Easter: Celebrating the risen Savior
When I was in fifth grade, a classmate was killed when hit by a bus. My fellow classmates and I were understandably upset and confused. Mother comforted me and talked with me about the fact that since God is the Life of man, life itself must be and is eternal and my friend was still just as loved and embraced as always—never separated from good—and therefore I could not be separated from good, either. This was quite helpful and allowed me to gain peace.
She encouraged me to go with friends to the funeral, which was in another church. Once there, I observed a very graphic statue of Jesus hanging crucified on the cross. I had been raised in the Christian Science Sunday School, so my immediate mental response was to think of how important Jesus’ resurrection and ascension are. Jesus’ resurrection, three days after the crucifixion, and his ascension, 40 days after that, showed man’s life to be spiritual and immortal.
Even at that young age, I had been learning that one needs to move beyond the crucifixion to the resurrection and ascension if one wants to understand the full meaning of Jesus’ demonstration over hatred, death, and the grave. If you stay with just the crucifixion, you could get stuck contemplating the limits of matter and mortality.
I love the Easter season. To me Easter is such a powerful reminder of the complete mission of our Master, Christ Jesus, to heal and save. Jesus was victorious over sin, sickness, and death, and he told us to go and do likewise. Easter provides us with the blueprint for individual salvation. It is a significant reminder to celebrate the risen Savior. And it is the risen Savior we are celebrating! Actually, with each healing we experience at any time of the year, we are celebrating the risen Savior.
As Christians, we understand the significance of the crucifixion. Paul tells us: “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2 ). And Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: “We need ‘Christ, and him crucified.’ We must have trials and self-denials, as well as joys and victories, until all error is destroyed” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 39 ). This illustrates not only Jesus’, but man’s inseparability, or at-one-ment, with God through the overcoming of a mortal, material sense of selfhood and the accompanying sin that would go with it. Repentance, redemption, regeneration, and restoration are integral to the triumph of Spirit over matter in healing bodily ailments.
Science and Health tells us: “That Life is God, Jesus proved by his reappearance after the crucifixion in strict accordance with his scientific statement: ‘Destroy this temple [body], and in three days I [Spirit] will raise it up’ ” (p. 27 ). Our identity then is actually spiritual, made up of the spiritual qualities that we express—our intelligence, wisdom, humor, joy, honesty, efficiency, discernment, etc. While our body as identity is expressed in outline, form, color, we are not and never were material. Rather, we are spiritual, immortal, and eternal. And this is what Jesus proved. Having a greater understanding of body as spiritual and not material is a foundation for seeing the perfection which we already express. It is also basic to healing.
When we’re faced with a challenging physical problem that doesn’t seem to be yielding to our own prayers, and even those of a dedicated Christian Science practitioner, it may seem to be a “crucifying” experience for us—making us feel hopeless, at the mercy of matter and so-called material laws, powerless against the claims of disease. Is it time to just give up? No! Life is God, and as we individually work through our own “crucifixions,” it can be encouraging to know that only good is permanent, and we can look forward to inevitable healing victory.
During those challenging times we can persistently pray to daily “put off the old man,” putting off old habits of thought and patterns of behavior (Ephesians 4:22 ). As we pray to overcome any sin or error in our thinking and lives, we actually experience the “crucifixion” of a mortal sense of selfhood and are ripe for the resurrection and ascension of healing. The letting go of a mortal sense of selfhood—a personal sense of ourselves and others—is necessary and a good thing. It’s a requirement for growth in grace, growth Spiritward, and is always accompanied by God’s tender guidance.
With each healing we experience at any time of the year, we are celebrating the risen Savior.
I had one of those “crucifying” incidents many years ago. At the time I was challenged with a relationship issue. An excruciating and debilitating pain in my hip would hit me with little warning, utterly taking my breath away. This went on for several months. I had to really dig deep in prayer, into my understanding of my life as spiritual and not material. I also asked for daily prayerful help from a Christian Science practitioner. I knew I could only grow spiritually from this experience. I sensed that if I would continue to look forward to the resurrection of thought, to the spiritual, this would lift me right out of the lie of life and intelligence in matter. And this ascending thought would then reveal the presence of the Christ, and the healing would come.
Feelings of separation from love, affection, and support, had to be uprooted and overturned with the understanding of divine Love’s ever-presence. I began to see even more clearly that I could never be disconnected or disenfranchised because God is my Life. Each time the hip pain would hit, I would claim that I was absolutely inseparable from divine Love, and therefore I could feel only loved, and not pain. I did experience relief at those times, although the pain continued to return.
During this time, in a cross-country move, I had to drive a family vehicle. Initially, I’d been worried about making this drive, but as I prayed during the drive, the pain I’d been feeling became less intense and lasted for a shorter period of time. I continued to claim that I was never disconnected from God or disjointed in any way. I thought of the Bible story of Jacob and Esau and how Jacob had struggled all night in prayer before being reunited with his estranged brother, Esau. Jacob had to learn that there was no severance of his relationship with God or his brother (see Genesis 32:24–30 ). That Bible story was of great help to me.
Three days later, when we arrived at our destination, the healing of the hip pain was complete. The relationship issue calmed, I was lifted out of an unhealthy situation, and I never again experienced the hip pain.
Mary Baker Eddy makes the following comforting and encouraging statement: “Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 149–150 ). Jesus’ experience of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension certainly demonstrates that statement. His proof of life as spiritual, immortal, eternal, not material, corporeal, or mortal, revealed his at-one-ment with God.
I remember right after college, in Christian Science class instruction, our Christian Science teacher telling the class we were to be praying about our own ascension. At the time I was shocked since it was then such a radical concept to me! Now I realize the importance of doing just that if we are to follow our Master in all his ways.
Yes, the Easter season prompts us to deeply cherish the risen Savior. We are reminded to move beyond the crucifixion, and that resurrection and ascension are applicable in our own lives. When? Right now.