“ARISE, SHINE,” IN THE JOY AND GLORY OF GOD’S REALITY!
Applications ideas for us to follow to make MODERN-DAY DEMONSTRATIONS of the Christ power!
Let God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as found in The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“REALITY”
for March 27, 2022
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps.org
“ARISE, SHINE, FOR THY LIGHT HAS COME” as one who serves — to God’s delight!
See the message from Isaiah 60:1 (Responsive Reading) as embroidered in Hebrew as well as in English on a prayer shawl from Israel. It’s a message from God – meant for YOU today!
[See an online picture of my prayer shawl at the bottom of a prior GEM under Downloads, plus other insights by Cobbey Crisler from the book of Isaiah about the prophesied servant. [Isaiah 42:1, 7 and Isa. 61:1.]
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 42:1, in a prophesy of a servant who should come, the “elect of God” who would have “the Spirit of God upon him.” You will notice in Verse 7 (and Isaiah 61:1 what the assignment of this servant would be, “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
“Isn’t it interesting that the prophet Isaiah foresees this prophesied individual in the terms of “a servant” when the Greek word most often in the New Testament for healing has the classical Greek meaning of “to serve.” You remember how Jesus defined his ministry in those terms, “I came not to be ministered unto but to minister” [Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45]. Healing is serving by definition in Greek. Serving whom? God and man.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
From Isaiah 60:4: “Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.”
From Christian Science Sentinel – December 28, 2020 Bible Lens on The Christian Science Bible Lesson on “God” for January 3. 2021:
“Jerusalem’s return to glory is depicted with stirring images, including the reuniting of families. … Jerusalem lies upon the central ridge of the country. From the landward side she can see caravans streaming in; from the west over the Mediterranean ships are sailing in like flocks of pigeons. Along with this vast commerce come her returning exiled children.” [The Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume 6]
AVOID THE WRONG REMEDY—RELY on the STABLE, PERFECT MEDICINE of MIND
Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 19:7, 8/Responsive Reading & the sure stability of Mind-cure medicine
“Read Psalm chapter 19:7-9 and you will discover there are quality controls as far as God’s medicine (or vaccine) is concerned: all the things you would want to see on the label. Look at the words “perfect,” “sure,” right,” “pure,” “clean,” and “true,” which has the meaning in Hebrew of stable. You want a stable product. You want a clean product. You want it pure. You want it right. You don’t want the wrong remedy. You want it sure. You want it perfect.”
“Leaves of the Tree: A Prescription from Psalm,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BE ALL-IN FOR GOD AS YOU WHOLEHEARTEDLY SING HYMN 499
(as inspired by this week’s citation B3, Isaiah 45:22)
Written and composed by DESIREE GOYETTE, a CedarS staff/parent
I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
I girded thee, I girded thee,
Though thou hast not even known Me.
But know that from the rising sun
To the west there is none beside Me,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
I am the Truth, there is none else;
There is no Truth beside Me.
Infinite light, bountiful, bright,
Is ever present to guide thee.
Beloved and free, eternally,
Perfect peace and joy I provide thee,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
Innocent one, sinless and pure,
Nothing can ever divide thee.
Governed by Love, you are secure;
I am forever beside thee.
So rest and know wher-e’er you go,
Home and heaven cannot be denied thee,
For I am the Lord, there is none else;
There is no God beside Me.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 499:1–3)
POEM NOTES:
Isaiah 45:5, 6, 22/citation B3
LIKE JESUS, SHOW CONTEMPT for the DNA-DUST MAN
and WASH OFF EVERY TRACE OF THE DUST MAN!
W. on Cobbey Crisler seeing the disciple’s question of Jesus as a multiple-choice exam John 9:1+/cit. B12
[Cobbey:] “John 9:2. The disciples ask Jesus “who did sin?
(A) This fellow over here? or
(B) his parents?”
John 9:3. Jesus had that paper before him as in the examination room on that point many times before. “He says,
(C), none of the above… [Or as Warren proposes as another right multiple-choice test answer (D) DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) (the molecule that supposedly carries encoded genetic instructions) Does Not Apply!)]
[Cobbey continues his (C) answer of:] “None of the above. Neither hath this man sinned or his parents.”
What’s that saying about origin? Where is that man? His roots are not in parents or in some reincarnated experience…”
Notice what he does in John 9:6 and what it may remind you of. “He spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle.” That reminds you of man being made of the dust in the Second Chapter of Genesis Verse 6 and 7, doesn’t it? Would Jesus ever [by spitting show disgust or contempt for or] mock God if he considered that was the real way that creation occurred? Yet, it almost looks like a mockery of that. He’s taking on that concept of the man of dust. He’s spitting on that ground, into the dust, making clay of it, and slapping it on the eyes of the blind man.
John 9:7. The man goes to the pool of Siloam. He can’t see his way there. He’s got mud all over his face. He doesn’t go seeing. He comes seeing.” He comes only after he has washed off that symbolic making or formation of man out of the dust.
In a way, it might even give us a greater hint on what the true meaning of baptism is, the immersion in Spirit, nativity, and washing off every trace of the dust man.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Check out a great reenactment of this healing to the end of the story (verse 41) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBo7ka3YZQ
COME “WITH FAN IN HAND, TO THOROUGHLY PURGE” (METICULOUSLY ELIMINATE) EVERY BELIEF in the “FABLE” of EVIL’s REALITY. (Matt. 3:12) referred to in Citation S14/269
Mary Baker Eddy defines this “FAN” – that we are to have “in hand” so as to be ready to use it early and often or “promptly and persistently” (SH 273:32)– as the “Separator of fable from fact; that which gives action to thought.” (SH 586:7).
In this week’s Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson, we have two Science and Health citations that refer to this dry-cleaning baptismal formula:
- Citation S14 states: “Jesus’ demonstrations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothingness, of evil.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 269:5) - Another great connection to this is: “The Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat. Science will declare God aright, and Christianity will demonstrate this declaration and its divine Principle, making mankind better physically, morally, and spiritually.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 466:26)
Other BIBLICAL ROOTS of the “FAN IN HAND” and “CHAFF & WHEAT” REFERENCES:
John the Baptizer said that Christ Jesus was to come “with fan (or winnowing fork) in hand”— The New International Version translates John the Baptizer’s words as: “I baptize you with[a] water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11, 12, NIV)—of a bad virus that would aggressively appear to be mixed-in with the God-ordained and maintained “fact” of an all-good creation.
LISTEN TO or read a classic GEM of article that was inspired by the sentence in Science and Health on page 230 (line 3, between lines 1-2 and 4 in citation S15.)
Milton Simon wrote it in the February 1949 Christian Science Journal with the title of “WITH DRUGS, OR WITHOUT.” It clearly shows the importance of waking to see disease as only an illusion to cast it out. (It’s also featured on Disk 9 of Anthology of Classic Articles II.
Click to HEAR it at: https://journal.christianscience.com/audioplayer/shareview/7zh9chpc2o
Or click to read it at: https://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/7zh9chpc2o?s=e
JSH-Online is the official website of The Christian Science Journal, Sentinel, and Herald.
BE EAGER RECEPTIVE TO CHRIST’S LIVING WATER—LIKE THE WOMAN AT THE WELL IN SAMARIA.
Cobbey Crisler on John 4:5+ (cit. B14, cit. 23/570 “Give them a cup of cold water in Christ’s name…” plus 234:4 “giving living water to the thirsty”)
[Cobbey:] “John 4.6, Jacob’s well is here in Samaria. It’s concealed in a partially completed church.
You cannot see the mountain to which the woman of Samaria was pointing in the story. It has been measured and it’s quite clear. Dr. Bull was the one who did the excavations at Telaras. He was the first scholar to announce that he feels he has discovered the Samaritan temple ruins on the top of Mount Gerazim which could be seen in Jesus time from the wellhead.
So, he Jesus, rests. It’s about the noon hour…”He opens the conversation with the woman.”
John 4:8, “the disciples have gone to the nearby city,” which is probably Neapolis. It had been corrupted in Arabic as “Nablus,” which you may see in the news because that’s a hotbed of Palestinian unrest.
John 4:9, So, the woman of Samaria says, “How come you’re talking to me?”
A woman would naturally say that because she would not expect to be talking to him…
John 4:16. The woman, not comprehending thoroughly, but nevertheless bold enough to continue asking, finally gets the practicality of Jesus’ message and says, “That’s a great idea. Give me this living water, and 1 won’t take another step. Never will I have to come up with these heavy jugs and fill them with water.”
Remember, there are not too many conversations that are recorded between Jesus and anyone so this one really stands out. …
John 4:17 He says call thy husbands…He’s testing again…
What is he after in this Samaritan woman (and also in) … a Roman centurion…a ruler of the synagogue? …
What is he looking for? Receptivity. That is the universal access. It means we all have the same access if we’d only use it. Whose fault is it if we aren’t using it? It’s ours. So, it has nothing to do with status, culture, sex, or whatever. He’s not really saying that womanhood is the best way to get to God. Or childhood, or any of those. Wherever we find receptivity it counts.
“So, ” the woman says, hedging a bit, “I don’t have a husband.”
John 4:18, “Whereupon Jesus said, ‘How right you are. As a matter of fact, you’ve had five husbands, and the one you’re living with right now can’t exactly be called your husband ‘” Boy, that has a nice twentieth century ring to it
John 4:19. All the woman can say in response to that is, “Sir, I perceive that you’re a prophet.” The woman is really beautiful. Jesus wouldn’t spend all this time with her if he didn’t see behind all this label and this stereotyped thing. There was a receptivity here that he wasn’t running into regularly. He was after that. He was after womanhood as a type to replace this femaleness as a stereotype. He continued to probe in order to do this.
John 4:20. The woman said, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.” Boy, did that have a meaning. She’s pointing to the Samaritan temple, and guess who had destroyed it? The Jews. The Maccabean rulers had destroyed the Samaritan temple which was built to resemble the Jerusalem temple. It’s occupied territory. It’s a little difficult to dig in an area that Jordan still claims but Israel occupies.
It was destroyed by the Jews, so you can see the irony behind what the woman said, “Our fathers worshiped … “It’s past. It’s through. The Greek word that is used there is well in the past, “all wiped out.” We worshiped in this mountain, but the implication, guess who stopped us, or ruined the temple? Your fathers. We have a divisive thing. We, the Samaritans, worshiped here. You, the Jews, destroyed it. That’s the same thing that’s going on today in the same location.
John 4:21, “Jesus said, Woman.” this is his general address to womanhood, “Believe me. the hour cometh, ” still somewhat ahead, “when you won’t worry about geography in worshiping God. ··
John 4:23, ”The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. “Look at the definition of worship. “Worship is spiritual,” not structural, not geographical, not ritualistic. Why? Because worship of God can only properly be done by partaking of God’s own nature.
John 4:24 tells us that “God is Spirit. Therefore, worshiping Spirit can only be done spiritually.” There’s no other way to do it. How basic. By the way, when you see “a Spirit” in there. It shouldn’t be there.
Listen to what God says about it. Notice the strong tenor of his words. To translate “God is a Spirit” is the most gross perversion of the meaning. “A Spirit” implies one of a class of “pneumata,” the Greek word for it. There is no trace, in the fourth gospel, of the vulgar conception of a multitude of spirits. “God is Spirit.” Mathematically one can only derive from Spirit included in it. Namely, spirituality is the derivation. Worship must be that.
Notice what is done as this woman’s thought. Women weren’t supposed to discuss the Scriptures. There was a first century rabbi, Eleazar, who said, “To teach a woman Scripture was like teaching her lasciviousness.” That’s some extreme. That was the kind of thought that was at some rabbinical extremes in the first century, not necessarily the general Jewish view, but Eleazar is considered quite a great rabbi.
Jesus is discussing intellectual problems of Scripture with a woman. This is unheard of!
John 4:25 “That woman suddenly comes to him and says, I know That Messiah is coming.” How about that for recognition! “I know that the Messiah is coming which is called Christ.” … he will tell us all … he said, “I that speak unto thee am he”
John 4:27, ‘”When the disciples come back, their only problem is that he’s talking with the woman. ”
John 4:28, “The woman leaves her water pot. “That’s what she’d come for, but she went away with living water. “She ran into the city”
John 4:29, “She said to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did. It’s got to be the Messiah. ”
John 4:30, “The men came out,” reluctantly, because they didn’t want to look like they were coming out because a woman suggested it.
Do you remember when the women disciples told the men disciples that Jesus was risen? The men thought they were idle tales!
John 4:31, “In the meantime his disciples asked Jesus to eat the groceries they had bought.”
In John 4:34, “Jesus announces his meat is to do God’s will.” Remember that. That is what his food is, literally, in Greek. So, when he breaks bread and distributes it to his disciples later, you know what his definition of food is. It “is to do God’s will.” That’s the nourishment. “And to finish his work.”
“John, The Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
GET INTO THE REALITY & GLOW OF GOD’S INFINITE ALLNESS BY GETTING OUT OF THE UNREALTY OF A LIMITED, MORTAL SHELL! Cobbey on I Cor. 15:50 with a nod to cit. S28/21
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Another conclusion is coming through Paul’s receptivity. He presents two views, one with man within an egg origin, one out of an egg origin. A chicken takes 10,000 pecks to get out of its shell of limitation. Bible pioneers like Paul worked hard to get out of their limited, mortal shells and they communicated this to us. [Mary Baker Eddy says, “Mortals must emerge … They must peck open their shells with Christian Science…” (S&H 552:14, S6)
I Corinthians 15, verse 50 “…flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
One might ask “Why are we trying to drag flesh along as if it’s a party?” [This relates to Mary Baker Eddy’s observation: “Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thitherward.” [S&H 21:25]
This lesson on REALITY finishes with citation S28 and more from page 21:
“If the disciple is advancing spiritually, he is striving to enter in. He constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit. If honest, he will be in earnest from the start, and gain a little each day in the right direction, till at last he finishes his course with joy.” (SH 21:9)
Cobbey concludes his course on the joy of God’s glory with this encouraging line:
“Take up your bed and walk—Mind suddenly takes on the glow of our original glory.”
Transcribed from notes in the margins of Warren’s Bible from a talk given
by Cobbey Crisler
