Exposed only to Love

During the first weeks of the crisis in Japan, more than 500 individuals cycled in and out of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, scrambling to keep a terrible crisis from growing even more terrible. According to most reports, these individuals knowingly and selflessly put themselves at enormous risk. Their admiring countrymen began calling them the “nuclear samurai.” People around the globe began calling them heroes.

As the world eyed ongoing events in Japan, people everywhere also nervously monitored radiation levels, as they inched up even thousands of miles from the disabled power plants. But to get the whole picture on matters of exposure, the scope of one’s gaze must open wider still. That wider view could take in, for instance, the biblical account involving three young Hebrews – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – who experienced a potentially devastating exposure while in a fiery furnace. In a fit of anger, the king had ordered the three of them thrown into the inferno. This was the same king, looking into the furnace a short time later, who said in astonishment, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Dan. 3:25).

While scholars debate the date of this account, they agree it was written several centuries prior to Christ Jesus’ ministry. Yet, “the form of the fourth ... the Son of God” appeared. How could that be? Because the Christ was then – and is now. The Christ was there and is here. Think of Christ as the spirit of Love, coming from God to human consciousness. This Christ-Spirit cuts across time and space with deliverance for those in need of it. Christ comes even to those who don’t believe in Christ.

Even the harshest environments begin to transform when confronted by the Christ, the spirit of Love. What people have long remembered about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is not just the incredible courage they embodied. It is also the incredible love they exhibited for the one God, from whom they refused to turn.

What we all may long remember about the nuclear samurai is, similarly, not just the astonishing courage they have embodied. It may also be the unselfed love they have exhibited for their fellow countrymen, and, beyond them, for the whole of humanity.

In truth, it even goes beyond exhibiting such love. The Love that is God is the overwhelming reality to which the Bible figures were exposed. It is today the overwhelming reality to which we are all exposed. If such a healing exposure in times past could neutralize the ill effects of a harmful exposure, couldn’t the same thing happen today?

Mary Baker Eddy, a consecrated follower of Christ Jesus if ever there was one, discovered there is a Science to divine Love, who is God. The healing action of Love is so reliable, so repeatable, so certain in its operation, that to label it anything less than scientific would be a misnomer. This Science cuts across time and space just as Christ does, to be with those in need, right when and where the need is greatest. The outcome? The Almighty shields His offspring from harm with the undeniable certainty of Science, and the unfathomable love of Christ. This always is true.

Divine law, the law of God, operates with both the certainty of Science and the compassion of the Christ. It tells you what God ever does, and what He never does. “God never punishes man for doing right,” wrote Mrs. Eddy in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue, cold, heat, contagion” (p. 384).

The fact for each one of us is that we’re exposed to Love and to Love’s protecting power and presence. This exposure is invariably true. However, it is not quite enough for this to be true. People have to know it to be true, realize it in prayer, insist on it vigorously, insist on it mentally, insist on it spiritually. Then it is enough. Then the spiritual reality takes hold on the human scene and makes a practical difference. Then episodes involving exposure to Love grow more common. Episodes appearing to involve harmful exposure grow less common. Fear lessens, begins to lose its grip on thought, and drifts off. Deliverance dawns. Safety multiplies.

Adapted from an editorial in the Christian Science Sentinel.

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