'Hid with Christ'
A few years ago I was involved in a serious automobile collision in which I was thrown into the windshield, completely shattering it. There was also very little left of the front end of my car. But I suffered no serious harm. This wasn't just coincidence or "luck,'' however. Immediately prior to the impact I had been praying to establish in thought my oneness with God – to know that evil, in any form, was powerless to separate me from God. At the time of the impact I didn't consciously hear, see, or feel anything that was happening around me. But I do remember being totally aware, not of a collision but of my own real, totally spiritual existence. This powerful certainty of God's presence and allness protected me. My life had been, as the Bible puts it, "hid with Christ in God'' (Colossians 3:3). In those brief moments I had seen that because man is spiritually created by God, his life is of God and not a thing of the body or of matter. And I had experienced the safety that Christ brings.
What is this Christ that is here to protect us? Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, speaks of Christ in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." She writes: "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, – yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death'' (p. 332).
To be "hid with Christ,'' then, is to listen to this "divine message'' and to be receptive to that Mind which was in Christ Jesus, the Mind that is God, infinite Love, infinite good. Since God is Spirit, His totally good creation, man and the universe, must be spiritual, and, therefore, there is no place where evil can enter, no space for it to occupy in the infinity of good.
Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free'' (John 8:32). Each of us, as God's reflection, has immediate access to this freeing truth. It is Immanuel, or "God with us,'' the word of God, omnipotent Love. And nothing can obstruct this gentle, persistent ever-presence from our thought.
Emotions such as fear, anger, jealousy, and revenge may try to prevent us from being receptive to Christ's presence. But when we recognize that these feelings are actually powerless to hinder our acceptance of Christ, Truth, we can begin to put them aside as no part of our genuine, spiritual identity. Man – what we really are – is not made up of matter, is not a physical body with a limited material mind inside. We are, rather, the beloved children of God, wholly spiritual. And because we are God's, divine Mind's, very expression, we have dominion over our thinking. It is natural for us to hear and respond to Christ.
This is the Christ that keeps us safe by testifying to the all-power and all-presence of the one infinite God, that assures us of His mighty supremacy in the midst of the most aggressive suggestions of evil. Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the Science of Christ comes to free us from the imprisoning bonds of the flesh. This recognition of the coming of Christ to human consciousness assures us that we are, indeed, God's children, loved and protected by Him.
As we pray for the safety of our loved ones, wherever they may be, we too can be comforted in knowing that each one of us is cherished by God. And we lean on the Master's promise, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'' (Matthew 11:28), as we accept Christ into our consciousness as witness to our true spiritual identities, perfect, loved, and coexistent with God.
Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor, April 29, 1991
