Sunday March 28th, 2021 Roundtable
The Light Shining in Darkness
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Reality
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayer
Infinite Spirit! Supreme and “adorable” Intelligence! We revere thee; for thou art Omnipresent Life. We praise thee; for thou art Omniscient Truth; and we adore thee, for thou art Omnipotent Love. We thank Thee, and rejoice that we can, with the understanding, in Spirit and Truth, worship Thee as our Father and our God. Help us to realize Thy nearness to us; even that it is in Thee that we live, move, and have our being and may our knowledge of Thee increase, till we can, with the confidence that is begotten of the understanding, take hold of Thy great and precious promises, and realize that Thou art an ever-present help in every time of need. May each human life be a prayer of good deeds, and a continued anthem of praise and thanksgiving; thus fulfilling the divine injunction to “pray without ceasing,” and in all things to give thanks, and may we be abundantly blessed in our efforts to attune our thoughts in accord with Thy great and harmonious laws of being, and while our hearts are warmed with a flame of sacred love from Thine own great heart of Parental Affection, may we be led by thy wisdom into all truth. We ask all in the name of him who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” and “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.” Amen.
— from “A Scientist’s Prayer” Christian Science Journal, January 1887 by Editor
Discussion points
301 — WATCH lest, when you are sick, you ask, “Oh, God! Why have you done this to me?” Rather should you ask, “Oh, God! Why have I done this to you?” There are times when we need a rude awakening from our mental lethargy. Perhaps we have become indifferent to God and to our obligations to Him. Perhaps we have put effect ahead of cause in our procession, put matter at the head of it, where only God, Spirit, belongs.
Perhaps we have been sailing along so smoothly that we have thrown our skipper overboard. Divine guidance is so essential that we must have experiences that convince us that, if we let go of it, we are liable to go on the rocks. Once a boy stumbled over a stone as he walked along with uplifted eyes, thinking about God. He was thinking about God, but he was not using His guidance, since he did not see a pit that lay in his path. Stumbling over the stone so shocked him out of his reverie, that he was saved a plunge into the pit. When he realized what had happened, he was grateful for the very stone at which he was at first angry.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Golden Text — “Since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” — Isaiah 64 : 4
Forum post — “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see” by Florence Roberts
Forum post — “Impossible to lose aught that is real” by Joanne
Forum post — “Thou shalt not be burned” by Louise
Click here to play: — Be Thou My Vision, performed by Faith, Jared, Bruce, and Craig
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
— By Joyce Kilmer
Moses was commanded to handle this serpent and did so, yet until he handled it fear ruled him and would have carried him into all forms of error. The serpent unhandled is the fallen state of man, a state where life is believed to be in matter, and man to be mortal, subject to all the claims of sorrow, sickness, and death — a staff likened unto “a reed shaken by the wind.” The serpent handled is the understanding of true wisdom, that man in the image and likeness of God is spiritual, and even now is capable of rising above this fallen belief of things.
— From The Christian Science Sentinel,May 16, 1903, by H. J. R.
Click here to play the audio as you read: — Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, Pages 390-393
Forum post — Mariner’s Version of Psalm 23 by Parthens
Forum post — “Perfection is normal, not miraculous” by Louise
Forum post — “Blind Bartimaeus – Lesson Citation #5 – From blind to eye-witness” by Louise
Article — “Imporve Your Time” from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy
Final Readings
There is always something wrong when our work in Christian Science assumes the dark aspect of a burden and presses heavily. On careful examination an error in thinking is discovered, and it is usually the one which persistently declares that we have a difficult problem to solve, or a great sense of fear to destroy for ourselves or another. Only as we remember the words of our Master, “I can of mine own self do nothing,” will the weight of responsibility be lifted from us and left quietly in the hands of our Father. The Scriptures state that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all;” and in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 255) our beloved Leader says, “Let there be light,” is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.” How reassuring also is the voice of our loving Father speaking to His children through the prophet Isaiah: “I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.” It is plainly evident that nothing will destroy darkness except light; that in no way can we of ourselves destroy darkness. Yet that is just what we attempt to do when our work becomes a burden—we try to do it of ourselves. On the walls of memory is a picture to which I often turn that I may recall that the Father “doeth the works.” It is that of a little child who at the close of day has fallen asleep among his toys. While he is sleeping night comes on and suddenly he wakens to find the room in darkness. He is afraid. His fear causes him to imagine that there are hideous forms lurking near ready to spring, and crying aloud he beats frantically with his little hands to drive away the darkness. When quite beside himself from fear and effort, his mother comes in with a loving word and turns on the light,—and in that instant the darkness is gone. To his surprise he sees as he looks about that there is nothing at all to fear in the room; there are only things that he loves,—his toys close about his feet, the “music” daddy plays for him, and the pictures that mother has often told him about as he snuggled close in her arms. The coming of the light destroyed his fear and restored his happiness. It is remarkable how quickly the burden of responsibility lifts on looking back at this picture, for at once it is clearly apparent that only the light of divine Love destroys the darkness of error; that there is nothing at all to do but to let in the light,—just to remember that “in him we live, and move, and have our being,” in the presence of divine Love. Then the phantoms of fear disappear, the glory and power of God stand forth, and in that moment the work is done. Our effort to do the work of ourselves is just as futile as Christian Science Sentinel beating the darkness to destroy it. The light of His presence dispels all gloom. It makes no difference to the light what type of darkness it comes to destroy, whether it be dusk or the blackness of midnight. To the light it is all the same. Neither does it make any difference to the light whether the darkness has been in the place where it is found for the space of a day or for many long years. Darkness is only the absence of the light, and light always dispels it. Just so it is with our problems. The sunlight of His presence destroys all fear, all gloom, all woe. The one thing and the only thing for us to do is to let in the light
— “The Father Doeth the Works” from The Christian Science Sentinel, August 30, 1919, by Emma J. Hackathorn