IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON December 21, 2009 Issue

A TIMELESS GIFT OF PEACE

CHRISTA KREUTZ

CHRISTMASTIME BRINGS thoughts of "peace on earth," that longed-for feeling of hope for the world. This week's Christian Science Bible Lesson, titled "Christian Science," shows that this Science appeals to divine law to find peace—a peace that is the result of active obedience to God, whose creation is blessed and harmonious. And the activity of acknowledging and obeying the divine or spiritual laws is the practice of Christian Science.

Different sections of the Lesson focus on peace among nations, peace among neighbors, and peace in the human body. Peace and salvation come though understanding our oneness with God. In this unity with the divine Mind, neither time, nationality, sin, nor disease has the power to divide or disrupt.

It isn't passivity that brings peace but the eternal activity of the healing Christ. The eighth-century prophet Micah understood the Christ long before Jesus walked the earth. Speaking of a savior, Micah wrote, "And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, ... for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth" (5:4, citation 1). Science and Health states that "... the Christ is without beginning of years or end of days" (p. 333, cit. 2). You might say that the salvation of Christ is "ahistorical" because it is a principle or law—the Christ Science, or Christian Science (see p. 107, cit. 4).