Article June 28, 1941 Issue

"He stirreth up the people"

JOHN L. MOTHERSHEAD

CHRIST JESUS overcame every condition in his experience which was unlike good. He opposed tyranny, injustice, hypocrisy, and deceit, destroying evil by knowing it as nothing—a lie. He was at peace with no phase of error. He declared war on all lies. He said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword." He promised no ease and rest in materiality. He told his listeners that only by denying themselves and taking up the cross could they follow him. He denied any existence apart from God; so must they. He said, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Lose your life, find your life—these words may have sounded strange to those hearing them. We learn in Christian Science that Jesus referred to the material or human sense of life, which we must lay down or put off in order to attain the divine Life, or immortality. Mary Baker Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 51): "Jesus could have withdrawn himself from his enemies. He had power to lay down a human sense of life for his spiritual identity in the likeness of the divine; but he allowed men the attempt the destruction of the mortal body in order that he might furnish the proof of immortal life. Nothing could kill this Life of man."

Too often men think of a more abundant life as meaning merely the acquisition of more material things, not greater spiritual vision. A loss of a desire for mere materiality must precede the gain of spirituality; and so there must be loss of the false sense of life before there is the gain of the right sense of life. Jesus rejected the whole program of materiality. He expected and required reformation as the effect of the advancing spiritual idea. He considered mercy, right judgment, and justice weighty and important, but he expected the fulfilling of the lesser human demands as well. Jesus refused to accept kingship in the human sense and rejected mere political power. He unsparingly denounced materialism.

He knew that man is the son of God, not the servant of matter. He proved God's ever-presence and man's oneness with his Father. He could not be diverted or deflected from his mission in order to satisfy the demands of the carnal mind. He rebuked those who sought him out only for their own material ends. He told his followers that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood; that they must express the divine nature, the Christ. He knew what he was asking and the response which he might expect and summed it up when he said. "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." Here lies the crux of the whole matter. When Jesus said he came in his "Father's name," he denied all material causation. He required the surrender of the mortal sense of self and the acceptance of man's unity with God. Mortals are apt to welcome one who comes "in his own name." "What do I get out of this?" is the cry of material sense. How much comfort, health, wealth, and human happiness is to be mine as a result of this undertaking?

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"He stirreth up the people"

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