Article April 10, 1971 Issue

The Risen and Rising Christ

DAVID B. CHAPIN

For the spiritually alive Christian, Easter's glad cry, "Christ is risen!" is a recurring call to action. He finds the lasting gladness of Easter by celebrating the risen Christ through hourly becoming involved in spiritual good. For him, our Lord's rejection of death certifies the triumph of good and the downfall of all evil—evil in the individual, evil in the world—through the ceaseless working of what Paul proclaimed as "Christ in you, the hope of glory."^{Col. 1:27}

Christ in us. How marvelous! There is an unquenchable divine influence in every one of us, present and active to impel our involvement with good and save us from involvement with evil. Christ is in us, in our midst this day and in this place as surely as on the hills of Galilee two thousand years ago.

This Christ and its relation to Jesus and to all men is fully defined by Mrs. Eddy: "The word Christ is not properly a synonym for Jesus, though it is commonly so used." She continues: "Christ expresses God's spiritual, eternal nature. The name is synonymous with Messiah, and alludes to the spirituality which is taught, illustrated, and demonstrated in the life of which Christ Jesus was the embodiment."^{Science and Health, p. 333} She also states, "This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him."^{p. 26} Christ was the "divinity of the man Jesus." And more than all others, Jesus of Nazareth understood and demonstrated the power of godliness to discern and call forth the evidences of divine good in one's world around. He expected each of us to do likewise.