The popular movie Dead Poets Society of some 20 years ago came to my thought as Easter approached this year. In a pivotal scene early on, the teacher climbs onto his desk and asks, “Why do I stand up here? Anybody?”

“To feel taller?” queries a student.

“No! Thank you for playing!” the teacher enthuses back, tapping his foot on a porter’s bell (ding) atop his desk to punctuate the moment. He then stood to remind his students “that we must constantly look at things in a different way. You see, the world looks very different from up here.”

He then invites them to do likewise: “When you read, don’t just consider what the author thinks. Consider what you think.”

So what does a film of two decades past have to do with Easter? When reading the first-witness account of Jesus’ resurrection, we find Mary Magdalene arriving before sunrise to find the tomb open and the body missing. She and her party summon a couple of Jesus’ other disciples, but even these followers “still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9, New International Version).

Later, Mary finds herself alone at the tomb’s entrance, crying. Like her fellow disciples, she has accepted the material evidence, which presented itself so strongly to the physical senses. But Mary was about to be invited to witness a higher level of reality—to “consider” what she thought—and to radically alter her world view.

Mary is twice prompted: “Woman … why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” (John 20:15, NIV). Thinking the inquirer standing behind her was a gardener, she asks whether he moved the body and where she could collect it.

It was then that a voice said, “Mary.”

She turned. It was Jesus. “Rabboni,” she answered (meaning teacher). Mary, the disciple, the student, who had initially struggled to grasp the extraordinary scene presented to her, now viewed the world in an entirely different way. Jesus, her beloved Teacher, had overcome the persecution and the grave, and taught, through demonstration, that there is, in Truth, no death.

Jesus always put into practice the many lessons he taught. Turn back to earlier pages in the Gospels and we find that this was not the first time Jesus had overcome death, pain, sin, disease, and suffering. He had resurrected the daughter of Jairus the high priest (see Luke 8:41, 42, 49–56 ), restored the widow’s son from the funeral bier (see Luke 7:12–15 ), and raised Lazarus of Bethany, after four days in the tomb (see John 11:1–44 ).

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing” (John 14:12 , NIV) was Jesus’ promise to everyone, in every hour, and for all time.

Perhaps the first challenge of any student of Jesus’ teachings is to openly share one’s Christian conviction—to swim against the inertial tide of the secular world. Like Mary, the disciples who followed were also invited to join the Master on his heightened plane of understanding: to feel empowered to awaken so-called “closed minds” to the reality of God—one Mind.

The disciple Paul, whose worldview was enlightened forever on the road to Damascus, thereafter made his life’s passion spreading fruits from this revelation. Like Jesus’, Paul’s message became one of spiritual wholeness. But this disciple’s teachings weren’t a “feel good” Christian sales pitch. Like his Teacher, he practiced healing. Paul’s resurrection of Eutychus, who fell to his death from a third floor window, is a vivid example of the immediacy of the power of God (see Acts 20:7–12 ).

But how do we overcome our own doubts that this healing power is available in modern times?

I am reminded of a remarkable healing that happened a few years ago. A woman I knew well found herself in hospital, having been admitted by her doctor. His preliminary assessment was that her medical condition was “serious” and needed to be clinically diagnosed. I was informed, several days after she had been admitted, that she was dying. I was urged that if I wanted to see her again, I should hasten to her bedside to say my goodbyes. I was surprised. I hadn’t even known she was in hospital.

I lived some distance away, but it didn’t occur to me to panic or catch the first flight over. Like many of us when we find ourselves with a pressing need, I instinctively turned to God for divine help. I knew through my practice of Christian Science of the healing efficacy and potency of prayer. I recognized that what I needed to do first was to understand the situation from a spiritual perspective. I also trusted that if I needed guidance on any practical steps to take, it would come through divine direction.

Over the previous year or so, this woman, who is of another faith, had given in to the persuasive arguments from others that she was physically and mentally unable to take care for herself and that she must inevitably move out of her house and relinquish the entire proceeds from the sale to be managed by lawyers for the rest of her life. In fact, I came to learn that the best-case scenario decided for her was that should she survive the current hospitalization, her only viable prospect was admittance to a nursing home.

I immediately started praying and soon became aware of this woman’s feeling of dread, of absolute despair. I sensed her resignation, the darkness of thought that had overcome her. It came to me, through prayer, that what was really taking place on a human level was that she was willing herself to physically shut down. Moreover, that she had spiritually disconnected from a truer sense of her God-given life.

A couple of hours of fervent prayer passed. Then suddenly, as if an enormous light had filled that remote hospital room some hundreds of kilometers away, I sensed a change. I was confident that she was alert, coherent, and receptive to Christ’s healing message. So I phoned the hospital.

After only a brief conversation with this woman, it dawned on her what had actually been taking place. After her husband passed on some years earlier, she had gradually come to accept a picture of a limited future, with nothing to look forward to. In fact, she had implicitly accepted that hospitalization was an inevitable revolving door, a natural part of the aging process.

Over the next few days, we endeavored to understand a profound lesson from Jesus’ execution. “What was it that Jesus said on the cross?” I asked her.

“Father, forgive them” she answered. These words of Jesus, a man condemned by nothing more than the jealousy and pursuit of control by the Pharisees, brought home to her the first and most necessary step—one of forgiveness.

“Then what did he say?” I quizzed.

She struggled a while and then recalled Jesus’ closing words: “for they do not know what they are doing!” (Luke 23:34, NIV). It was the message behind these words that had a transforming effect on her.

Through Jesus’ example, this woman understood that she needn’t accept her current situation as inevitable, and she had a major rethink on what true health is. She immediately began eating meals again. Her fear of loneliness, her sense of uselessness, of a lack of control, slowly dissipated. Joy began to come back into her life.

Later, the hospital conducted a CAT scan. It was expected to reveal a serious disorder. The results showed nothing. The woman dressed herself and left the hospital the very next day. Her situation had completely turned around in less than a week from the time she started praying in this way.

Soon after this episode, the woman sold the family home and bought a condominium. She invested the residual monies so that she had full control over her funds to live on. In her new suburb the woman made friends and found many useful activities—from help and guidance for a young mother with her newborn, to preparing home-cooked meals for an elderly neighbor who recently lost her partner, to bringing comfort to another neighbor struggling with illness.

“God found me this place to live,” she affirmed, “to be of use to others.” She attributes this new-found purpose in her life completely to God. Today, it is not unusual for this woman to walk more than ten kilometers a day with her busy new schedule. She prays daily to remain spiritually connected to this truer sense of life. In a sense, this woman had her own resurrection from that hospital bed, which took place some four years ago now. As Jesus taught us all, “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt. 7:20, NIV).

At Easter, Jesus’ ultimate example—there is no death—stands refreshed. It’s an opportunity for every one of us to renew our intrinsic right to be healers. To demonstrate the true example and legacy of our master Teacher.

This is the sacred step of discipleship.