Article September 18, 1978 Issue

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Healing on the sabbath

WILLIAM E. MOODY

They hoped to destroy him; some wanted to kill him. Why? A blind man could see, a man's withered hand was restored, a crippled woman stood straight, and he had healed them—on the sabbath.

The Pharisees thought Christ Jesus had gone too far. Steeped in ritualism and interpreting the sabbath's requirements from the standpoint of a scholastic and materialistic theology, the indignant Pharisees pointed to Jesus' healing activities as "proof" of his disregard of Mosaic law and Hebrew tradition. Feeling their power and influence threatened by the spiritual emancipation the Saviour was offering, the Pharisees challenged Jesus' ministry and denounced him as a heretic.

However, Jesus knew that there was no greater way to show our love for God, to worship Him, than by demonstrating man's God-given freedom from sickness and sin. And there could be no better day for this proof than the sabbath.

Jesus did not violate the sanctity of God's day. It was God's love that actually healed the sick; therefore Jesus acted in accord with the divine will. This superseded the human doctrine. After one of the sabbath healings, Jesus replied to his detractors, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." John 5:19;

Jesus did not heal only on the sabbath. The restorative and redemptive power of divine Love is available every day. But the experience of Christian healing is like the sabbath in that it is a holy time, a time of reverence and rest from trials. Healing today in Christian Science reveals man's true being to be spiritual, not material; it shows that God is Life and that man expresses Him alone. Through Christian Science healing we're able to worship God in the highest sense by proving His supremacy and man's unity with Him.

Nearly two thousand years after Jesus' ministry, there remain elements of the old Pharisaism. Although some encouraging signs of awakening to the possibilities of prayer are evident, the opposition of materiality to "the things of the Spirit" Rom. 8:5; and a misinterpretation of Truth's saving mission still underlie repeated attempts to impugn spiritual methods. Only through better healing and deeper dedication to the Christ-example can we fully overcome this modern pharisaical renitency.

We should continue to expect healing on the sabbath, and every day. Our devotion to God needs to be more than a once-a-week event. It should receive regular attention in lives of compassion, consecration, and spiritual insight. Then we will appreciate Christian healing in its wider implications—the release and protection from discord, the ascent of thought and action, the liberation from sin. "The substance of all devotion," Mrs. Eddy writes, "is the reflection and demonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and destroying sin." Science and Health, p. 241. True devotion praises God without ceasing, holds each day to be holy—and proves it.

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Editorial
Schoolteachers and church Readers—their morals
September 18, 1978
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