Suffering from Others' Thoughts.
JESUS accepted the one fact whereby alone the rule of Life can be demonstrated, — namely, that there is no death.
In his own body he bore no infirmities. Though “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” as Isaiah says of him, he bore not his sins, but ours, “in his own body on the tree.” “He was bruised for our iniquities, and by his stripes we are healed.”
He was the Way; and Christian Scientists, who would demonstrate the Way, must keep close to his path, that they may win the prize. The Way, in the flesh, is the suffering which leads out of the flesh. The Way, in Spirit, is the Way of Life, Truth, and Love, redeeming us from the false sense of the flesh, and the wounds it bears. This threefold Messiah reveals the self-destroying ways of error, and the Life-giving Way of Truth.
Job's faith and hope gained him the assurance that by the sufferings of the flesh he should learn how false are the pleasures and pains of material sense, and behold the Truth of Being, as expressed m his conviction, “Yet in my flesh shall I see God,” — not without my fleshy but in my flesh.
The Chaos of mortal mind is made the steppingstone to the Cosmos of Immortal Mind.
If Jesus suffered, as the Scriptures declare, it must have been from the mentality of others; since all suffering comes from mind, not from matter, and there could be no sin or suffering in his Mind, which was the Mind of God. Not his own sins, but the sins of the world, “crucified the Lord of Glory, and put him to an open shame.”
Holding a quickened sense of false environment, and suffering from mentality in opposition to Truth, are significant of that state of mind which the actual understanding of Christian Science first eliminates and then destroys.
In the divine order of Science every follower of Christ shares his cup of sorrows. He also suffereth in the flesh, and from the mentality which opposes the Law of Spirit; but the Divine Law is supreme, for it freeth him from the law of sin and death.
Prophets and Apostles suffered from the thoughts of others. Their conscious being was not fully exempt from physicality and the sense of sin.
Until he awakes from his delusion, he suffers least, from sin, who is a hardened sinner. The hypocrite's affections must first be made to fret in their chains; and the pangs of Hell must lay hold of him, ere he can change from flesh to Spirit, become acquainted with that Love which is without dissumulation, and endureth all things. Such mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, constitute the miasma of earth. More obnoxious than Chinese stenchpots are these dispositions, which offend the spiritual sense.
Anatomically considered, the design of the material senses is to warn mortals of the approach of danger, by the pain they feel and occasion; but spiritual sense, foreseeing the impending doom, foretells the pain and finds refuge in the secret place, “under the shadow of the Almighty.”
The Cross is the central emblem of human history. Without it there is neither temptation nor glory. When Jesus turned and said, “Who hath touched me?” he must have felt the influence of the woman's thought; for it is written that he felt that “virtue had gone out of him.” His pure consciousness was discriminating, and rendered this infallible verdict; but he neither held her error by affinity nor by infirmity, for it was detected and dismissed.
This Gospel of Suffering brought Life and bliss. This is earth's Bethel in stone, — its pillow, supporting the ladder which reaches Heaven.
Suffering was the confirmation of Paul's faith. Through “a thorn in the flesh” he learned that spiritual grace was sufficient for him.
Peter rejoiced that he was found worthy to suffer for Christ; because to suffer with him is to reign with him.
Sorrow is the harbinger of joy. Mortal throes of anguish forward the birth of Immortal Being; but Divine Science wipes away all tears.
The only conscious existence in the flesh is error of some sort, — sin, pain, death, — a false sense of Life and happiness. Mortals, if at ease in so-called existence, are in their native element of error, and must become dis-eased, disquieted, before they can get out of error into Truth.
Jesus walked with bleeding feet the thorny earth-road, treading “the winepress alone.” His persecutors said mockingly, “Save thyself, and come down from the Cross!” This was the very thing he was doing, coming down from the Cross, saving himself as he had saved others, by the law of Spirit's supremacy; and this was done through what is humanly called agony.
Even the icebound hypocrite melts in fervent heat, before he apprehends Christ as the Way. The Master's sublime triumph over all mortal mentality was Immortality's goal. He was too wise not to be willing to test the full compass of human woe, being “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.”
Thus the absolute unreality of sin, sickness, and death were revealed, — a revelation that beams on mortal sense, as the midnight sun shines over the Polar Sea.
