Editorial April 1, 1961 Issue

"The spiritual resurrection"

John J. Selover

Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" (John 20: 15.) In this manner Christ Jesus addressed Mary at the graveside after his resurrection. Mary, grief-stricken at the supposed loss of her friend and Saviour, not realizing that the questioner was Jesus, asked him where the Master's body had been taken. Then we read, "Jesus saith unto her, Mary." Mary, obviously greatly stirred, "turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say. Master."

Mortal belief, belief in which Mary had concurred, held Jesus as dead. But his spiritual understanding of his Father, divine Life, Truth, and Love, and of his eternal nature as God's Son, enabled him to rise above the claims of mortal mind and to emerge from the tomb with the same body that he had before the crucifixion. His God-assigned work among humankind had not been finished. He needed to prove to doubting disciples the eternality of Life. During his stay among men after the resurrection, he stirred and gladdened the hearts of his close followers.

Speaking of the occasion at the tomb, Mrs. Eddy gives us this counsel (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 179): "We must lay aside material consciousness, and then we can perceive Truth, and say with Mary, 'Rabboni!'—Master!" Earlier on that same page she says, "We can only come into the spiritual resurrection by quitting the old consciousness of Soul in sense."

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