Christmas, rightly understood in its spiritual signification, is the demonstration of the vitality and power of the Christ, the divine idea. This Christ-idea, exemplified in the man Jesus, destroyed the darkness of mortal ignorance with the light of Truth, rebuked selfishness and sensuality, healed sickness and sin, made manifest Love in place of hate, and overcame death with the understanding and demonstration of what Life eternally is. Christendom in a halting way has tried to celebrate the advent of the Christ by setting aside one day of each year, which it designates as Christmas Day, as a holy day or holiday, and this day is rightly conceived of as a day of infinite rejoicing. But the human concept of rejoicing only counterfeits that enduring joy which comes from the conscious realization of the eternal substance of Spirit.

Mortals have always sought joy in the empty husks of materiality, only to find that this so-called joy was as transient and untrue as finity itself. Permanent joy is joy in the allness of Mind, rather than pleasure in the flesh,—not the indulgence of fleshly desires, but the complete subjection of matter to Mind. The peculiar thing is that whereas the Christ reveals man in God's own likeness, the destruction of materiality, and the supremacy of Spirit, Christmas Day has come to mean to large multitudes not so much a day of conscious realization of man's oneness with Spirit, as a day on which the passion for seeking pleasure in matter might be given free rein. It was the realization of the allness of Spirit and the utter nothingness of Spirit's unlikeness, matter, that enabled Jesus to demonstrate the living Christ in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death; and yet how often do mortals, with that persistent attempt to perpetuate the belief in the reality of matter, try to celebrate Christmas by seeking pleasure not in Spirit but in the flesh,—by acting, in other words, as though that were real which the Christ dispels, the suppositional opposite of Spirit.

So Christians may well pause to ask themselves what it is that they really commemorate in Christmas. Is it not the coming of the Christ to human thought, destroying all sense of materiality, the dawn of the saving truth to waiting hearts? In Luke's gospel the entire narrative of that first Christmastide in Nazareth is illumined by what Christian Science reveals of the allness of Mind. The "good tidings of great joy," the knowledge of the saving Christ, reached the watchful shepherds through that perfect spiritual intuition which in picturesque Bible language is named "the angel of the Lord." Thus the shepherds were guided to where the young child lay. And while the multitude wondered at the things that the shepherds told them, "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." Quenching the human eagerness to proclaim aloud the new-found truth to impatient multitudes, it is well to withdraw from the belief of contending human emotions to the quiet sanctuary of Spirit, with renewed consecration to cherish the spiritual idea through the demonstration of the truth revealed. This is the only way to nurture the universal recognition of the Christ.

To the waiting Simeon, also, the Christ first appeared as a little child, whom he took in his arms, and blessed God. But, reading further in the record, we find that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." Through the growing spiritual perception of the Christ, it is seen at length that the spiritual idea is never in embyro, but is eternally the complete image and likeness of the infinite. Hence, as each one really embraces the Christ, accepting the spiritual idea and proving its vitality by actual demonstration, man is revealed, individually and collectively, in the immaculate likeness of his divine Principle, reflecting the divine dominion and power over all the earth. Jesus proved this throughout his entire ministry; and so we read of him preaching to the doctors, to the scribes and Pharisees, to the multitudes wherever he went, and, most of all, proving his words by his works, through healing the sick and sinning, casting out devils, feeding the hungry, raising the dead, and returning the hatred of materiality with the reflection of omnipresent Love. In every instance he demonstrated, in place of the human concept expressed in incompleteness and imperfection, the divine idea manifest in unalterable completeness and per fection.

Then is it, after all, the child Jesus which Christians seek to commemorate in the Christmas festival, so much as the living Christ, without beginning or end, which Jesus demonstrated,—the mature spiritual perception of man eternally in God's own image? Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in an article, "The Cry of Christmas-tide" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 370): "In different ages the divine idea assumes different forms, according to humanity's needs. In this age it assumes, more intelligently than ever before, the form of Christian healing. This is the babe we are to cherish. This is the babe that twines its loving arms about the neck of omnipotence, and calls forth infinite care from His loving heart." It is the nurturing of this child expressed in Christian healing that alone makes possible the universal realization of "on earth peace, good will toward men," for this alone reveals man in God's likeness, reflecting the harmony of complete perfection. As Mrs. Eddy also writes, in her poem "Christ and Christmas":

There is no other way to celebrate the living Christ than by actual demonstration.

The Christ, or Truth, then, is the revelation of that unchanging perfection predestined from all eternity, the verification of that consummate creation established in the very beginning, when "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Now manifestly this Christ, or Truth, is equally available at all times. It is not here to-day and gone to-morrow; it is the ever present and eternal reality of being. Herein is the joy of Christian Science, that it proves the continuity of good, the eternality of all that is God's image and likeness. Healing, as we have seen, becomes manifest in the exact ratio to the destruction of materiality. It is impossible, that is to say, to destroy the ills of the flesh without at the same time destroying the so-called pleasures of the flesh. So that true Christmas rejoicing is the result, not of appealing to the senses and the belief of life in matter, but of seeing that man reflects without variance the perfect qualities of his Maker. The joy of Christmastide is not less real, but infinitely more so, when its true and lasting significance is realized, and the whole world is found in the consciousness of that Love which is the fulfilling of the law.

When the apostle counseled, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," he really gave the key to the true celebration of Christmas; for it is the conscious capacity to think, to hear, speak, and see as Jesus did,—to reflect, in other words, the one Mind that is the eternally harmonious Principle of its own idea,—that makes the Christ, or Truth, a living reality. It is the continual replacement of the imperfect human concept with the divine idea, through the demonstration of man's indestructible spiritual faculties, that is the keeping of Christmas, and this Christmas is the universal recognition, daily and hourly and eternally, of the infinity of God, good, and of all that is God's image and likeness. This is why Mrs. Eddy writes, on page 260 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany": "An eternal Christmas would make matter an alien save as phenomenon, and matter would reverentially withdraw itself before Mind. The despotism of material sense or the flesh would flee before such reality, to make room for substance, and the shadow of frivolity and the inaccuracy of material sense would disappear."

Copyright, 1921, by The Christian Science Publishing Society, Falmouth and St. Paul Streets, Boston, Massachusetts. Entered at Boston post office as second-class matter. Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 11, 1918.