Good Friday
Even a casual reader of the events that took place on Good Friday would note that for all appearances, it was anything but good. The most just man that ever trod the earth was now being brutally and unjustly killed. And yet, that was not the end of the story, in fact, underlying the whole powerful message of the event is the demonstration by the Way-shower of the undying good of God overcoming evil through divine Love. This triumphant victory over death and the grave turned the world’s view upside down with the proof that life is eternal and nothing can destroy this grand fact. How grateful we are Jesus voluntarily allowed this to take place to cancel the sin, mankind’s missing the mark, in his understanding of a selfhood separate from his spirituality that could be killed or die. A devout Bible Scholar, Mary Baker Eddy, summarized, “Jesus’ last proof was the highest, the most convincing, the most profitable to his students. The malignity of brutal persecutors, the treason and suicide of his betrayer, were overruled by divine Love to the glorification of the man and of the true idea of God, which Jesus’ persecutors had mocked and tried to slay. The final demonstration of the truth which Jesus taught, and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. Those who slew him to stay his influence perpetuated and extended it. “(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)
Saturday’s Tomb
Her insight continues, “The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days’ work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate.” He illustrated that Love is the power behind our salvation. Jesus could never have resurrected if there was anything but Love in that tomb. Daniel showed us the same Principle in the lion’s den. My son took a math quiz on Friday and on the way to school, he was reviewing his textbook again to go over the principles on how to do the problems on which he was going to be tested. As long as he understood and practiced the principles of math, his answer was assured; without them, he could be trying all kinds of ideas and not necessarily finding any success. The principles never change and they never fail, so his freedom to solve the problems before him was to base his task on the principles of math. Then, even if the numbers get larger and the problem gets bigger, he would still find his way through the simple underlying principle. Throughout the Bible, we find the divine Principle being discovered, taught and practiced, that overcomes great obstacles in life through the unchanging Love of God.
Easter Sunday
When we climb a mountain and behold the glorious view, we no longer are caught up in the rocks before our path or face. Easter Sunday is a reminder that our view of life cannot be based on the rock-ribbed walls of mortality’s tomb-like thinking. This erroneous standpoint is all that ever dies as we identify all things based on the risen Christ. This is the way to having no other gods. This isn’t always easy, but it is freeing and found through prayer and the power of God behind that prayer. Mary Baker Eddy, not leaving Jesus on the cross or in the tomb reveals, “Jesus’ deed was for the enlightenment of men and for the salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and death. Paul writes: ‘For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the [seeming] death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.’ Three days after his bodily burial he talked with his disciples. The persecutors had failed to hide immortal Truth and Love in a sepulchre. Glory be to God, and peace to the struggling hearts! Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love.”
Let Jesus resurrection be your resurrection and the Easter message be with you the whole year through to strengthen, comfort, heal and help you shake off the dust of this world. God bless.
Anne Cooling
Sunday School Superintendent
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Laguna Niguel
