Editorial December 18, 1948 Issue

THE ETHICS OF CHRISTIAN PRACTICE

Helen Wood Bauman

In the thirteenth chapter of John is the simple account of our Master washing the feet of his disciples. The feast of the Passover was finished, and Christ Jesus, knowing that he would soon leave the human scene, gave final instructions to his disciples, to whom he was entrusting the precious message of his ministry. We read that he girded himself with a towel and washed his disciples' feet. When Peter, seeing this act as personal and humiliating, protested, Jesus explained that the rite was symbolic of true ministry and typified purification.

The Master was facing on that occasion the suppositional force of malice which denies the Christ, and the deep-seated materialism which betrays to persecution the innocency through which Truth's dominion over evil is manifested. Here he was declaring the necessity that the human consciousness be cleansed of the destructive animal instincts common to mortals which would bring to degradation the individual who fails to destroy them.

The instruction of Christ Jesus in this memorable chapter of John points to the ethical basis of Christian practice—the human decency and purity of thought which must characterize the ministry of Christian healing. It deals with human behavior. Men must serve one another. The letter of moral law is not enough. Love must be an active, cleansing energy. Meekness must motivate deeds, and the higher thought must cleanse the lower. On another occasion the Master had said (Matt. 20:26, 27), "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant." Writing in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 518), "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good."

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