By Juli Vice
From the April 2025 issue of The Christian Science Journal
Some time ago, I had an eye-opening experience that gave me a deeper understanding of the truth which Jesus taught us. I was struggling to breathe and there were moments where I was fearful I might not survive. When I reached out to a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support, she lovingly stayed on the phone with me until the crisis eased. I held on to what she had shared with me, and we both continued praying on our own.
At some point that night the question came to me, “Do you really accept what Christ Jesus proved for mankind through his resurrection? He proved that death is unreal. Do you really believe it?” Could I truly accept Jesus’ example? As I thought about this, I recognized that Life is the truth of being, therefore of my being as God’s image and likeness. Jesus demonstrated eternal life and I could definitely accept that as true.
The unchanging law of Life governs every single idea of God, including me.
Something I also realized was that Jesus, during his time in the tomb, was proving “the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 44). And he was doing it mentally. So this meant to me that what I needed to do was accept that God was my life and that “Life is real, and death is the illusion” (Science and Health, p. 428). It was only an aggressive mental suggestion that my life was fragile and temporary. I did not ever have to accept this suggestion.
This was an opportunity for me to work out what was true about my life. I really needed a change of base of thought. I needed to see that Life is God and is continuous because Life is infinite and eternal. Life cannot be interrupted and, because we exist in divine, infinite Life, our existence cannot be snuffed out. It was becoming clearer to me that although Jesus had been maligned, tortured, and crucified, none of those human events were the real, the spiritual, picture and none could change the eternal law of Life.
I then saw that I didn’t need to get stuck on trying to sort out if I seemed to be suffering from climate, from contagion, or maybe even from being “under attack” by the thoughts and feelings of others. The truth that I needed to hold on to was that the unchanging law of Life governs every single individual as an idea of God, the likeness of God, including me. My, and everyone’s, unbreakable oneness with our Father-Mother God, divine Life, was something that I could welcome as true. My thinking had moved past fear, and as a result, my breathing became more normal and I was confident in the healing power of divine Truth.
Two days later, I was back at my post as First Reader for my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, feeling nothing but great gratitude and joy for the lessons of Jesus’ resurrection.
This healing gave me a fresh appreciation for Easter, celebrated across the globe. Although there’s often a focus on the heaviness of the crucifixion, it’s been important to me to give gratitude for the triumph of Christ Jesus’ resurrection, which happened three days after he was crucified.
The resurrection was proof of the law of eternal Life that governs man. It further opened world thought to the promise of “life everlasting.” In fact, if we look at all of Christ Jesus’ demonstrations of divine Love, we see that they were done for the benefit of mankind. His life and works brought about a major shift in thought, which gave people a wider, higher, deeper perspective, far beyond their limited beliefs and lives steeped in obedience to material laws.
Jesus taught that God is Spirit, and Christian Science illumines the fact that, as God’s reflection, we are spiritual, whole, and safe in God. This promise extends through all time. We can expect to feel uplifted as we see the resurrection as part of the provable Science of the Christ, operable in each of our lives. God, divine Life, is All-in-all. That being true, there can be no opposite called death. There is only Life and Life’s expression, which we each are.
One of the synonyms of resurrection is reawakening, which takes place each time we realize that the activity of God, good, is all that really exists in every aspect of our lives.
Perhaps we are feeling downtrodden by the cares of this world, feeling as if we are losing hope. The promise of resurrection, based on the spiritual fact that Life, God, is All-in-all, can actually lift us out of despair and a “death” of hope. The law of Life and Love is eternal and infinite. It governs all. Christ Jesus’ proof that there is no death—in every sense—banishes belief in it. Thoughts of death or of the absence of truth, love, goodness, peace, life, can be redeemed as we awaken to a clearer view of these spiritual facts. As we reason this out prayerfully, standing on the reality that God is all Life, we see that anything that is good cannot be destroyed.
Truth cannot be destroyed because Life and Truth are synonymous. The same is true about Love; it is forever with us. And we forever exist as the expression of Life, Truth, and Love. Goodness and peace are attributes of God, expressed throughout Love’s entire creation, which means they are always present and active in countless ways.
When we remember that Life is All, we can bravely and steadfastly stand up to the challenges in front of us. We see that any belief of death has no law or breathing room. We are reawakened to the promise of Life and are lifted up to see new possibilities of good. The resurrection for us is a promise of the infinite, eternal, omniactive law of Life that we can demonstrate by degrees—we don’t have to wait for future good.
As the cherished expressions of Life and Love, we are heirs to the kingdom of heaven, which is present right here, right now. There is only abundant Life and endless good in this kingdom. We can give gratitude for Christ Jesus’ proof of this eternal truth, which blesses all of us.