Way-shower over death and the grave should be commemorated with reverence and gratitude. Apart, however, from this sacred commemoration, the resurrection has been accepted as evidence of divine power manifested exclusively on behalf of Jesus, but having no practical value as an example to be followed.

From the Gospel narratives we learn that the great Teacher, after the ineffable experience of the transfiguration, as he came down from the mount with Peter and James and John, "charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead." This injunction evidently puzzled the disciples, for we read also that they questioned "one with another what the rising from the dead should mean." After their Master's triumphant reappearance on that radiant Easter morn, they better understood the significance of rising from the dead." Their resurrected understanding enabled them, as well as others, to follow in the footsteps of the Nazarene by accomplishing many works of healing. But the theory that "rising from the dead" is an event to be experienced by mortals at some distant, unknown time, has been throughout the ages taught by the Christian church and generally accepted.

Not until the discovery of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, over seventy years ago, was the full and practical import of our Master's earthly ministry revealed to the world. It has been proved in the healing of innumerable cases of sin, disease, sorrow, and suffering, that Christian Science is indeed the Comforter, the "Spirit of truth," which, as Jesus said, "will guide you into all truth." In the light of this revelation we learn that the mighty works of the Master were not supernatural phenomena, but the demonstration of his perfect understanding of God, good. It was this understanding which enabled him to manifest the Christ, Truth, to overcome so-called material law, to refuse submission to "the last enemy," and to rise triumphant from the grave. He was the Way-shower. Hence it is the individual spiritual understanding and demonstration of Truth and Love, as revealed to this age in Christian Science, which will accomplish mankind's regeneration and salvation from all evil.

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