Phenomena—miraculous and scientific

A glimpse of Christ, even a momentary hearing of a divine message from God, is the most wonderful experience on earth. Actually, it is not strictly an earthly experience; it is the divine meeting the human, transforming consciousness, replacing doubts and fears with spiritual conviction. It brings joy to our hearts and praise to our lips. Each incidence of this divine and human coincidence destroys some dreary belief. An aspect of our living is cut loose from material limitation.

Through the centuries those who have consciously entertained Christ have striven to tell others of this glorious message. Such Christly impulsion moved Old Testament figures and prepared human thought for Jesus, who was ever aware of his own oneness with God. Christ, this true consciousness of God and man, was so consistently his that he was called Christ Jesus. He always moved at the impulsion of Christ, healing and saving others from their fears and sorrows and sins. His life changed human history.

Last Christmastime a newspaper column posed a question regarding the understanding of that life. The writer notes all the "marvelousness" we believe in—being able to walk on the moon; conceptualizing the geometry of the DNA molecule. He asks, "Why, now, in an age gullible enough to re-embrace astrology, is the [Christmas] story's Central Figure so hard to believe?" And prior to this he asks, "Why do we balk at the belief that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to the end that all who believe in Him should not perish but gain everlasting life?'" ^{The Boston Globe, December 29, 1980 .}

A recent magazine article, entitled "In Search of the Miraculous," laments: "The religious life of the Christian world has always had a fanatical investment in belief and doctrine: in creeds, dogmas, articles of faith, theological disputation, catechism lessons... the Word that too often becomes mere words." ^{Theodore Roszak, "In Search of the Miraculous," Harper's, January 1981, p. 60 .}

These two articles, published within a month of each other, present what might be called the paradox of our times. On the one hand, so many people are hungry for Christ, revealing the true knowledge of God and His idea, man, bringing to light the spiritual actuality of the universe, and yet refuse to accept the facts of Christ Jesus' life and follow his teachings.

Mrs. Eddy addressed this question in the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health: "Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and healing," she comments, then asks, "Why?" and answers, "Because his precepts require the disciple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye,—that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs and practices, to leave all for Christ." ^{Science and Health, p. 141 .}

In explaining and expanding Christ Jesus' admonition against sin to include setting aside all merely material beliefs and practices, Mrs. Eddy makes clear that it is materiality itself that would keep us from seeing with Christly vision, that hides the "miraculous" the world is seeking. Her metaphysical definition of the term "miracle" has helped many to restore the "miraculous" to actual daily experience: "Miracle. That which is divinely natural, but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science." ^{Ibid., p. 591 .}

Christ tells us what is divinely natural. The Christ Science reveals spiritual phenomena. This is what our age is seeking. The Science that Jesus understood so well, and that enabled him to feed thousands with a few handfuls of food, walk on the water, call a dead man forth from his tomb, remains to be accepted, understood, and repeated.

Christian Science will satisfy the longing for what is humanly called miraculous—but is divinely natural. But Science cannot be engrafted on material systems. We turn from them, not merely with our intellect but with the entire thrust of our being. Accepting the Christ Science is accepting a moral science which demands that we live every moment in accord with it.

We are well on the way in the "search for the miraculous" when we can say with Paul, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." ^{Phil. 3:13, 14 .}

We can prophesy a grand future for mankind—even the kingdom of heaven—as the search for the miraculous is undertaken in the Christ Science.

Because this is an all-encompassing Science, our research in it is all-engrossing. And it is worth giving up those cherished beliefs and practices that might hold us back. The struggle to understand the phenomena of this Science, to find its laws, takes place daily in the laboratory of our hearts. And the results, as many people have found, are marvelously miraculous.