Article June 3, 2013 Issue

Commissioned as sentinels

Christopher Cieply

I love a passage in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass in which Alice is talking with the White Queen and proclaims, “One can’t believe impossible things.” The Queen responds, “I daresay you haven’t had much practice!... Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

I shared this passage in a memorial message for a soldier killed in Iraq, explaining that there are many reasons why we have memorial ceremonies, one of which is that we come hoping and wishing to believe “impossible” things. Christian Science explains what Jesus declared—“With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26)—and invites us to consider the accomplishment of the “impossible” as a divinely natural occurrence. The Bible abounds with stories of events that could only be met with wonder and skepticism! One such “impossible” thing, proclaimed by the Christian faith, is that one grave is empty—Jesus Christ is raised from the dead!

When we talk about being a Christian sentinel, we’re really talking about being a follower of Jesus Christ, about striving to have that divine Mind that animated him. The sixth tenet of Christian Science reads, “And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; …” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 497). We solemnly promise to act as a Christian sentinel! This magazine has been published continuously since Mrs. Eddy founded it in 1898, with Jesus’ words as a motto: “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:37).

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

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