Eastertide comes with a joyous message of Life and immortality. It is ever a season of awakened hope, peace, and restoration. All nature at this time is proclaiming the exultant joy of living and regeneration.

It was at this season, when springtime was at its fullest, and all nature was giving of its freshness, beauty, color, and fragrance, that the master Christian achieved his triumphant and ultimate victory over death and the grave, revealing to humanity the priceless truth of the eternality and indestructibility of Life. It was at this time he demonstrated the omnipotence, omnipresence, and availability of divine Love, and brought to humanity the knowledge of the Life that knows no death.

Mind, God, is continuously unfolding ideas of beauty, purity, holiness, and perpetuity, and Spirit's purpose is constantly being manifested; so man, God's idea, can never lose consciousness of the divine fact that Life is continuous—that it is an eternal season of spiritual resurrection, ascension, and blessedness. Life is unchanging, infinite, and never dependent on inanimate matter or corporeality. Man's true identity and individuality can never be expressed in temporal qualities or conditions; his embodiment is that of immaculate purity and perfection, and his true status has ever been spiriutal and eternal. It was Jesus' knowledge that man was never born into matter, therefore could not be subject to mortality, death, and disintegration, which brought about his final triumph. As Christian Scientists strive to follow in an ever-ascending degree the commands of Jesus and those of their Leader, they will behold the man and universe of Spirit's creating.

In the hours following the crucifixion of Jesus, his followers were saddened, and struggling under a mighty weight of human doubts, fears, and uncertainties. Although their Master had at no time acknowledged fleshly ties, although he had said to them, "I am the resurrection, and the life," their senses were heavy and dulled under the trying experiences of the times, and they but feebly grasped the true significance of his teachings concerning immortality, until that early morn when he stepped forth from the gloom of the sepulcher unfettered.

They had seen their Lord persecuted; had seen him endure the agonies of Gethsemane, suffer the indignities of an unjust tribunal, the ignominy of the cross, and his glorious career come to an untimely end. Little wonder their hearts failed them! But soon their eyes were opened as the angel message was borne to them that their Lord had risen! It was then that a clearer comprehension of his teachings, of his supreme sacrifice, and of the magnitude of his works among them dawned on their darkened senses. They were awakened to the sublime fact that the omnipotence of divine Love was stronger than any beliefs of treachery, deceit, malice, or hate which had nailed him to a cross and sealed him in a tomb.

In the divine order of existence, Christ Jesus was never crucified; his divine selfhood was never confined in a sepulcher. This immaculate teacher was beyond the vision of his fellow men, demonstrating the great truths of scientific being and the fact that Love can and will overcome the human sense of things at every turn. This was a glorifying experience in his career, for he was fulfilling a God-appointed mission, and he well knew the peace which must come through his obedience and loyalty in carrying out God's holy purpose.

Golden opportunities to resurrect ourselves from some sepulcher of benighted thinking present themselves to us all daily; to roll away some stone of false belief and ascend into the atmosphere of purified and holy thought.

Love's triumphs may not always come easily or quickly. There may be persecutions and trials in the experience of every individual. It is thus that we partake of the cup of our Lord, which he commended to all who would follow in his footsteps. Through divine Science and the teachings of Christ Jesus, we have the assurance that inevitably and finally every besetment of mortal mind must yield to the patient overtures of Love.

Through every effort for reform and transformation of thought, we are uplifted to express more of the Christlike qualities, and into the unalterable understanding of the supremacy of Love. The love of Christ, Truth, is ever tender, patient, steadfast, gentle, full of compassion, and able to dissolve every cloud of error.

New visions of divine goodness and immortality come to us out of many seemingly tomblike experiences. We learn in Christian Science that our resurrection comes daily and hourly; and as we lift thought above the sordid, the base, the unreal, and earnestly seek the realm of spiritual being, the misconceptions and illusions regarding life are swept away and matter is divested of all claim to reality. It is then we more clearly discern that, as Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 509), "The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness—yea, the divine nature—appear in man and the universe never to disappear."