RADIO PROGRAM No. 195 - What Has Christmas Meant to Me?

[The following is the last of three programs on Christmas.]

QUESTIONER: Sometimes there's a tendency after the rush of the Christmas season to feel a kind of letdown. The brightness, the spirit of goodwill, the joy that have been abroad seem to have faded a bit.

SPEAKER: Why do you think that's so?

QUESTIONER: Well, to me it would be because we're not aware of the true meaning of Christmas.

SPEAKER: I believe that would be quite true. Christmas means different things to different people. In fact, some people are glad that it's over with. The reason for that is, perhaps, that they haven't looked into Christmas deeply enough to gain its true meaning.

Now God's will for us is always good, and God's gift to us is for every day, not just for Christmastime, although we're mighty grateful for Christmas. You can even feel the goodwill during the season, can't you?

Now we have a right to have that feeling the year round, not just on the twenty-fifth of December. The real meaning or significance of Christmas is its perpetual promise of good for everyone.

Perhaps we're so busy taking down the Christmas tree lights and decorations and storing them away in the attic for another year that we tend to forget all about the real meaning of Christmas.

Like Mary, we need to ponder deeply and prayerfully the real meaning of Christ Jesus' coming. Remember the story of Christmas, where the shepherds heard the angel message that a Saviour was born in Bethlehem. They came to where the babe was and then verified what the angel had said.

Now let us verify it in our own consciousness. What was this Saviour? What is it that saves us? It is our understanding of our relationship to God, which the Master made clear.

He expected those who accepted him to use the message that he gave them, to apply its truths. He always beheld man as the child of God. Instead of seeing man as a miserable sinner or ill and unhappy, he saw him as the expression of God, the spiritual image and likeness of the Love that is God, of the good that is God. This understanding healed individuals and even multitudes. Could there be a greater gift than the knowledge of man's relationship to God?

QUESTIONER: No, I can't conceive of any greater gift.

SPEAKER: This is what Jesus came to reveal through the power of the ever-present Christ, Truth: the spiritual fact of man's unity with God, which Jesus taught and lived. John wrote (1:9 ), "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

This light of the Christ, Truth, never fades; it's always present, and it's always working for the good of all men.

QUESTIONER: Well, it doesn't seem very apparent as one listens to the news and reads the headlines, but I suppose we are too much occupied with our daily tasks and the material things of life.

SPEAKER: Yes, I'm sure that's true, but it's the privilege of every one of us through prayer, study, and consecration to let this light of the Christ, Truth, reveal our true, spiritual nature as the sons of God.

It's expressed this way in John (1:12 ): "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God"—to as many as would take into their consciousness and live the Christ, live the Truth.

We read in the Bible (I John 3:2 ), "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."

QUESTIONER: Just what does that mean?

SPEAKER: Let me illustrate with an experience my wife had in the business world. It was a problem in human relations which seemed very difficult. But she turned to what she knew of God and prayed earnestly over the situation.

One day I noticed that the face of her wristwatch seemed to be smeared. I took a closer look and saw that she had taken nail polish and lettered on the face of her watch, "Now." Well, of course, I wanted to know why she had done that. She said: "This is to remind me every time I look at my watch that now in my true being, in my true relationship to God, am I the child of God. Right now I express the Christ, Truth; right now I express love, kindness, consideration, forgiveness."

As she took into her consciousness the truths of her relationship to God and used them—expressed them in her relationship to others —why, things began to straighten out, and it wasn't long before the whole problem was solved.

QUESTIONER: If we could keep with us always the thought that we are children of God, then the spirit of Christmas would, perhaps, be with us always.

SPEAKER: It surely would, and we'd have the same joy that you feel in a degree at Christmastime. It should be with us all the time and can be.

Because of what Jesus taught and demonstrated of the Christ, we ran gain a clearer view of our divine sonship and, best of all, the power that goes with it—the power of God, good. To the Christian Scientist this is a constant reminder of the real meaning of Christmas.

QUESTIONER: How does all of this make Christmas a daily event in our lives?

SPEAKER: We begin to look at ourselves and others from a spiritual point of view instead of from a material one. As gratitude for God's great gift grows in our hearts and in our understanding, fear and doubt give way to trust in God; bitterness, hate, and resentment yield to forgiveness, love, and unselfishness: sickness and discord give place to health and peace; and sorrow and disappointment yield to joy and fulfillment. Now this is the transforming effect of the Christ, Truth, bringing to light in our daily lives our true selfhood as the sons of God. Paul said (Rom. 8:14 ), "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." And isn't that what we're talking about—the spirit of God?

Let me ask you this: What were the things that were really worthwhile in Christmases that you remember?

QUESTIONER: Well, I think it was more the remembrance of the loving things that were done rather than the presents we got.

SPEAKER: That's right, but isn't that the expression of the Christ? the love, one for another? the goodwill? That was the message of the Master. God's will to man of love, kindness, forgiveness, and good for all.

You know, the real significance of Christmas is expressed in these words of Mary Baker Eddy (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 122 ): "Beloved brethren, another Christmas has came and gone. Has it enabled us to know more of the healing Christ that saves from sickness and sin?" And elsewhere in the same book she writes (p. 260 ): "The basis of Christmas is love loving its enemies, returning good for evil, love that 'suffereth long, and is kind.' The true spirit of Christmas elevates medicine to Mind; it casts out evils, heals the sick, raises the dormant faculties, appeals to all conditions, and supplies every need of man."

Now this is why Christmas is a daily, yes, an hourly and a continual reminder of God's great gift, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God."