Article February 5, 1955 Issue

WORK WHILE IT IS DAY

PARIS H. RENSHAW

When Jesus and his disciples were confronted with the man who was born blind, it was natural, humanly speaking, that the disciples should ask the Master (John 9:2), "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" In other words, who or what was the cause of his blindness? Jesus, with his usual acumen, answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." The Master's answer denied evil as a cause or creator. He then spat on the ground, thus showing his utter contempt for matter, and made clay of the spittle, placing this on the eyes of the blind man. After doing this Jesus told him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash, and then the man came seeing.

What a picture is here given us of the great necessity of having the spittle and clay of materialistic thinking washed from our consciousness by the pure water of the Christ, Truth. Only purification from human selfishness, from the lusts of the flesh, from hatred, from harmful condemnation and criticism, will enable us to love our neighbor as ourself and demonstrate the healing power of the Christ.

The healing of the blind man gave Jesus another opportunity to present to his disciples and to his followers for all time the necessity of spiritual illumination when he said, "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." What a world of meaning is here conveyed to every earnest student of Christian Science: to work while it is day, to work that he may forestall the darkness in which the insidious, creeping suggestions of age, decadence, and decrepitude seem real and the carnal mind says no man can work. This healing of the blind man is another lesson in proving the allness of God and the falsity of everything unlike His perfect idea.

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