Trust the spiritual law of harmony

We never wake up in the morning, hoping the law of gravity is working that day, because we’re accustomed to accepting gravity as a law that is always in place. This week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Christian Science,” describes the Science of being, or “the natural law of harmony” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 134 , citation 5), which is always in place. Accepting the natural law of harmony, as Christ Jesus demonstrated, is practicing Christian Science.

One of the wonderful things this week’s Lesson shows us is that we don’t have to do anything to bring this law of the harmony of being into effect; it already is. This is a gift of God, which Paul described when he wrote to the Corinthian church, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (I Corinthians 2:12 , Responsive Reading). We should not feel badly or judge ourselves if we think we don’t know or see God’s gift—His harmonious law in action. We may, however, feel a longing for it.

In response to this desire to see God’s law of harmony, the Bible and Christian Science invite us to turn our focus away from the problem, to let go of it and not identify with it. The story of Elisha and his servant in Section 1 is a great example of this. The king of Syria was after Elisha because he was preventing the Syrians from conquering the Israelites. However, the king was told where Elisha lived, and the king’s army surrounded the city. Elisha’s servant was very fearful and saw no way out. Elisha turned in reverence to God and prayed, “I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.” The servant’s focus shifted, and he saw that they were actually surrounded by “horses and chariots of fire” and completely protected from harm (see II Kings 6:8–17 , cit. 2).

This “opening of the eyes” is like receiving the gift of the spirit of God that Paul was speaking of. We receive it freely because it is the law of spiritual being. Jesus’ life is filled with examples of looking to spiritual law instead of focusing on physical effects. Jesus was naturally accustomed to relying on the laws of harmony, or, in other words, the Science of being. 

Mary Baker Eddy describes Jesus in Science and Health as “the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause” (p. 313 , cit. 8). Science and Health further emphasizes the importance of looking at the spiritual cause: “Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress” (p. 170 , cit. 10).

In Mark 6, it says, “And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them … and he began to teach them many things” (verse 34 , cit. 9). That Christly thought begins with the spiritual law, seeing in every problem, or need, an opportunity in which to be a blessing and to trust the spiritual law of harmony that results in healing. The Lesson concludes with this invitation to dwell in reverence of this law: “Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine ‘powers that be.’ Such is the true Science of being” (Science and Health, p. 249 , cit. 30).