Feeding on Jesus

Jesus had been feeding the multitude, in what was considered a very marvellous and easy manner. Holding in thought a human life dependent upon material food, looking for nothing higher than that which was manifest to the senses, many followed him either to receive that which was supposed to constitute life, or to learn the way in which such ease could be brought about: others, as the sequel shows, followed him because, through or back of this visible expression, they caught glimpses of something higher. Jesus, detecting all these phases of thought, begins his teaching upon the lowest plane and works upward, in order to reach all. This object is made apparent in the thirty-ninth verse of the same chapter: “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”

Jesus’ idea of Spirit,Science and Health , 608:21. Mind, enabled him to overcome for himself all beliefs or temptations into which the claims of personal sense would lead him; also, while the claim of personality allowed him to perceive the wants of fellow beings, his spiritual perception enabled him to meet and relieve (destroy) their apparent sense of want.Science and Health , 630: see “Jesus.” He recognized no earthly father; he realized that his own origin, therefore all origin, is in Mind, and not in matter. This was the strong mark of distinction between Jesus and others; and, in order to be like him and do the works he did, others also must come into the realization of their spiritual origin. This understanding of Jesus throws upon his words, quoted above, a light which makes their meaning clear.

Eating, implies disappearance of something—in fact, apparent destruction of one thing by which to bring forth another. Webster thus defines the verb to eat: “To consume; to enter by gradually wearing or separating the parts of a substance.… In scripture, to eat the flesh of Christ, is to believe on him, and be nourished by faith.” Flesh, from the fact that it appears and disappears, is suggestive of mortality, and is therefore delusive. It does not belong to Spirit, nor is Spirit cognizant of flesh.Science and Health 536: see “Flesh.” We read: “the Son of man must be delivered”; also, “the Son of man indeed goeth as it is written of him.” From such expressions as these, we see that the Son of man has an end, is temporal; that is, the belief of Life, Substance, and Intelligence in matter, the belief of the power of a person to give or take Life, must disappear—or be eaten. Through disappearance of this illusion of flesh, the true idea must appear; or, as Paul expresses it, “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”I Cor xv:53.

“The spiritual meaning of blood is sacrifice.”Science and Health , 509:7. A sacrifice is “destruction, surrender, loss made or incurred for gaining some object, or for obliging another; any thing destroyed.” Jesus’ sacrifice, or blood, was the surrender to the judgment of the world what, in its eyes, constituted his power and life. The world condemned and crucified this human ideal of Truth and Love; and Jesus, by submitting to this condemnation, demonstrated, manifested a higher ideal. To-day, the idea of the Son of man is being crucified by those who perceive not, in demonstration over sin and sickness made by those following in his footsteps, the higher light of Infinite Love. Jesus was guilty of nothing; yet, when called before the courts of the world he made no defence, “he opened not his mouth.” Knowing so well his own innocence, and that human opinions cannot change or injure the Truth, he yielded what appeared to be his personal rights, in order to demonstrate the ever-presence of Divine Love—which could be made appreciable to human understanding in no other way. Thus, the sacrifice of the human reveals the true drink; in other words: individually giving up this false sense of Life—of which the shedding of his blood was typical—ever brings forth the higher sense of Life which is eternal.

To believe that Mind or Life is both good and evil, and man the representative of these forces is logically impossible; for Good and evil, being opposites, never do or can unite. When one appears the other disappears. Can that be the real good which appears and disappears? In fact, is it not an error to suppose that Good can be put aside for evil. Life for death, Truth for falsity, Love for hatred? Life itself can never become death, for death is the absence of Life. As like produces like, it is fallible to fancy that Life, Mind, Spirit, Substance, Intelligence can produce either the opposite, or the absence of itself. That which appears to represent Life at one time and death at another, Love at one time and hatred at another, Truth at one time and error at another, never was and never can be a representation of Life, Love, Truth; hence never was man, nor the mind of man. Mortality never becomes immortality; but mortality is “swallowed up of life.”2 Cor. 5. 4.