The Christian Scientist learns to approach and to celebrate Christmas not as the anniversary of a mortal event, thought of with awe and wonder; not as a time for mere present-giving and festivity. He sees in the coming of the Christ to human consciousness heralded in the birth of Jesus the evidence that the man of God's creating— the man whom Christian Science reveals as the only man—has been given dominion over matter, over all phases of mortality. In profound gratitude and in conscious alertness to his own responsibility to prove, even as did the Master, his divine origin, he sees in each Christmastide an opportunity to reaffirm his spiritual sonship, his own identification, with the Christ-appearing.

On page 260 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," Mary Baker Eddy writes: "The basis of Christmas is the rock, Christ Jesus; its fruits are inspiration and spiritual understanding of joy and rejoicing,— not because of tradition, usage, or corporeal pleasures, but because of fundamental and demonstrable truth, because of the heaven within us."

Christmas then, in the light of Christian Science, does not only commemorate the greatest of all gifts to humanity, foreshadowed by prophets and earnestly longed for by mankind, the coming of the Christ to human consciousness, delivering men from sin and suffering; it proclaims its present universal availability.

In speaking of the truth which reached the children of Israel as they journeyed out of the bondage of materiality into the promised land, Paul writes, "They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ."

It was not however, until the birth of Jesus that the fact of God's fatherhood was manifested and therefore made practical to all who perceive and adopt it. For many centuries after the advent of Jesus, the Christ-message was so little understood that its power to deliver humanity from the limitations and tragedies which attend every mortal concept of man was unrecognized; the duality of belief in good and evil continued. And yet Jesus had assured his followers of oneness with him; he had declared, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

Would we follow the example of the Way-shower in close obedience to his own words and deeds? In this regard it is significant to observe that throughout his recorded sayings there is no reference to his human birth; none, to his own human history, except to disassociate himself from it. Always rather was there the affirmation of and emphasis upon his Christhood, wholly apart from material birth and environment; always the declaration and demonstration of his power over every phase of mortality.

In the following words does our Leader seek to lift mankind to her spiritual apprehension of the Rock upon which is built the Science of Christianity, belonging to neither time nor season, youth nor age but forever unfolding in the eternal Mind (Miscellany, p. 262): "I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being."

Each individual must ask himself as he ponders these words, so revealing, of our Leader's attitude towards that circumstance which must sooner or later influence and direct every human life, as it has the history of the race: How can I best celebrate Christmas with my spiritual sense? Not place or time, not event or circumstance, made Jesus the Saviour of the world, but his own sanctified and sanctifying at-one-ment with the divine Principle of his being. This motivated his thoughts, inspired his prayers, and winged his deeds.

Hope in the promise of salvation, in the presence of a Saviour, dawned and developed because of the Virgin-mother's concept of spiritual fatherhood. It became manifest with the full splendor of faith and understanding in the life and works of Christ Jesus. Christian Scientists can truly commemorate Christmas only as they put into practice what this means to them, the evidence that Truth has appeared never to disappear; the ever-presence of God's eternal message to the man of His creation born of Spirit, having dominion over sin, disease, and death.

On page 259 of Miscellany Mrs. Eddy writes: "Christmas respects the Christ too much to submerge itself in merely temporary means and ends. It represents the eternal informing Soul recognized only in harmony, in the beauty and bounty of Life everlasting.—in the truth that is Life, the Life that heals and saves mankind."

Where would we seek information as to how to celebrate Christmas with spiritual sense, as did our Leader, but from Soul? As Soul's representatives, imbibing its strength and tenderness, its inspiration and wisdom, its joy and beauty, will men learn in deepening continuity and consecration how to apply the lessons which are theirs from Soul.

Then will the merely historic, academic, traditional, and therefore material, give place to the spiritual and immortal, to that which, because born of God and dwelling—as Jesus knew himself to be—in the Father, represents not the mortal but the immortal. Then everywhere will men informed of Soul, illumined by spiritual sense, celebrate the Christmas whose basis is the rock, Christ Jesus, and whose heaven is within.

Evelyn F. Heywood