Let us learn of the real and eternal, and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the kingdom of heaven,—the reign and rule of universal harmony, which cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen.
Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 208

The Christmas story cradles the most marvelous promise of “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). In fact, the virgin birth of Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). In a world that seems presently torn by internal wars, world terrorism, financial meltdown, and “natural” disasters, the promise of peace offers universal hope, as light shining in the darkness. But the birth of Jesus was just the beginning. It would require the entire mission of the Master to fulfill the prophecy of peace on earth—to show the way to attain “the reign and rule of universal harmony.” He set that way clearly before us. The question is, “Will we follow it?”

The answer has immense importance for the well-being—yes, even the salvation—of our world.

“Let us learn of the real and eternal . . . ”

Jesus’ whole life showed the proof of divine power in his marvelous healing works and in his own unparalleled resurrection from the dead and final spiritual ascension. Had he not proved the present availability of God to care for everyone’s needs, he might have passed through history as merely a grand philosopher rather than as the Savior of the world. And while our task is most certainly to learn from Jesus, through his teachings and works, that only Spirit and its manifestation are the “real and eternal” (Science and Health, p. 468), he nevertheless offered no effortless, vicarious passage into the kingdom of heaven. He came to show us, rather, what to do and how to do it in order to find our own unity with God, Spirit—the unity he taught and demonstrated. He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (John 14:12).

Jesus’ own victory over every claim of the flesh didn’t come on a silver platter. He had to meet, often at great cost to himself, the resistance that good often stirs up as it uncovers and destroys evil. At an early point in his public ministry, he had to wrestle with the resistance of the tempter, the claim of an evil mind and power. He was literally alone in the wilderness—though today our lonely “wilderness” might be a hostile atmosphere of human events. He found he was required to face down—and reject—the claim of an intelligence and influence separate from God. And so do we. He knew that he was as inseparable from God, the only creator, as an idea is inseparable from the Mind in which it originates. His oneness with that Mind was his habitation of safety. It is also ours, as we learn from his example how to claim our oneness with the Father and gain this place of safety.

The would-be opposite of the one Mind is the false, suppositional, unreal suggestion of what Paul called the carnal mind (see Rom. 8:7). Jesus proved, in the wilderness experience and beyond, that the devilish suggestions of the carnal mind were illusions with no real authority; mirages with no real form; temptations with no real power; lies unsupported by any real law. Since they had no part in God, good, they had, in actuality, no reality. He clearly saw the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of God, and this is what gave him dominion over the carnal mind.

Paul also tells us that we are to “have the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2:16). To me, this means that we have the right and ability today to know the allness and only-ness of God—just as Jesus told us we did; that this understanding proves the impotence of evil, its inability to harm us; that the understanding of the real man’s perfectibility heals infirmities today, because the divine will, or law, operates timelessly. Jesus proved that since God knows only Himself and His own allness—because He is totality itself, the All-in-all—there is nothing, and no one, beyond or outside of His self-conscious knowing. Jesus’ entire life and ministry proved that the outcome of this self-knowing is God’s own perfect image and likeness of Himself. Part of the beautiful message of Christmas, or message of the Christ—the message that Jesus completed in his resurrection and ascension—is the knowledge that we, in absolute Truth, are right now the sons and daughters of God, safe in His care, the ageless, endless, expression of divine Mind. And this is the most important point to learn.

“. . . and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the kingdom of heaven . . .”

How useful to us is this view of perfection? How does it touch our everyday lives? The awareness of this forever existence, or preexistence, in Mind, disconnects us, first of all, from the belief of a sperm-and-egg origin and all the hereditary ills and characteristics that go with it. Further, it disconnects us from the hatred, vengeance, envy, greed, deceit, and selfishness that appear in the world—elements rooted in the belief in a personal existence and mind, and that engender rivalry, war, conflict, and fear. It enables us to see our secure place in the kingdom of heaven under “the reign and rule of universal harmony.” It enables us to see everyone in this secure place, dwelling in the same unshakable harmony.

Then how to explain the apparent dichotomy between this universal kingdom and present world conditions, where there appears to be so much suffering and where civilization itself seems often to hang by a tenuous thread? Jesus taught clearly that the kingdom of God, with its joys and health and freedom, comes to each individual as each “learns” and “prepares”—putting off materiality and gaining the knowledge of Spirit, God, moment by moment, and experience by experience. Luke tells us: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20, 21). His response clearly indicates that some people hoped—and still do—that this kingdom of God, with its reign of universal harmony, would come suddenly for everyone in one fell swoop, where all would be caught up in a rapturous cloud. Others feel that it’s a fairy tale beyond anyone’s ability to really experience it. Still others say the kingdom of heaven is a hoped-for joy at the end of the road for just a chosen few.

On the contrary, Jesus taught that the reign of Spirit, the kingdom of God within us, is revealed as we seek it, recognize it, treasure it, and labor with love to live it. This is part of our preparation. The disciple John was learning about the universal harmony of this kingdom and how it was to come about. The full understanding came when he was exiled on the barren Greek island of Patmos (see Rev. 1:9). He was denied the comforts of normal living, and was said to be forced to live in a small cave. As the result of his rugged experience and deep prayer, the material world held little attraction for him. He saw “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1), where he could discern the reality of Spirit and its government of man and the universe. But it wasn’t until the first heaven and first earth, with even its material hopes and aims, passed away in his thought that the new heaven and earth became visible to him.

“. . . which cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen.”

How can we receive, or experience, this new heaven and new earth, this reign of Spirit? Is it something that will remain “forever unseen” for some? Absolutely not, as John found in the quietness and privacy of his thought on Patmos. But for us, too, it doesn’t come on a silver platter. It takes great love, discipline, self-examination, honesty, patience, and a great deal of humility to receive it. When we learn something of the kingdom of heaven—the pure consciousness of Spirit as the only reality—and gain some knowledge of its grandeur and glory, then we see the need to prepare ourselves to receive it. This is the point in our spiritual progress when we often become more willing to let the Christ break the apparent hold of materiality, to let go of the foibles and mental burdens of one kind or another that we may have carried for years. It’s the reappearing of the Christmas message that comes to one at whatever time he or she is prepared to receive it. Mrs. Eddy puts it this way: “As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression” (Science and Health, p. 255). The dropping becomes a joy, as thought gains the grander view.

At the end of his mission, in the resurrection, Jesus said to his disciples, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John 20:22). He had already prophesied that the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, would eventually come and “teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). This Comforter that we are to receive as Jesus’ present-day disciples is divine Science, the eternal law of divine Love that reveals and maintains the harmony of being. And as we willingly receive the Holy Ghost—this law of harmony available to anyone and everyone—we find that it’s able to neutralize every kind of turmoil that threatens to engulf the world, and demonstrates the kingdom of heaven within us. It reveals our unstained, pure identity as God’s children. It enables us to see our sinless, Christly nature that Jesus so loved in little children.

As pure divine law emanating from divine Principle, Christian Science is destined to bring peace on earth. It shows us how we need to live—how to renovate our thought. It shows us that this law is practical and provable right here and now. It teaches us how to see, as Christ Jesus saw, the all-inclusiveness of divine Love’s government, where not one—not even one—is left out.

This universal harmony cannot be resisted, ignored, or “remain forever unseen.”