The Vision Of The Christ

By Frederick Dixon, from the December 1912 issue of The Christian Science Journal, The London Budget, (excerpt).

Jesus spoke of himself as "the way;" in other words, he referred to his demonstration of the power of Spirit over matter, through the perception of the Christ, as the demonstration every one of his followers would be called upon to make: "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." …

… The Jesus who went into the wilderness was a very different person from the Jesus who came forth: the vision of the Christ had triumphed over the evidence of the senses. Thenceforth, with every case of sickness healed, with every case of death vanquished, with every case of sin mastered, the Mind of Christ supplanted the human Jesus. Only the one who had overcome the law of material sustenance could have fed the thousands; only the one who had refused to leap from the pinnacle of the temple would have entered Jerusalem on an ass; only the one who had turned his back on the vision from the mountain could have gained the vision of the Christ, so as to reply to the taunt of Pilate, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." …

… Jesus was able to say, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." Then he was ready to climb Calvary, and make what Mrs. Eddy has described as "his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh" (Science and Health, p. 117). After that moment no man ever again saw Jesus the Christ but those who had themselves some vision of the Christ. The Roman soldiers guarding the tomb did not witness the resurrection. The scribes and Pharisees went about Jerusalem all unconscious that he had risen, but Paul tells us that he was seen, first "of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Even those who did see him did not at first know him, so completely had the human Jesus already given place to the Christ. Mary took him for the gardener until he lifted her perception to the truth. The two journeying to Emmaus only recognized him in the breaking of bread, when their spiritual perception was aroused to some vision of the Christ. To the disciples he came and went, just as their spiritual mercury rose and fell, as they found and lost their vision of the Christ.

Then, as his spiritual vision obliterated the last vestige of human belief, there came the moment of the ascension. In this final demonstration, Mrs. Eddy writes on page 46 of Science and Health, "which closed the earthly record of Jesus, he rose above the physical knowledge of his disciples, and the material senses saw him no more." In the mountain in Galilee he spoke, for the last time, to his disciples, bidding them go to all nations, "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Jesus, the son of Mary, had vanished from the flesh, but the Christ, or Son of God, remained, since "before Abraham was, I am."

END.

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