"Receive thy sight"

THE sound of voices and moving feet indicated to the blind man sitting by the wayside that many people were passing by. He asked what was happening, and was told, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." For a long while, no doubt, he had hoped for an opportunity to approach Jesus, since surely he had heard how other blind men, as well as those who had been lame, deaf, and dumb, had been healed. So insistently did he evidence his faith by his plea for mercy that he could not be prevailed upon to hold his peace. When asked by the Master, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" he voiced his desire and need in the words, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Instantly came the impelling words, "Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee;" and instantly he received that for which he asked, and followed Jesus, "glorifying God."

Mary Baker Eddy has declared in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 488), "Mind alone possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension." Sight, hearing, reason, memory, and so on, as faculties of Mind, are eternally good. Being spiritual, they are not measured by time, nor can their perfection be marred by beliefs in age, disease, accident. Faculties of Mind are not dependent upon organic conditions and material laws for their existence and continuity. They are accordingly not subject to decay, impairment, disease, loss—the frailties of human belief. Possessions of Mind are forever under Mind's government. When, through corrected thinking, human beliefs are displaced by positive spiritual understanding, the imperfection which had seemed so real disappears.

Christian Science reveals the fact that impairment, failure, loss, have never been part of the real man, the man God made in His own likeness, who possesses, through reflection, faculties that are whole, complete, and enduring, notwithstanding mortal mind's contrary evidence. The impairment, deterioration, and loss which passing time and increasing years seem to bring, disappear with the clear apprehension of the truth of being. Mind is God, immortal and perfect; hence all that Mind possesses is enduring and complete. Immortal Mind's possessions cannot be less than faultless, finished, good. They are never failing, never fading, incorruptible, indestructible. No lack or limitation is to be found in immortality; there can be nothing discordant in perfection.

Christ Jesus did not question the present and eternal completeness of God, divine Mind, or of the man God made in His likeness. He did not accept as true the false evidence of incompleteness, impairment, loss. He knew that the faculties of Mind are as eternal, complete, and indestructible as God. To the man sitting by the wayside, he said authoritatively. "Receive thy sight," and he demonstrated the truth that sight is spiritual and has never been lost. In Science and Health (p. 487) Mrs. Eddy, in speaking of "Mind-faculties," writes, "Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains;" and she adds, "The apprehension of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf centuries ago, and it will repeat the wonder." The ability to see belongs to no specific period and to no particular individual; it is as enduring and eternal as Mind. The Psalmist said, "From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

According to material evidence, the man who sat by the wayside seemed to lack the ability to see. His need was to receive his sight. Some of the definitions of the word "receive" are "to admit as true," "to perceive," "to grasp mentally." It was as though the Master had said, Admit the truth that you already possess the faculty of sight. And the man's positive faith in God's goodness and power grasped this much-desired blessing. When the man perceived or became spiritually receptive to the truth, he saw clearly. The ability to see had not been dependent on material organism. His assurance that he had only to ask in order to receive his sight, responded to the Master's understanding of the completeness of the real man.

How comforting is the assurance which Christian Science brings, that we may cast off the bonds which seem to hold us, not through our own ability, but through the might of Spirit, Mind! Truth being immortal, the truth about sight is everlastingly true. This is spiritual law, continually operating and available. We need not sit, blinded with fear in gloom and darkness, by the wayside of long-contemplated and cherished human beliefs. According to a loved hymn (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 412), "The Christ is here, all dreams of error breaking." Let us, with bounding feet, run to the Christ, there to receive our sight, there to regain our perception of Truth, there to have our understanding of the completeness and immortality of the real man restored. Let us in humility bow to the spiritual fact that God, immortal divine Mind, is ageless goodness, unimpairable perfection, endless Life. Let us rejoice that we may arise from false beliefs into spiritual understanding and consciously possess our God-bestowed faculties, which are good and enduring.