The scene outside my window looked just like a Christmas card. Snow covered the streets in Boston with a white carpet, muffling all sounds, and the trees glittered with ice. I sat at my desk to write a Christmas card to my family in Brazil. The picture on my card matched the scene I was looking at. Yet I knew that my best wishes for a joyous holiday season would be delivered just around the first days of a hot summer in the Southern Hemisphere. There would be no snow, no pine branches covered with glittery ice-crystals, no cozy fireplace with a burning log.

What did I mean, sending a snowy picture to wish them "Merry Christmas?" What did I want them to feel? I suddenly realized that many of the images associated with the Christmas season have nothing to do with what I wanted to impart on that card.

What really mattered was not a desire to make myself remembered, and my intention was not merely to send them my love or wish them a happy, festive season. What I really wanted them to feel was a sense of reverence and wonder at the most important celebration of the year for those who follow the teachings of Christ Jesus.

The birth of Jesus, representing the coming of the Christ, is God's marvelous gift to us. The wise men from the East saw a star, whose light guided them to where the young child Jesus was (see Matt., chap. 2). They did not suppress their sense of wonder when they found him. They came prepared to celebrate the event with great joy; they brought gifts of the most refined quality: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They bowed to the child; they worshiped this impartation of divine Love with reverence.

The way this birth occurred was extraordinarily different. Jesus' mother was a virgin. His coming was announced to her by an angel. The shepherds in the field were also visited by an angel, who told them something unusual had happened, that the baby in the manger was the Saviour, someone who would free the people from oppression and tyranny (see Luke, chaps. 1 and 2). Centuries earlier, there had been a Scriptural prophecy in the book of Isaiah, saying, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (9:6). Jesus' birth represented the fulfillment of that prophecy.

The shepherds were filled with a sense of wonder, but the angel told them not to be afraid. Right from its earliest manifestation, the coming of the Christ was marked by its impartation of peace and its ability to quiet fear. And the world marveled.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says, "Christian marvels (and marvel is the simple meaning of the Greek word rendered miracle in the New Testament) will be misunderstood and misused by many, until the glorious Principle of these marvels is gained" (p. 474).

Christian Science is the Science of Christ. The study of this Science enables us to understand that the eternal Christ, the spiritual idea of God, communicates to human consciousness and reveals the truth of God and man. Jesus manifested the Christ. He demonstrated Christ, and showed mankind how to do so, how to think and act according to the law of divine Love. As a result, many people were healed of diseases, and those who endeavored to learn what Jesus taught were also able to heal. Healing the sick and sinning was the essence of Jesus' theology, and he expected his followers to practice spiritual healing.

The importance of Christmas is that it makes us remember all these things. It brings to thought the sense of wonder that accompanied the birth of Jesus, that defined the coming of the Saviour. During his time among mankind, Jesus healed people, individually, and also collectively when he fed the multitudes. And his works caused astonishment and made people marvel.

Yet the coming of Christ Jesus was a manifestation of God's love, and God's love is not miraculous. One holy way for Christians to look at Christmas is to see it, not as celebrating a supernatural event, but as commemorating the natural and wondrous dawning of a new understanding, and therefore as something to be thought of with reverence, reverence for the Christ. Mrs. Eddy entertained this feeling, as her words reveal in Miscellaneous Writings: "I reverence and adore Christ as never before" (p. 96).

The world was not the same after the birth of Jesus. A major change started to take place in human thought on that occasion, and it is still going on. The change was so significant that it forever influenced the history of mankind and the shape of civilizations and cultures. A new calendar was introduced. Jesus' teachings revolutionized the concepts of love, of repentance, and of forgiveness.

It is up to us to seek to understand more fully all that Jesus taught, in order to fulfill all that he expected of Christians. Jesus' teachings are indelible. They are vivid, and need to be demonstrated in daily living, showing forth love, regeneration, and healing. Our respect for the master Christian leads us to follow his example and to understand "the glorious Principle of these marvels." Mrs. Eddy says in the Manual of The Mother Church: "He who dated the Christian era is the Ensample in Christian Science. Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus is abnormal in a Christian Scientist, and is prohibited" (Art. VIII, Sect. 3).

Keeping a sense of reverence with regard to Christmas is a way of preparing for this happy occasion. The willingness to look at the Christ in a new way, the aspiration to understand every year a little more of what having the spirit of Christ means in our world, is a joyous thing to do.

Let us give our loved ones sweet and valuable thoughts of pure Christianity, wrapped in the perfume of love. This kind of Christmas does not depend on having or not having plenty of money and friends, or on being invited to many parties. It is a quiet, yet active, spiritual festivity.

What I want to convey to you on this "Christmas card" is the deep, reverent feeling of love and gratitude for God's great gift, a wonder-filled expectation of good, a full recognition that the Christ is here, bringing solace, comfort, and healing. Let us celebrate the presence of the Christ with renewed inspiration, with a fully justified sense of wonder at this most beautiful gift.

Heloisa G. Rivas
Managing Editor,
O Arauto da Ciencia Crista

ISAIAH

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound ... to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

Isaiah 61:1, 3