Born again. And again . . .
Meg Welch Dendler | from The Christian Science Journal
The rebirth process is not a one-time event but requires ongoing spiritual transformation and progress.
The concept of being “born again” is vital to the commitment many Christians have to God and to their love of Christ Jesus. But just what being born again means can be very individual and understood on a variety of levels. Searching through the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, both her originally published works and many of her unpublished letters and documents archived at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, I found a rich store of how she felt about the concept of being born again.
For instance, in a published sermon titled The People’s Idea of God, Mrs. Eddy addressed Christian Scientists as “… thou of the church of the new-born …” (The People’s Idea of God, p. 14). Another sermon, titled “The New Birth,” is included in her book Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 (see pp. 15–20). And in other letters and documents, she used words such as rebirth and reborn to explain the transformation that comes with an increasing understanding of God and of our oneness with Him as His loved creations, made in His image and likeness. In these writings she explained clearly that this rebirth process is not a one-time event but requires ongoing spiritual transformation and progress.
Rebirth and baptism
Another word that Mrs. Eddy used to explain this rebirth process is baptism. She took this concept beyond a religious ceremony involving being sprinkled with or immersed in water that many Christian faiths embrace. At the heart of baptism in Christian Science is a process of purifying thought and actions and gaining spiritual insight—a striving to have that mind “which was also in Christ Jesus” that the Apostle Paul referred to in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 2:5).
The concepts of baptism and rebirth in many Christian traditions stem from the story recorded in the Gospel of John where Nicodemus, a leader in the synagogue, visits Jesus by night (see John 3:1–8). Nicodemus is impressed by Jesus’ works and teachings. He expresses his confidence that Jesus’ miracles and wonders are the result of Jesus’ closeness to God, divine Spirit. In their brief encounter, the Master tells Nicodemus that one must “be born again.” As the Amplified Bible translates this passage, Jesus says, “Unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experience) the kingdom of God.”
True spiritual rebirth takes place in human consciousness.
Jesus then makes it clear to Nicodemus that he was not talking about anyone needing to be born again physically but needing to be “born of the Spirit.” In other words, where true, spiritual rebirth takes place, and where it is constantly going on, is in human consciousness.
To me, human consciousness is like the field of the tares and the wheat that Jesus describes in a parable (see Matt. 13:24–30). In the parable, a landowner discovers that an enemy has planted weeds (tares) in his wheat field. At harvest time, the wheat is gathered and put to good use, while the tares are burned and destroyed. This parable provides a good analogy for what goes on in thought as we progress spiritually. What is real and true is separated from what is unreal and false. Materially based thoughts (those that are “born of the flesh”) are eventually exposed as useless and we drop them, or they are destroyed like the tares at harvest time, while we retain ever-advancing spiritual thoughts and allow them to continue to develop.
Fundamental to the rebirth process is the acceptance of our oneness with Spirit and of our own spiritual nature. Our lives are baptized, purified, by the understanding that we are each God’s beautiful, loved child and therefore free from materiality and mortality, including sickness and death, as well as sin.
A more spiritual and improved consciousness must lead to better lives.
Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy’s primary work on Christian Science, explains that our physique, and really our whole human experience, is determined by the correct or incorrect concepts we hold in thought about ourselves and others. So it naturally follows that a more spiritual and improved consciousness must lead to better lives. Living a healthier, more wholesome life is the natural outcome of a growing understanding of our spiritual nature.
Three stages
In her article “Pond and Purpose,” Mrs. Eddy discussed baptism and rebirth in detail (see Mis., pp. 203–207). She spoke of three stages that human thought must go through to reach the highest level of spiritual understanding that level Jesus so perfectly exemplified in his ascension.
Repentance
The first stage she named is the baptism of repentance, or turning from wrong ways—that is, from material ways of thinking and acting. At this point in our progress, we begin to let go of a mortal view of ourselves and of the world, including immoral or unchristlike behavior. The human consciousness at this level, Mrs. Eddy wrote, is in “a stricken state.” The human consciousness feels wounded, afflicted, damaged, injured, sick, and fearful. It is a misshapen and disfigured mental state that needs to be healed. This early stage of rebirth sparks a rejuvenation of that consciousness. At this point, an individual may feel like everything he or she had thought of as solid and true has been upended. This stirring in thought can be a bit unnerving.
Uncovering errors in consciousness is vital to experiencing the blessings of a life in sync with God.
It is rarely a comfortable experience to see our faults and mistakes in the light of divine Truth. But this process of having errors uncovered in consciousness is vital to experiencing the blessings of a life that is in sync with God. Striving to be better, we begin to feel the divine presence embracing our consciousness, and therefore our daily activities.
An individual mentally wrestling in this state is just beginning to glimpse the reality of God’s spiritual creation—just beginning to be born again. Of this first stage Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Tears flood the eyes, agony struggles, pride rebels, and a mortal seems a monster, a dark, impenetrable cloud of error; and falling on the bended knee of prayer, humble before God, he cries, ‘Save, or I perish’ ” (Mis., pp. 203–204).
The imagery that Mrs. Eddy used to describe this mental state brings to mind the account of a penitent woman who slips into a dinner party where Jesus is the honored guest. Ignoring what others may think of her, she washes his feet with her tears, dries his feet with her hair, and anoints them with expensive ointment (see Luke 7:37–50). I’ve often wondered what brought her there. Had she already heard Jesus’ teaching in some public place or had she just heard about him? Whatever it was, her thought had certainly been stirred, and the light of the Christ that Jesus so beautifully represented was burning brightly in her thought. And Jesus assures her, “Thy sins are forgiven.” She has been reborn and evidently is ready for a new life with more and greater rebirth to come.
Yet it’s not enough just to be sorry for having followed mistaken ways of living, or even to feel the forgiveness that washed away particular propensities. In order to move beyond those ways, one must continue to deeply desire to live in accord with one’s spiritual nature. When that genuine striving to think and to live more spiritually is at the heart of our daily life, progressing further is inevitable.
Transformation
The next stage of spiritual development Mrs. Eddy described is the baptism of the Holy Ghost—the spirit of God transforming consciousness and dissolving even minor inclinations to sin. This change involves daily, continual turning away from human willfulness and materially based thinking. As we turn to God to guide every step of our lives, we feel the inspiration, wisdom, and peace of divine Love more and more. Experiencing this baptism and renewal at this stage comes from truly living the life of a follower of Christ Jesus—allowing the Holy Ghost, or divine Science, to be the primary influence controlling our words and actions.
Every step of spiritual growth improves our lives.
Every step of spiritual growth, every new way of thinking and acting and interacting with those around us, improves our lives. This spiritual growth opens our eyes to the good going on around us and helps us become better witnesses to God’s perfect creation in our family and with our neighbors. This progressive improvement of consciousness naturally touches every part of our experience and fortifies and blesses it. The baptism of the Holy Ghost refreshes thought and provides the spiritual insight needed to progress even further. We can expect that an improved awareness of our spiritual identity and our increased understanding of Spirit as the only true substance will bring tangible changes and physical healing.
Several months ago I had an experience that felt like this baptism. For years I had a mole on my neck that showed several signs of being abnormal. It was distended and often itchy. While it didn’t cause me much fear, I knew that this was something that needed to be and could be removed and healed through Christian Science treatment. So one afternoon I spent some quiet prayerful time listening to God, divine Mind, for what was needed to heal this condition. I contemplated God’s pure and perfect existence expecting to uncover anything in my thought that was not in line with God’s entirely good creation.
In just a few minutes, I had a flash of a memory from decades previous. A co-worker had had an invasive mole removed and had shared in great detail this dramatic event in her life. I realized that I had accepted this as a part of her experience and had never challenged it spiritually. So I did just that. I prayerfully denied that this woman or anyone could ever be contaminated by or invaded by such a condition and affirmed that this condition was a lie about God’s true creation. My co-worker’s pure spiritual nature became so clear to me that I knew I had corrected the misperception of her that I had let sit in thought for so long.
Within a week, the mole on my neck dried up and fell away. My consciousness had been refreshed with this new, pure view of my co-worker, and that change naturally resulted in a physical change in my own experience.
Every healing we have involves some degree of being born again.
Every healing we have involves some degree of being born again into the clearer understanding of our and others’ true spiritual nature. What we see as healing is really the unfolding revelation of what is always true. Every moment of rebirth—of awakened realization of our spiritual nature—transforms how we view reality and helps us to see more clearly through the lens of spiritual reasoning.
Immersion in Love
And this clarity leads to the final stage of rebirth: the baptism of Spirit, where we experience nothing but our complete oneness with God. Of this climactic stage, Mary Baker Eddy said that we will find the “… final immersion of human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love …”(Mis., p. 205). Who wouldn’t want to be immersed in an infinite ocean of Love?
Very often in my prayerful communion with God, as I pray either for myself or for someone who has requested my help, I have felt moments of this complete oneness with Love. It is a sense of being totally surrounded by joy and health and peace, a sense that there could not possibly be anything else anywhere that could harm God’s glorious creation. Physical surroundings seem to melt away, and there is nothing but Love. It is hard to maintain this mental state when the phone starts ringing, the dog starts barking, and the kids want dinner. But just knowing that it is attainable—and that this state of peace and pure spirituality often results in dramatic healings—makes it worth continuing to strive to maintain it more consistently.
That clear, spiritual knowledge of existence transcends, even if just for a brief time, the material sense of life. I think of it as that “one moment of divine consciousness” that Mrs. Eddy explained is possible for us now. Each of us, here and now, can be “… in the full consciousness of [our] immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown” (Science and Health, p. 598). Relating this enlightened state of consciousness to St. John’s visions in Revelation, she assured that this is possible for us, too. As she wrote, it is “… a foretaste of absolute Christian Science” (Science and Health, p. 573).
Ripe for rebirth
Our spiritual journey is forever ongoing.
That state of existence may seem like a far-off, pie-in-the-sky goal, but it doesn’t have to done in a day. Our spiritual journey is forever ongoing. As the desire to be reborn spiritually deepens, we will continue to move through those first two stages until we arrive at the full understanding of our oneness with the divine—until we find ourselves immersed in that infinite ocean of Love.
Pondering Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, Mrs. Eddy wrote to one of her students: “Your new birth seems such as Jesus declared to the Rabbi of old, even an awakening to the realities that satisfy the immortal cravings. This great hope, faith, and understanding come forth in Divine Science as naturally as the Spring-tide to those ripe for it” (L08381, Mary Baker Eddy to J.R. Clarkson, April 1, 1898, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection).
This truth speaks to everyone. Each of us can be ripe for spiritual rebirth and awaken to the truth of the universe that will satisfy the natural craving for better and higher and happier lives. We all can open our hearts and our minds to being born again today—and again tomorrow. Divine Love is supporting and encouraging each of us every moment. And Love is continually providing the infinite ocean of harmony and joy—the kingdom of God and divine consciousness—for everyone to experience.
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