PYCLs: MIRROR TIME! CHRIST IS THE “DIVINE IMAGE AND LIKENESS.” GET OUT THE MARKERS OR CRAYONS.
UNDERSTAND HOW JESUS HEALED!
Possible Younger Class Lesson ideas for the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on
“MAN”
for Sunday, March 5, 2023
by Kerry Jenkins, CS, of House Springs, MO
kerry.helen.jenkins@gmail.com • 314-406-0041
PYCL #1: MIRROR TIME!
This is an awesome Bible lesson to use with a mirror. There are many references to “image” and “likeness”. If you have a hand held mirror or several that you can share out, this would be optimal. This passage can be a basis for working together with mirrors. If your class is older you can dissect the passage together, if younger, you can use it to inform your work with the younger children. It’s from SH 515:25-12/citation S11.
Try labeling the mirrors “divine Science”.
Does that change anything for the students?
With older students explain that the mirror is an analogy, of course.
God doesn’t “look like” us. But just as the mirror shows us what is in front of it, and divine Science can be the “mirror” we choose to look into, so we can find that our image can change/be seen as something that is more harmonious, beautiful, useful, gracious, intelligent, and so on.
(For deeper study see citation B9/1Cor. 15:45,47-49. This is a helpful explanation of how it appears that we see a “mortal” or “earthy” man.)
Notice that we are told that “what constitutes”, or makes up Deity/God, are qualities that are not inherently “visible”: “substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love”, yet these are what make up the true reflection, man. What do we have to “subordinate”, or put in a lower position in our consciousness so that these qualities become visible to us?
How do we do this?
PYCL #2: WHAT’S IN FRONT OF THE “MIRROR”, SHOWS IN THE “MIRROR”
The mirror is an analogy that we can continue to work with here. The message is that God can only be reflected with what is Godlike. With the younger students you can talk about how whatever stands in front of the mirror gets reflected there. If God or Good is standing in front, then only good can be reflected back.
Play a little game with a variety of silly things you bring from home, or using whatever you have at hand. Have them “guess” what will be reflected in the mirror when you hold those things up. Pretend that maybe a plastic dinosaur will actually reflect as a toy truck — that kind of thing — just to make it a little fun. This can help to illustrate the fact that God can only reflect in man, things that are Godlike. Anything else, sickness, sin, etc. is not from God, so has no true substance, no ability to make an impression, to influence our experience.
So, if you have a sore toe, this is not reflected in the mirror of divine Science, because there is no source for a sore toe in God! It’s kind of interesting to think about how that reflection that seems like it has a “sore toe” or whatever the problem, actually doesn’t have it within the reflection.
The reflection itself doesn’t “possess” that problem because a reflection isn’t made of matter. This might be an interesting idea to pursue together with some older students. See where it takes you.
PYCL #3: CHRIST IS THE “DIVINE IMAGE AND LIKENESS”.
This statement is found in citation S16/332:9-15 Christ. Look together at our Golden Text from Genesis 1:26, 27 which states that God made man in His image, after His likeness.
What does this tell us about man if you put the two statements together?
The real man is the “Christ man” that Jesus embodied so well that he was called “Christ”. When we are reflecting the truest qualities of God, that is when we are embodying that same Christ man, radiating as that true original “man” created as image, then we are that Christ man.
I just think it’s helpful to make that connection with Christ being that image and likeness, and man being that image and likeness!
PYCL #4: GET OUT THE MARKERS OR CRAYONS.
Draw a self portrait, or a picture of a person. We say we are the image and likeness of God/Truth/Love, etc. So, now draw God…. It seems like if we are drawing the image of something, we aught to be able to draw its source. But this is not the case, because God is not a mortal being. Knowing this, does that change our sense of what we might try to draw when we draw ourselves? God is not the so-called substance of matter. If man is image of God, then man can’t be this so-called substance either. Maybe we’d be better drawing ourselves as vibrant color, motion, space…? This is an opportunity to wonder about who we really are.
The first Bible citation is one of my favorites for its question: “…what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Ps. 8:4)
Man here, must not be matter. Man (generic, not masculine/feminine), this question asks, must be something far greater if God is what the Bible tells us.
The infinite, all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful…that cannot be reflected in a limited mortal!
PYCL #5: HOW DID JESUS’ TRUER UNDERSTANDING OF GOD, AND MAN AS REFLECTION, HELP HIM HEAL?
In citation B11/Matt. 8:14-16 Jesus heals not only Peter’s mother in law, but many others with all kinds of challenges.
Talk about how this takes place.
Did Jesus fix their problems, make sick matter into well matter?
Or, did he recognize that the “image” portrayed to material sense was inaccurate, a lie?
How do we develop the same sense of true reality that Jesus saw and experienced?
How must we learn to see our fellow man?
How can we pray about improving our outlook?
Can we look to matter for information about Truth?
All that matter can tell us is that we may need to do some correcting of our understanding of things!
It isn’t telling us that “something is true, now we need to “fix” it”!
This is why we learn about “man”, so that we can understand that no matter what things look like, there is a true man that is the only real one.
There are not two of us out there!
Peter’s wife’s mother was always whole, complete, healthy, useful, loving.
She never was sick because her body was spiritual and not subject to material illness.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK IN SUNDAY SCHOOL.
