IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON September 28, 2009 Issue

ACCEPT GOD'S TESTIMONY

DAVID ROBERTSON

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IN THIS WEEK'S Christian Science Bible Lesson on the subject "Unreality," Mark's Gospel reports that Jesus began his public ministry with this astonishing and courageous statement: "The time is fulfilled" (1:15, citation 15). In a way, at the time, this statement was the signal that the long-awaited fulfilling of God's promise had come to pass.

For me, this Lesson brings a wonderful sense of the immediacy of Jesus' announcement, and of our participation in its fulfillment. It's interesting that though the word testimonial is generally used to describe physical or material evidence, this common use is reversed in the Responsive Reading. The Psalmist declared, "I have stuck unto thy testimonies" (119:31); here, the idea is to testify to what God is seeing, rather than what our material senses perceive. Sticking with God's testimonies, or judgments, could imply that we are asking Him to open our eyes, that we may behold "wondrous things" out of His law (119:18). The New English Bible puts it this way: "Take the veil from my eyes, that I may see the marvels that spring from thy law." As this Lesson continually points out, the most wonderful of those marvels is what God testifies about every one of us.