GEMs:Find oneness in the CARE of the Good Shepherd!
Monday, April 12th, 2021
GEMs: FIND ONENESS in the CARE of the Good Shepherd – and in ALL YOU DO!
insights from Cobbey Crisler, Ken Cooper & others from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“Doctrine of Atonement”
for Sunday, April 18, 2021
shared by Warren Huff
CedarS Executive Director Emeritus warren@cedarscamps.org
Like John the Baptist, EXPECT GOD’S DEAR, INNOCENT ONES TO ALWAYS OVERCOME SUFFERING! Cobbey Crisler on John 1:19-36 (Golden Text & cit. B4+ Isa. 53:7, Resp. Reading)
John 1:19. "And this is the record of John.” John the Baptist is about to be "pinned to the wall" by an early inquisition. The Sanhedrin, or ruling body of the Jews, were the ones who were authorized to challenge the prophets. They wanted to find out whether they really have legitimate Scriptural backing for what they are saying and revealing. John the Baptist is suddenly attracting many people. What is his right or authority to do this? When they ask, "Who are you?, " this is a question, if answered the wrong way, could result in excommunication. "Who are you?”
“In John 1:20, he answers it in three ways. (1) "I am not the Christ.” I know you know this, but let's review it. The word "Christ" comes from what language? Greek, but it is the nearest Greek translation to a Hebrew word meaning "Messiah." It often helps for us to read it, "the Messiah."
“Here's what Professor Dodd says, "We shall do well to retain the Hebrew word as a reminder that Christ, or the Messiah, is here rather than a personal name, is neither a personal name nor a theological term but an index to an historical role." In many denominations it has become a proper name. But in neither Hebrew nor Greek is it a proper name. So, "I am not the Christ." What does it mean to a 1st century Jewish audience? "I am not the Messiah." Where do you find the expectations and hope for Messiah? In the Old Testament. The one that they'd been expecting, "I am not the Messiah. "
“John 1:21. So, "they ask him a second one. Are you Elias?" Elias is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Elijah." Where did they get the idea that Elijah was going to return? Go to Malachi 4 and read Verse 5. There is usually a reason why these things are there. It is an inducement to research. In other words, the Jews were in expectation because of what? Prophecy. That someone symbolizing Elijah would come. That's why they're asking John the Baptist. "Are you the Messiah?" because we expect the Messiah to come. Give your qualifications and credentials, please. If not, then there's one other possibility, "Do you think you're Elijah that was prophesied to come?" What does he say? He says, "I'm not.”
“The final thing, Number three, is, “Are you that prophet?
And he answered, “No." He rejects the three possibilities that were prime prominent Jewish expectations of the period. Are you that prophet? What prophet?
“Again, where should we look for the answer? In the Old Testament. Read Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18 and you will see where the expectation originated. You find Moses saying, "The LORD God would raise up a Prophet like unto me." Verse 18 tells you a little bit more. It's a description of the man who would fulfill that prophecy. Prophecy and fulfillment, if either one is worth its salt, must dovetail with the other. They're designed for one another like a key in a lock. One should take that prophecy as it were an overlay or pattern and apply it to the possibility of Jesus fulfilling it and see if it fits. That’s one way of utilizing the prophecy and comparing it with the fulfillment.
“Do you notice that the three expectations of the Jews might be summarized this way? Of whom was the prophet to remind the people? Of Moses. The prophet was to come “like unto me.” That was Moses saying it. Weren’t they really expecting Moses, Elijah, and the Messiah?
“Hasn’t that expectation been fulfilled in a way? Least suspected because the Bible has been bound together with law, prophets, and gospel. And the Moses-like prophet, the Elijah-like individual, and the Messiah, three possibilities.
“John rejects all three. John is apparently wrong in rejecting one of them. But it’s beautiful that he is. In Matthew 11:11-15, Jesus goes into a long dissertation about who John the Baptist is, and he says, using the language we’re already used to, “If thou dost receive it, this is Elias which was to come.” What’s the if-qualification? Receptivity. Bearing directly on the comprehension of the Scriptures. It seems clear that, if Jesus is right, John didn’t even comprehend his own role as well as Jesus did. Because it all depended on your insight into Scripture.
“John 1:22. It wasn’t that John didn’t see his role as prophetic. He did. But apparently he had missed that verse in Malachi about Elias, because when they asked him later in this verse, “What do you say of yourself, then?”
“John 1:23. He says, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.” He finds that where? Isaiah 40:3. That makes him safe from this inquisition at least temporarily. He has pulled out of the Scripture some possible authority for what he’s doing. That’s where John the Baptist has come up with the idea that he is fulfilling prophecy.”
“John 1:29 The following day Jesus appears for the first time. John, looking at him, says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Is it possible that John the Baptist foresaw the suffering aspects of the Messiah? This is a very, very real question because the Jews as a nation did not anticipate a Messiah who would suffer.
“In Isaiah 53:7 (Responsive Reading) there is a reference to “he is led forth as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” Whether this is what John the Baptist has in mind, we don’t know. But we do know that the concept of the lamb becomes quite an important symbol in the Bible in the Book of Revelation, for instance. (Revelation 5:13, cit. B18) So, it’s an indication maybe of John the Baptist’s insights here. And how does the author of this Gospel know so much of what John the Baptist is saying or preaching? The thought is that he may have been a disciple of John the Baptist’s before he was a disciple of Jesus. And I’ll show you where that comes from. …
“…in John 1:32 who designated the Messiah? “The Spirit descended from heaven like a dove, and it abode on him.” Was the fact, then, that Jesus was the Messiah, John’s idea? He saw the Spirit designating Jesus as the Messiah and simply bore witness to that.
“John 1:34, “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.”
John 1:35, “Then the day following John the Baptist, and two of his disciples,”
John 1:36 “He says again, Behold the Lamb of God!”
John 1:37 What do the two disciples do? “They hear him and they follow Jesus.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
APPLY God’s PROMISE of BEING UPHELD to ALL WHO SERVE to God’s DELIGHT! “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” (Isaiah 42:1, Responsive Reading)
Cobbey Crisler on Isa. 42:1 (Responsive Reading) +verse 6
“Chapter 42:1 is a prophesy of a servant who should come, the “elect of God” who would have “the Spirit of God upon him.” [W: In Verse 6 there’s a shift from God calling this elect servant in the third person, to God calling YOU and holding your hand, and keeping YOU, to give YOU “for a covenant of the people, for a light to the Gentiles.” You will notice in Verse 7 – and in Isaiah 61:1 – what the assignment of this servant (YOU) 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 (W: or out of a lockdown, shelter-in-place or quarantine).”
[Cobbey again:] “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**
[Warren:] These prophesies in Isaiah foretell the coming of Christ as God’s healing servant. But the verse in our Bible lesson also promises that YOU are the called this called and healing servant who will be upheld. That is a promise of protection that you can specifically affirm in your prayer walks and watches— not only for yourself, but also for all our brave workers in health care, law enforcement, food supply, election polling, and other essential lines of service. All the dear ones who seek to restore freedom and harmony to our communities, to our country, and to our whole world have been clad in Love’s complete protection as they (you, we) have “pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom” (SH 91:2).
Florence Nightingale, a famous wartime nurse in the Crimean war, was cited by Mary Baker Eddy as a great example of the endurance and immunity in the moment that God gives to all who provide care for and serve others. She wrote: “…Florence Nightingale and other philanthropists engaged in humane laborers have been able to undergo without sinking fatigues and exposures which ordinary people could not endure. The explanation lies in the support which they derive from the divine law, rising above the human. The spiritual demand, quelling the material, supplies energy and endurance surpassing all other aids, and forestalls the penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best deeds… Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself.” (Science & Health, p. 385:2)
[W:] Check out on JSH-online an excellent Journal podcast by Janet Horton, a retired US Army Chaplain. It gives context to the above passage by sharing a brief biography of Florence Nightingale and her tireless labors for the soldiers during the Crimean War. She also shares an example of the pulling together and protection that she and others in the Pentagon demonstrated when it was struck by the high-jacked aircraft on 9/11.
[W:] As I was praying to see as divinely protected all the world’s front-line, health care providers, including all dear Christian Science nurses—and all patients as well, I continued to read page 395 in the chapter, “Christian Science Practice.” I found especially helpful the paragraph with the marginal heading of “Mental Quackery.” There it says: “It is mental quackery to make disease a reality—to hold it (the coronavirus) as something to be seen and felt—and then to attempt its cure through Mind…. Mental practice, which holds disease as a reality, fastens disease on the patient and it may appear in a more alarming form.” (SH 395:21)
LET YOUR LIFE BE a SINGLE-SENTENCE SUMMARY of “a century of BRILLIANT PROPHECY”:
“Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God!” Micah 6:8 (B1)
Here’s a history of this sentence and of the Sixth Tenet of Christian Science!
FYI: James Luther Mays, in his commentary on Micah, remarks: "…at a profound level the answer [to the question posed in verse 6] does call for sacrifice, but a kind quite different from that proposed by the question. It is not sacrifice of something outside a person which can be objectified as a means to deal with God. It is rather a yielding of life itself to God and his way, 'repentance' of the most radical sort.
“What [God] requires is not the life of something but the living of the man who stands before him." NEB translates: "God has told you what is good; and what is it that the Lord asks of you? Only to act justly, to love loyalty, to walk wisely before your God."
“Because the people tried to please God by offering Him gifts during religious ceremonies, Micah prefaces his counsel with a series of questions—including, “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?” (verse 7).
“Then he declares that what God requires is their just, merciful, humble lives rather than mere ritual. The prophet’s words echo Moses’ counsel in Deuteronomy: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (10:12).
“One source says of Micah’s words, “In this single sentence the prophet sums up a century of brilliant prophecy.” This verse anticipates the two great commandments Jesus quoted, to love God and one’s neighbor (see Matthew 22:37–39)—and represents a definitive break with the common view of religion as an obligatory performance of rites. Devotion to God was to be a matter of one’s entire heart, character, and life.”
HISTORIC CONNECTIONS OF MICAH 6:8 TO THE SIXTH TENET OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE:
"…solemnly covenant…to deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God;…”
1879 Covenants and Tenets #3D**
This portion of the 1879 Church Tenets was taken directly from what Micah 6:8 says that God requires of us in citation B3 of this week’s Bible Lesson. It is adapted and incorporated (as highlighted) into our current “Sixth Tenet” which—with walk humbly added—reads in full:
“6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us (walk humbly?) which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.” Science and Health, 497:24
**Click on Downloads in the upper right of CedarS webpage version of this “GEM” to see a full history of the evolution of the Sixth Tenet as researched by “The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Mankind.”
BRING the CARE of the GOOD SHEPHERD to ALL YOU DO; BE AT ONE with God!
Cobbey Crisler on John 10:24-30 (B7) and S&H 315:3-7, 32-7 (cit. S6)
[Cobbey:] “Chapter 10. Not too many of us keep sheep anymore. So, this is a lost simile on the twentieth century. Should we be keeping sheep in the real meaning of it? What could you and I do more about our job, our home, our world, our political situation, our community, and church, if we introduced more of the shepherd motive into all of them?
John 10:13 shows the difference between the shepherd-motive and the hireling’s motive who was working just for pay. “The hireling fleeth, because that’s all he was working for is money.” Where’s the difference? “He doesn’t care.”
Let’s ask ourselves the question, do we care? If we care, that’s the shepherd motive. Jesus cared. He walked in the midst of the dissolute, the despairing, the injured, the grieved, and the broken in heart as well as in body. And nobody knew why he did it. The upper classes, those who didn’t have similar problems, wondered why he was with the publicans and sinners. But he said that “the whole didn’t need a physician” (Matt. 9:12; Mark 4:23; Luke 5:31).
He apparently contemplated an Israel in prophecy which the existing Israel, the establishment, had not remotely seen.
He saw the Israel in prophecy which is exactly in accord with Jeremiah’s prediction of the new covenant and Isaiah’s. The new Israel would be composed of those whose needs had been met, where the recipients were, no class, no mass, no private sector, no ghetto, but receptivity gathering the sons and daughters together. They are gathered to prove what is possible on earth as in heaven. The shepherd motive of caring brings us into that new Israel.”
“Jesus says that he is the Shepherd and he also says he is the door. It may look like he is confused. Let me give you an example of how he isn’t. When my wife and I were in Israel, we stopped in a place between Jerusalem and Bethany. I saw what I thought was an unattended flock of sheep. There was also a rock wall with one door or gate. It was an almost complete square. As I wandered around, I was suddenly surprised by the shepherd whom I had disturbed. He rose up. He was stretched across that entry way, getting a few winks.
Right there I had illustrated what Jesus meant in John 10: 2, 11, 14, “I am the shepherd” and in John 10: 7, 9, “I am the door.” Now there was no confusion at all. With the sheep inside an enclosure and the only possible entrance of wild animals or thieves being that door, you had to get through the shepherd in order to get to the sheep. The shepherd was also the door.
John 10:27, 28 (B7) “My sheep hear my voice… and they follow me.” In Mary Baker Eddy’s poem, “Feed My Sheep”, there is the statement, “I will listen for Thy voice.” [Hymn 304] While we were down in that area of Beersheba, we saw many sheep all mixed together. I said to Janet, ‘I wonder how the shepherd is ever going to sort out his sheep. They’re all just mingled together.’ … It wasn’t very long before our shepherd separated himself from the crowd, walked away – never looked over his shoulder at the mixed-up sheep— but made some kind of identifying click or clack of his tongue or voice.
“Do you know that every one of his sheep separated themselves from that flock and followed him?! He never doubted. He never looked back. The sheep did their job. The sheep knew his voice. “I will listen for Thy voice.” These lessons are things that in the busy moments of our own twentieth century we need to contemplate. They’re not just symbols. They’re not done just as ancient history. They’re attitudes. They’re states of mind and thought. This is something we often need to consider.” In John 10:30 (cit. B7, and expounded on in cit. S6, 315:3-7, 32-7) is Jesus’ great statement, “I and my Father are one.” If this is from the Aramaic, then, the Aramaic word would give the meaning, “I and my Father are in accord.”
“Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” B. Cobbey Crisler**
FIND ONENESS with God “as a humble ray of sunlight that is one with the sun”
from cits. B7, John 10:30 & S6, 315:3 & S7, 361:16 sung in “I and My Father” Music Video on YouTube
Below is a YouTube link to an inspiring song by a CedarS mom and award-winning Country Music artist, Cherie Brennan. It emphasizes the “I and my Father are one” mindset of Christ Jesus and mentioned in this week’s Bible Lesson citation B7, John 10:30 & S6, 315:3. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZMNlpZavkA
You can learn more about Cherie and buy her CD “You are Loved” (“I and My Father” is the 4th song) on her website through Spotify at: https://open.spotify.com/album/3Ii5CBrdNs6f8Y3t4l5XHl
Or, on Watchfire Music by CedarS friend, Peter Link, — LISTEN TO A SAMPLE of “I and my Father are one” SUNG by Mindy Jostyn and BUY IT and the SHEET MUSIC for SOLOISTS at: https://watchfiremusic.com/shop/recordings/songs/i-and-my-father-are-one-2/
CHERISH a CHRISTLY COMPASSION to HEAL, FEED OTHERS & have DOMINION!
Cobbey Crisler on Matt. 14:14 (cit. B8) and beyond:
Matthew 14: “(Verse 13, before the verse in the lesson). Jesus hearing that John the Baptist had been beheaded, decides to make himself scarce, leaves into a desert place apart.
(Verse 14). “But the multitudes followed him.” Instead of saying, “Look, will you let a man be alone for once,” he turned around with compassion and healed their sick.”
Verse 15-20). And out comes the famous loaves-and-fishes incident in which everyone is fed, with a balance left over despite the fact that we’re dealing with thousands of people. …
And, right after this (Verses 24-33) we have the walking-on-the-sea incident.
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax-Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
A concomitant GEM: Find in divine economics that our Shepherd’s supply is inexhaustible, because “Love is, like 5 loaves and 2 fishes—always too little until you start giving it away!” Cobbey Crisler on Mark 6:35-44 (similar to Matthew 14:14-21 (B8)
“The only so-called miracle in all four gospels is the feeding of the “five thousand,” Verses 35-44. I put it in quotes because they were only counting the men. Out of the little boy’s lunch box comes five loaves and two fishes. We hear that from the gospel of John Chapter 6, Verse 13. They feed a multitude. Now we have a lesson on economics given to us by the Master. He didn’t regard that as a problem either. No Malthusian limitation on man that we’re going to outgrow our supply, and, therefore, we should kill off sectors of the human race in order to meet the supply. That’s Malthus and his philosophy of necessity. But we find Jesus saying instead in Matthew 14:16, “They need not depart.” Malthus says they need to be killed, but Jesus is saying, “They need not depart.”
Mark 6.37. The disciples say it would be impossible to feed the multitude, that it would take about “two hundred pennyworth.” The group was considerably more than five thousand if you count the women and the children.
What Jesus said to all the disciples made them become part of the remedy. Twelve baskets were taken around. There were twelve disciples. Each one was made to participate in the abundant result and learn from it. They started out with only five loaves and two fishes. They ended up with more fragments left over than they had when they started out. More available. That’s divine economics. It doesn’t exhaust.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
BOLDLY EXPECT & DEMAND FAITHFUL ACTION like Jesus did!
Cobbey Crisler on his healing of the withered hand in Matthew 12:10- 15, citation B9
(Verse 10). There is a man who the synagogue, the religion of the times, could do nothing for. His hand bent perpendicular to the length of his arm, withered. They (the Pharisees) immediately put it to him, “Is it lawful to heal a man? Is it lawful to do something for man to help him on the most religious day of the week?”
(Verse 11). Jesus brings up a very practical parallel. Everyone was more or less dependent on their beasts of burden and their income flowed from their agrarian economy, and sheep were vital for them economically, so he says, “If one sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath day, who is going to check the calendar? Are you going to get him out or not?”
A lot of rabbis had things to say about this. They had actually exempted it. So he knew that. We have extant rabbinical writings which exempted this from the work regulations on the Sabbath, which showed the law could be bent where the priorities seemed extreme. So, could it be that God’s law could already be bent by humans?
(Verse 12). He said, “If you can do that for a sheep, how about helping a man? Is it lawful to do well on the Sabbath?” A very difficult question to answer, isn’t it?
(Verse 13). So, Jesus says to the man, “Stretch forth your hand.” Notice, he did not go up to the man and do it physically for him. He said to the man, and notice what role he assigns to the patient in every case, "You do it." You're equipped to do it. That's your part. Stretch forth your hand. Immediately this happened. It was whole again." A fragment of the body could not depart along its separate route and create its own rules. The eye had to be single as God's eye was single.
(Verse 14). "The Pharisees went out, and held a council right there on how they could destroy Jesus." They brought the man to Jesus and challenged him. Here a man's whole life was turned around. One of the great insoluble problems, a man's distorted physical being had been corrected and changed.
(Verse 15). "Jesus had to withdraw, but many followed him."
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
KEN’S GEMS THIS WEEK: HEAR on YouTube two KEN COOPER POEMS, “The Good Shepherd, thou art mine” and “Self-immolation” and a monologue “The Withered Hand Restored” In it we hear the testimony of the healed man’s best friend. All three are inspired by application of ideas and citations in this week’s Bible Lesson.
[Ken wrote:] When we behold anything, we become at one with what we are seeing. “Behold the beauty of the sky!”, – and that beauty fills our consciousness, “behold the beauty of your family”, and love just fills all thought! “Behold the Lamb of God!” and see beauty of the Christ made manifest, – the dominion, purity, love, and glory of that which has been since the beginning. When we behold all that Jesus has done, his great love for God and for man, we too touch the hem of the Christ, and feel the now of Christ in our hearts, the revelation of Almighty God as our very life.
Jesus’ atonement was for us. He was already, always, at one with God, and his mission was to make us aware that we also shared that unity. Jesus knew the glory of God was within him, and his prayer “… the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:” (John 17:22 the) was for the embodiment of our at-one-ment with God, to feel that constant Shepherd-love which defines our relationship with Love Itself.
In the poem “The Good Shepherd, thou art mine” we see the power and presence of divine Love as already embracing every sheep in the infinity of the One fold. Wherever we are, we can behold the presence of God, see and feel the proof of His infinite care. The sheep that has gone astray is only astray in his own thoughts. Our atonement with God can never go astray because we are of the Father. Thought can never be separated from the thinker. They are always one, and we are what God is thinking. “The time for thinkers has come.” The book of Revelation reflects this fact, it is knowing that God is not far off, but NOW, HERE, ONE. God knows all His sheep, for He knows Himself. We are His present thought, Love expressed.
This “time for thinkers” is time to reject mortal thought with the understanding and humility of One Mind, the need for self-immolation. Our daily prayer “Let this Mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” is the summit of selflessness, and the power of atonement. The poem “Self-immolation” is a recognition of being at one with Love, what more can we ask for, what more can we reflect? The penultimate line states:" For as His child AT ONE WITH LOVE, I only have to be", and this is all we can do.
This closeness with Love is what Jesus personified, and demonstrated. In the monologue “The Withered Hand Restored” we hear the testimony of the healed man’s best friend, – the amazement at what he saw and experienced, – the power of Love that changed both their lives. He beheld the Lamb of God, and felt the power of the Christ. In witnessing this healing , it changed both his life and that of his friend.
We are all witness to God, and Jesus is our best and ultimate example. He showed us what being "at one" meant, and commanded us to do the same and more. When we behold our true nature as the same as Jesus demonstrated, we know the love of God, the presence of the Good Sheperd, the comfort and togetherness of one fold. In full gratitude to Jesus, we give and reflect the full glory to the Lamb of God.
PDF version of the monologue and poems in color and B&W can be found on the top right of CedarS metaphysical article for this week. All Ken's poems are available on kencooperpoetry.com
MIND-HEAL LIKE JESUS DID BY KNOWING NOTHINGNESS OF MATERIAL LIFE AND THE ALLNESS OF GOD! Use both “cardinal points… of Christian Science” SH 52:21, cit. S10
(Jesus,) “The ‘man of sorrows’ best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.”
Remember that like the “Scientific Statement of Being” (SH 468), every good Christian Science treatment includes BOTH of "the two cardinal points of . . . Christian Science . . . the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good." (S&H 52:19)
Here’s a YouTube version of “All ‘er Nothing” from the Musical “Oklahoma” https://youtu.be/jVz5K63iYDs
For this citation and Bible Lesson one could modify the lyrics in the chorus of “All ‘Er Nothing” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma”
To heal it’s ALL and Nothin’
Is it All and Nothin’ with you!
It can’t be in-between
It can’t be now and then,
No half and half love for God will do!”
TAKE ACTIVE STEPS to FEEL AT-ONE with GOD! START by ACKNOWLEDGING CHRIST JESUS’ KEY ROLE in YOUR AT-ONE-MENT with GOD by SAVING YOU from SIN, SICKNESS & DEATH.
Check out the downloadable history of evolution of the Fourth Tenet of Christian Science (below) as researched by The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. Click on it in the upper right Download section of the webpage.
(Tenet) “4. We acknowledge Jesus’ atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man’s unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.” (citation S17, 487:13)
**Try a virtual CedarS Sunday Hymn Sing! (by Zoom every Sunday at 7pm Central Time.) Invite family, church and other friends and even neighbors to join in this healing CedarS tradition along with a happy, worldwide “chorus” every week. You can sing along (muted) with CedarS unmuted, host musicians seven hymns that all are invited to request. Click here for a link and fuller details.
(A precious prelude precedes each sing at 6:45pm Central Daylight-savings Time (CDT.) We encourage singing along in Zoom’s gallery view to share the joy of seeing dear ones in virtual family-church reunions that bless all generations.
To protect privacy and copyrights, these “brief, but spectacular” sessions are NOT recorded. So, calibrate your time-zone clocks, mark your calendars, and remind friends, so that no one misses any of these inspiring, weekly reminders of our precious, spiritual oneness with each other and with our ever-loving, Father-Mother God who owns and embraces us all!
Lovingly singing prayers and praise to God for about 30 minutes each Sunday is such a warm, “Welcome Home” tradition to bless the start of each week with joyous, peaceful GRACE. (Our 2021 theme.) We have loved singing-in this grace with longtime as well as first-time friends—not only from ALL 50 of the United States, but also from 21 other countries! So far, our “Hymn Sing family” has clicked or dialed-in from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, England, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, as well as from each of the United States! In the universal language of divine Love, “the ‘still, small voice’ of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 559:8–10)
Here are some areas where financial support is needed to bless in very meaningful ways to thousands of dear ones served by CedarS:
- ENDOWMENT GIFTS to help cover CedarS camperships and operations are being MATCHED up to $200,000/year ($1-MILLION total)!
- And, always needed and welcome are UNRESTRICTED & OTHER MAINTENANCE AND HERD SUPPORT GIFTS! We send our special thanks in advance for clicking here to electronically share your tax-deductible support. It’s especially needed during this reduced-income period to help "keep our oil lamps burning."
- Here's our camp office address to MAIL your gift to:
The CedarS Camps Office, 410 Sovereign Court #8, Ballwin, MO 63011 - or call CedarS team at 636-394-6162 (Gay, Kim or Jennifer) to share a credit card gift.
- CedarS is a not-for-profit, 501-C-3 organization with a Federal ID # 44-0663883.
