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God Expressed Meekly/Mightily in you sparkle brightly with insights from Cobbey Crisler & others as inspired by The Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Man”
for Sunday, September 3, 2023
(Cobbey’s insights are shared with the blessing of Janet Crisler janetcrisler7@gmail.com)
by Warren Huff, CedarS Executive Director Emeritus, warren@cedarscamps• 314-378-2574
AT 105* ANNA PROVES THAT WHEN WE “LIVE TO GIVE”— “TIME IS NOT TOXIC!”
*See or hear Christie Hanzlik’s calculations of Anna’s age in Section 4 of her Met.
[Cobbey Crisler on citation B14/Psalm 71:18:] “Those interested in geriatrics. It’s in Psalm 71, Verse 18. That’s also been isolated out as a special problem. No one ever expects that old age is going to be like it is until one arrives. No preventive medicine has been taken. Nothing seems to be possible. Once again, it is submission to the inevitable. Verse 18 shows that’s also included in biblical therapy. “Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until “I have shewed” two things that seem to be taken from those in that category, “strength and power.”
“The New York Herald Tribune many years ago came out with a study that originated in the De Couri Clinic in Cincinnati. The opening line in the article reporting their findings is “Time is not toxic.” It has no effect in bringing about degenerative disorders. Anyone who thinks that because he or she is getting along in years, that loss of vigor, disability, or degenerative disorders should be experienced is suffering from a time neurosis which may be more effective in physical conditions in producing the effect of fear. It went on [along] that [line]. So there’s another discovery. Again, as the other doctor we quoted said, “We’re waking up to things that have been really known inherently all along.” The Bible has never budged from its position. We have vacillated. God hasn’t moved.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BE A DEDICATED, EVER-READY SERVANT OF GOD, LIKE ANNA, TO QUICKLY RECOGNIZE & CELEBRATE THE CHRIST! Cobbey on Luke 2:36-38/cit. B16
[Cobbey Crisler on the prophetess Anna:] “In Luke, chapter 2, Verse 36 we find a woman, the prophetess Anna, like the prophet, Simeon, who both instantly perceived the infant Jesus as the Christ child. Luke is telling us something here. THE ACCESS TO INSPIRATION IS EQUAL. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU’RE MALE OR FEMALE. THE ABILITY TO PROPHESY, THE ACCESS TO GOD, IS DIRECT. THE WOMAN DOESN’T HAVE TO GO THROUGH ANYONE IN ORDER TO GET TO GOD, EVEN THOUGH THE WHOLE JUDAIC ECCLESIASTICAL STRUCTURE WAS BUILT THAT WAY.”
“Luke the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
ACT LIKE YOU KNOW THAT PROPHECY IS FULFILLED NOW & THAT INCURABILITY IS HEALED BY CHANGING YOUR CONCEPT & BELIEVING! Cobbey on Mark 1:14, 15/cit. B21)
[Cobbey Crisler:] “Mark 1, Verse 14. We have “John put in prison.” He has already disappeared from the scene. And, ‘‘Jesus comes into Galilee, and his work begins.”
Verse 15. There are four foundational aspects to the gospel we need to study. Normally, an architect might refer to just one cornerstone in a building. But let’s remember that all four of the corners have cornerstones. To that degree, let’s ask ourselves if this is not a clue to understanding Mark. We have a foursquare gospel, and at each corner we have a particular point. If this is true, you should be able to compile the information that follows in the gospel under one of the following four headings.
(1) The announcement that, “the time is fulfilled.” What does this mean? Prophecy. The time for the fulfillment of prophesy has arrived. So, everything is just brimming in the gospel of Mark with this great news. All of the expectation is over for the Messianic prophecy: We have a fulfillment now. ‘What could be more exciting than to be living in an era of fulfilled prophecy? Nothing, apparently, because this is what impels the gospel writers to pick up their pens….
Study Mark as if it were a textbook, filled with data that Jesus needed us to know in order to follow him. It is a handbook, so to speak, a textbook where we can find data that can be applied. Those four foundational points, under “the time is fulfilled,” you will see over and over again, explicit or implicit, in the text.
The other foundational points:
(2) The second one, “the kingdom of God is at no distance.” It is right here. Even that idea is radical to Christendom today often because the kingdom of God, or often heaven, is considered to be so far away from any of us now. It is out of reach, and we’re not really behaving ourselves sufficiently to get there. It takes Palomar’s 200 inch reflecting telescope to even get a glimpse of it. But we find the founder of Christianity saying, ”Not so.” His theology is based on the fact that “the kingdom of God is at hand.”
“Do we act like it is? We moan and we groan most of the time. We wouldn’t if our state of mind was the “kingdom-of-God-is-at-hand” and the “prophecies-are-fulfilled.” But those are only two of the cornerstones.
(3) The third one is “Repent!” That means to change your concept. Now, we’re going very deeply to the roots of what is required of us to get anywhere spiritually. The problem is mental or he never would have stated it in this way.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
LIKE JESUS, WHEN SIMULTANEOUS PROBLEMS ARISE, VALUE THE NOWNESS AND NEWNESS OF RECEPTIVITY AND PRIORITIZE HEALING OVER RANK.
Cobbey Crisler on Jesus dealing with time management of 2 urgent appeals (Matthew 9:18, 19, 23-26/cit. B22, and Mark 5:21-42 & Luke 8:41-55)
[Cobbey on the Luke version of this healing “double-header”:] “In this case we have something that might present a problem. Two people that need attention simultaneously. What do you do?… Here’s how Jesus deals with it. He is first summoned by a ruler of the synagogue with a great deal of human priority. Jairus has the rank and he asks first. He’s got a more urgent need. His daughter is on the verge of dying (Luke 8:41 or already dead in the Matthew 9:18 version). But Jesus can’t even get to the location where this girl is because of the crush of people in the narrow lanes of the Palestinian villages. The Greek word for “thronged” is often used to describe how close these groups got to one another. Jesus was nearly suffocated by the crowd.
“Later the disciples rebuked Jesus, in Verse 45, for asking “Who touched me?” To them it was ridiculous. Everybody was touching him. The Greek verb that’s used is a verb that means what happens to grain kernels between two grinding stones. They were ground really together. The people were that crowded.
“What happens? The woman does not wish to delay Jesus’ mission, but she is at the absolutely desperate end of a rope. Here we find the receptivity. Blessed are those who are in this state. Happy are those because the state of mind can be changed.
“This radical change of thought was in the presence of the Christ-correction that Jesus was exercising in the mental realm. It’s going to be sufficient and the woman feels that it will help her. She’s lost all her money on physicians. [No health insurance…] Mark even tells us that she’s worse because of that choice. [Mark 5:26] All she does is touch the border of his garment. The issue of blood, the continuous hemorrhaging that had occurred for twelve years had kept her out of the temple, kept her out of worship and made her as unclean as the lepers. With all sorts of legislative rules around her, she herself could not be touched because it would make the individual who did it unclean. But we find that Jesus welcomed that dear woman from the standpoint of God’s welcome, because he said, “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do.” (John 5:19).
“In Luke 8, Verse 48 he calls that lady, “Daughter.” Whose daughter? Certainly, not his. In fact, he lifts that word “daughter” entirely out of any sense of blood relationship. That was the woman’s problem. He lifts even her identity out of blood.
“Daughter, be of good comfort” (Verse 48). Look at how he’s addressing the thought of that woman. Not only the precious relationship to God, but the comfort. She hasn’t experienced that in twelve years. She’d lost all her money. She was about to be thrown on the society. There was nowhere to go when you were thrown on society. That may have happened to the woman who had been a sinner. Prostitution was the only open career for many women when they were simply thrown out and discarded from normal humanity. She could not get a living unless her family supported her, and there is no indication of that happening.
“Jesus refuses to allow that woman to walk away from the scene thinking that physical contact with his robe had anything to do with the healing. He says, again, “Your faith hath made you whole.” The word “whole” and the word “heal” in Anglo-Saxon have the identical root. It implies that disease is something less than wholeness, that it is a fragmentation of our being. Healing is the condition of being made whole.
“We understand that equation when Jesus said, “If your eye be single” Matthew 6:22), indivisible, not shared, no divisions in it and no double vision. It is single-mindedness and persistency, as we see Jesus requiring later in our book, which results in man being whole as God views him.”
“Luke, the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
COME TO “THE WEDDING FEAST, GOD’S VIEW OF CREATION, ” (OF MAN & WOMANHOOD,) IN THESE “THRILLING TIMES” WHEN “DOMINION WOMANHOOD” HAS COME TO PROVIDE “THE REMEDY FOR EVE”—See Cobbey insights below.
[Cobbey Crisler (CC) on Revelation 12:1+]
“We find in investigating the Old Testament as well as the New, that the woman in travail is an image, a metaphor, used almost as often as Messiah in prophecy. For the epitome of that, look at the 12th chapter of Revelation where we find not a novel figure at all, simply a repetition of a symbol that has been seen throughout the Scriptures. Remember womanhood and comforter, and comfort and love and motherhood all closely linked as well as Scriptural ideas. So, the concept of womanhood and comfort and the Comforter perhaps having relation to womanhood’s fulfillment of prophecy and the Genesis 1 role of God-given dominion may all be linked up. At least it’s worthwhile investigating to see what the Bible says.
[CC:] “As a matter of fact, here is what the Anchor Bible says about the figure in Revelation 12. See if you have ever looked at it from this angle.
[CC quoting The Anchor Bible:] “In Revelation 12 there is a mysterious symbolic figure of a woman who has a key figure in the drama of salvation. There can be no doubt that Revelation is giving the Christian enactment of the drama foreshadowed in Revelation 3:15 where enmity is places between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent’s seed and her seed—and the seed of the woman enters into conflict with the serpent. However, often in the Bible collective figures are based on historical ones. This, the fact that woman represents the people of God [W: “generic man” cit. S28/561:22] would not at all preclude a reference to an individual woman who is the basis of the symbolism.” (Anchor Bible)
[CC:] “So, you see that Bible scholars are wrestling with the concept that what we have in Revelation 12 is the remedy for Eve. All the stereotypical womanhood elements, all the failures, all the mistakes, all the errors associated with the Eve-subordinated woman have now been swallowed up in the Transfiguration of womanhood clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet. Remember that part of the curse on womanhood humanly is the periodic monthly complaints, monthly-and-moon-related. [Warren: As Mary Baker Eddy writes: “The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance of spiritual Truth, and matter is under her feet.” (SH p. 561:25-27/after cit. S28)]
[CC:] “We find that this ideal view of spiritual womanhood in Verse 1 of Chapter 12 restores the dignity of women’s dominion. Her feet are on the moon. That is the Scriptural symbol long-recognized in the Bible for dominion, “the moon under her feet.” Thus, the Book of Revelation, a book that is attributed in its first verse to Jesus, which authorizes our including it in a course relating “Jesus and the Equality of Women”: this comparison between Eve and the dominion woman, the contest again between Genesis 2 and Genesis 1, and womanhood having that right on earth to embody the dominion of Genesis 1.
[CC:] “Should a man be entitled to overcome the problems or stereotypes on womanhood?
If so, woman would not have dominion. Is it womanhood’s right to respond to her God-given role prophetically? Are we ourselves perhaps, living in one of the most thrilling times of history?” [W’s application insertion: a time when we’re hopefully praying TO witness “no retrograde step” in freedom and dominion for the women of Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and the whole world…] [CC:] “What would make these times thrilling despite their inherent dangers? It would be the spirit of prophecy. Is that happening? Can we see the signs of the times? Is manhood waiting to be fulfilled and completed as in the seven days when God himself rested after the completion of “male and female created he them”? (Genesis 1:27/cit. B2)
[CC:] “Until womanhood receives her appropriate Scriptural place, her God-given place, how can man rest in completion? How can man be generic?” [W: “The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence f God and man as divine Principle and divine idea.” (cit. S28/561:20)]
[CC:] “How can we, hand-in-hand symbolizing a higher spiritual unity than ever before, find ourselves co-residents of the Holy City, a city that has nothing but what is holy in it, a city that establishes our original relationship? No wonder when the Bible closes, we are asked to respond to one of the most heavenly invitations in its pages, “the Spirit and the Bride say, Come!” (Revelation 22:17) [W: This follows this week’s wedding invitation allusions “Let us be glad and rejoice … for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. … Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Revelation 19:7, 9/cit. B24)]
[CC:] “But, Ladies and Gentlemen, we cannot respond to that invitation to the wedding feast, God‘s view of creation, without our having on a wedding garment. [W. adds: Of this garment we read this week: “The divine Science of man is woven into one web of consistency without seam or rent. … … inspiration restores every part of the divine garment of righteousness.” (cit. S27/242:25)] [CC:] “That, hopefully, is what our search the Scriptures will give us. And we bring to that wedding feast our own thoughts uplifted to the sense of manhood and womanhood united forever by God with full dominion, no subordination or domination—no thought of sex —” [W: and the invasiveness of sex in advertising & in social media] “— but a full, complete, joyous image of the Father-Mother divine parent. That’s what the Scriptures are holding out for us to prove in our lives.”
[W: “There is neither … male nor female: for ye are all one on Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28/cit. B25)]
[CC:] “Then, let us go forward and be part of the fulfillment of that prophecy.”
“Jesus and the Equality of Woman,” by B. Cobbey Crisler
