IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON April 5, 2010 Issue

WAKE UP!

CHRISTA KREUTZ

THIS WEEK'S Christian Science Bible Lesson, titled "Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?" directs us to wake up from the dream of dualism—that life can be both material and spiritual. It shows that suffering is part of this mortal dream and the Christ is here to wake us up and bring healing and restoration.

The Golden Text takes us into the Lesson with this rousing call: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5:14). This passage is a quote from what appears to be an early hymn. Some scholars assume that this hymn fragment goes back to the conversion experience of early Christians (see Pheme Perkins, "The Letter to The Ephesians," The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 11,p.437). It would indicate that the healing Christ coming into their experience for the first time was like a wake-up call that helped them understand the unreality of sin and disease, as well as death.

Sometimes this wake-up call comes first as the need to recognize who God is. With the realization that there is no other power but God, we stop dwelling on our own perceived shortcomings. In Section I, citation 2 of the Lesson, the Psalmist laments all his problems. He has sinned (Ps. 41:4), he's being victimized (v. 5), and he might have a disease (v. 8). He is triply miserable, but he asks God for help (v. 10). The prophet Micah responds to this feeling of despondency by pointing to what God's role is in our lives: "When I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me" (Mic. 7:8, cit. 4). It is as if to say that neither our mistakes, nor the mistakes of others, have any power in the presence of God. Science and Health explains that mistakes have no validity, because "the history of error is a dream-narrative" (p. 530, cit. 3).