0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

A CHRISTMAS SERMON 

  	           Delivered in Chickering Hall, Boston, Mass., on the
 3	                           Sunday before Christmas, 1888 

  	            SUBJECT: The Corporeal and Incorporeal Saviour 

  	    TEXT: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the
 6	government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
  	Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
      Prince of Peace. — ISAIAH ix. 6. 

 9	    To the senses, Jesus was the son of man:  in Science,
  	man is the son of God. The material senses could
  	not cognize the Christ, or Son of God:  it was Jesus'
12	approximation to this state of being that made him the
  	Christ-Jesus, the Godlike, the anointed. 
  	    The prophet whose words we have chosen for our
15	text, prophesied the appearing of this dual nature, as
  	both human and divinely endowed, the personal and the
  	impersonal Jesus. 
18	    The only record of our Master as a public benefactor,
  	or personal Saviour, opens when he was thirty years of
  	age; owing in part, perhaps, to the Jewish law that none
21	should teach or preach in public under that age. Also,
  	it is natural to conclude that at this juncture he was
  	specially endowed with the Holy Spirit; for he was given
24	the new name, Messiah, or Jesus Christ, — the God-
 
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 1	anointed; even as, at times of special enlightenment,
  	Jacob was called Israel; and Saul, Paul. 
 3	    The third event of this eventful period, — a period of
  	such wonderful spiritual import to mankind! — was the
  	advent of a higher Christianity. 
 6	    From this dazzling, God-crowned summit, the Naza-
  	rene stepped suddenly before the people and their schools
  	of philosophy; Gnostic, Epicurean, and Stoic. He must
 9	stem these rising angry elements, and walk serenely over
  	their fretted, foaming billows. 
  	    Here the cross became the emblem of Jesus' history;
12	while the central point of his Messianic mission was peace,
  	good will, love, teaching, and healing. 
  	    Clad with divine might, he was ready to stem the tide
15	of Judaism, and prove his power, derived from Spirit, to
  	be supreme; lay himself as a lamb upon the altar of
  	materialism, and therefrom rise to his nativity in Spirit. 
18	    The corporeal Jesus bore our infirmities, and through
  	his stripes we are healed. He was the Way-shower, and
  	suffered in the flesh, showing mortals how to escape from
21	the sins of the flesh. 
  	    There was no incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth. The
  	spiritual man, or Christ, was after the similitude of the
24	Father, without corporeality or finite mind. 
  	    Materiality, worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by
  	demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have
27	dethroned his power as the Christ. 
  	    To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of
  	human self. 
30	    Of the lineage of David, like him he went forth, simple
  	as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied
  	in the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understand-

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1	ing, he sought to conquer the three-in-one of error:  the
  	world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 3	    Three years he went about doing good. He had for
  	thirty years been preparing to heal and teach divinely;
  	but his three-years mission was a marvel of glory:  its
 6	chaplet, a grave to mortal sense dishonored — from which
  	sprang a sublime and everlasting victory! 
  	    He who dated time, the Christian era, and spanned
 9	eternity, was the meekest man on earth. He healed
  	and taught by the wayside, in humble homes:  to arrant
  	hypocrite and to dull disciples he explained the Word
12	of God, which has since ripened into interpretation
  	through Science. 
  	    His words were articulated in the language of a de-
15	clining race, and committed to the providence of God. 
  	In no one thing seemed he less human and more divine
  	than in his unfaltering faith in the immortality of Truth. 
18	Referring to this, he said, "Heaven and earth shall
  	pass away, but my words shall not pass away!" and
  	they have not:  they still live; and are the basis of divine
21	liberty, the medium of Mind, the hope of the race. 
  	    Only three years a personal Saviour! yet the founda-
  	tions he laid are as eternal as Truth, the chief corner-
24	stone. 
  	    After his brief brave struggle, and the crucifixion of
  	the corporeal man, the incorporeal Saviour — the Christ
27	or spiritual idea which leadeth into all Truth — must
  	needs come in Christian Science, demonstrating the spir-
  	itual healing of body and mind. 
30	    This idea or divine essence was, and is, forever about
  	the Father's business; heralding the Principle of health,
  	holiness, and immortality. 
 
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 1	    Its divine Principle interprets the incorporeal idea, or
  	Son of God; hence the incorporeal and corporeal are
 3	distinguished thus:  the former is the spiritual idea that
  	represents divine good, and the latter is the human
  	presentation of goodness in man. The Science of Chris-
 6	tianity, that has appeared in the ripeness of time, re-
  	veals the incorporeal Christ; and this will continue
  	to be seen more clearly until it be acknowledged, under-
 9	stood, — and the Saviour, which is Truth, be compre-
  	hended. 
  	    To the vision of the Wisemen, this spiritual idea of the
12	Principle of man or the universe, appeared as a star. At
  	first, the babe Jesus seemed small to mortals; but from
  	the mount of revelation, the prophet beheld it from the
15	beginning as the Redeemer, who would present a wonder-
  	ful manifestation of Truth and Love. 
  	    In our text Isaiah foretold, "His name shall be called
18	Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
  	Father, The Prince of Peace." 
  	    As the Wisemen grew in the understanding of Christ,
21	the spiritual idea, it grew in favor with them. Thus it
  	will continue, as it shall become understood, until man
  	be found in the actual likeness of his Maker. Their
24	highest human concept of the man Jesus, that portrayed
  	him as the only Son of God, the only begotten of the
  	Father, full of grace and Truth, will become so magnified
27	to human sense, by means of the lens of Science, as to
  	reveal man collectively, as individually, to be the son of
  	God. 
30	    The limited view of God's ideas arose from the testimony
  	of the senses. Science affords the evidence that God is the
  	Father of man, of all that is real and eternal. This spir-
 
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 1	itual idea that the personal Jesus demonstrated, casting
  	out evils and healing, more than eighteen centuries ago,
 3	disappeared by degrees; both because of the ascension
  	of Jesus, in which it was seen that he had grown beyond
  	the human sense of him, and because of the corruption of
 6	the Church. 
  	    The last appearing of Truth will be a wholly spiritual
  	idea of God and of man, without the fetters of the flesh, or
 9	corporeality. This infinite idea of infinity will be, is, as
  	eternal as its divine Principle. The daystar of this appear-
  	ing is the light of Christian Science — the Science which
12	rends the veil of the flesh from top to bottom. The light
  	of this revelation leaves nothing that is material; neither
  	darkness, doubt, disease, nor death. The material cor-
15	poreality disappears; and individual spirituality, perfect
  	and eternal, appears — never to disappear. 
  	    The truth uttered and lived by Jesus, who passed on
18	and left to mortals the rich legacy of what he said and
  	did, makes his followers the heirs to his example; but
  	they can neither appreciate nor appropriate his treasures
21	of Truth and Love, until lifted to these by their own
  	growth and experiences. His goodness and grace pur-
  	chased the means of mortals' redemption from sin; but,
24	they never paid the price of sin. This cost, none but the
  	sinner can pay; and accordingly as this account is settled
  	with divine Love, is the sinner ready to avail himself of
27	the rich blessings flowing from the teaching, example,
  	and suffering of our Master. 
  	    The secret stores of wisdom must be discovered, their
30	treasures reproduced and given to the world, before man
  	can truthfully conclude that he has been found in the
  	order, mode, and virgin origin of man according to divine
 
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 1	Science, which alone demonstrates the divine Principle
  	and spiritual idea of being. 
 3	    The monument whose finger points upward, commem-
  	orates the earthly life of a martyr; but this is not all of
  	the philanthropist, hero, and Christian. The Truth he
 6	has taught and spoken lives, and moves in our midst a
  	divine afflatus. Thus it is that the ideal Christ — or
  	impersonal infancy, manhood, and womanhood of Truth
 9	and Love — is still with us. 
  	    And what of this child? — "For unto us a child is
  	born, unto us a son is given:  and the government shall
12	be upon his shoulder." 
  	    This child, or spiritual idea, has evolved a more ready
  	ear for the overture of angels and the scientific under-
15	standing of Truth and Love. When Christ, the incor-
  	poreal idea of God, was nameless, and a Mary knew not
  	how to declare its spiritual origin, the idea of man was
18	not understood. The Judaean religion even required the
  	Virgin-mother to go to the temple and be purified, for
  	having given birth to the corporeal child Jesus, whose
21	origin was more spiritual than the senses could inter-
  	pret. Like the leaven that a certain woman hid in three
  	measures of meal, the Science of God and the spiritual
24	idea, named in this century Christian Science, is leaven-
  	ing the lump of human thought, until the whole shall
  	be leavened and all materialism disappear. This action
27	of the divine energy, even if not acknowledged, has
  	come to be seen as diffusing richest blessings. This
  	spiritual idea, or Christ, entered into the minutiae of the
30	life of the personal Jesus. It made him an honest man,
  	a good carpenter, and a good man, before it could make
  	him the glorified. 
 
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 1	    The material questions at this age on the reappearing
  	of the infantile thought of God's man, are after the man-
 3	ner of a mother in the flesh, though their answers per-
  	tain to the spiritual idea, as in Christian Science: —  

  	    Is he deformed? 
 6	    He is wholly symmetrical; the one altogether lovely. 

  	    Is the babe a son, or daughter? 
  	    Both son and daughter:  even the compound idea of
 9	all that resembles God. 

  	    How much does he weigh? 
  	    His substance outweighs the material world. 

12	    How old is he? 
  	    Of his days there is no beginning and no ending. 

  	    What is his name? 
15	    Christ Science. 

  	    Who are his parents, brothers, and sisters? 
  	    His Father and Mother are divine Life, Truth, and
18	Love; and they who do the will of his Father are his
  	brethren. 

  	    Is he heir to an estate? 
21	    "The government shall be upon his shoulder!" He
  	has dominion over the whole earth; and in admiration
  	of his origin, he exclaims, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord
24	of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things
  	from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
  	babes!" 

27	    Is he wonderful? 
  	    His works thus prove him. He giveth power, peace,
  	and holiness; he exalteth the lowly; he giveth liberty
 
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 1	to the captive, health to the sick, salvation from sin to
  	the sinner — and overcometh the world! 
 3	    Go, and tell what things ye shall see and hear:  how
  	the blind, spiritually and physically, receive sight; how
  	the lame, those halting between two opinions or hob-
 6	bling on crutches, walk; how the physical and moral
  	lepers are cleansed; how the deaf — those who, having
  	ears, hear not, and are afflicted with "tympanum on the
 9	brain" — hear; how the dead, those buried in dogmas
  	and physical ailments, are raised; that to the poor — 
  	the lowly in Christ, not the man-made rabbi — the
12	gospel is preached. Note this:  only such as are pure
  	in spirit, emptied of vainglory and vain knowledge, re-
  	ceive Truth. 
15	    Here ends the colloquy; and a voice from heaven seems
  	to say, "Come and see." 
  	    The nineteenth-century prophets repeat, "Unto us a
18	son is given." 
  	    The shepherds shout, "We behold the appearing of
  	the star!" — and the pure in heart clap their hands. 
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