“While The Bridegroom Tarried”

PATIENCE, untinged by resignation, is a spiritual, steadfast quality which abides through the long watches, and is at last crowned with the joy of demonstration. Mortals who fear that they may fail before dawn breaks into the morning of salvation are not yet relying absolutely on divine Mind for perpetual expression of faith, patience, fidelity, inspiration, and spiritual courage. The definition of “mortal mind,” on pages 591 and 592 of the textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” clearly shows that this so-called mind can neither supply these grand qualities nor hinder their expression; for these qualities are gifts of God, the never failing tokens of the omnipresence and omnipotence of divine Mind. One who looks to God, divine Mind, for these qualities resists suggestions of discouragement and weakness, rises above the mists of self-deception, and learns to abide in the peace and safety of reflected love. The Michael and the Gabriel of God’s presence are always here; and to the humble and receptive heart an innumerable company of angels always whisper the needed messages of divine protection, love, and strength.

One whose healing seems so gradual as to be almost imperceptible will find renewed inspiration in the parable of the ten virgins, in conjunction with the word “bridegroom.” The parable states that “while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.” We may be sure that on God’s side there is no tarrying, no retarded reward, no inexplicable delay, no withholding, either of spiritual aid or of the pure consciousness of good. There is, on the contrary, a continuous outpouring from divine Mind of life, intelligence, love, and health. Slumber and sleep, then, refer to a fitful and intermittent quality of watching, or to a condition of materiality which is seemingly too dense to admit the ever present light of spiritual understanding. Fear, apathy, mental indolence, doubt, ingratitude, self-pity, envy, resentment, are slumbering states of mortal thought which cannot perceive the “bridegroom,” or spiritual understanding of man.

Paul reminds his young converts that they are “children of the day;” and he adds: “We are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” One who seems mentally asleep is oblivious of good because he is watching error, material symptoms and faults, rather than Truth. True, patient, sober thinking is inspired and rewarded by divine Love. Christian Science explains that the basis of all watchfulness is the scientific fact that God, divine Mind, “shall neither slumber nor sleep.” As God is always mindful of His own ideas and they are always conscious of Him, it is from this spiritual basis that the student of Christian Science banishes all belief in sloth or discouragement, and claims that spiritual awakeness which is the reflection of God’s clear and harmonious consciousness of all His creation. In omniscient divine Mind, divine Principle, the loving Father-Mother God, there is no oblivion, no forgetfulness, only constant, loving remembrance and support of each individual idea.

Sometimes the one who has turned to Christian Science for healing looks only to the summit of demonstration, makes mechanical statements of absolute Truth, but hardly attempts to make practical in character and behavior his theoretical acceptance of Truth. Such a one should heed all that our Leader says with regard to the indispensable footsteps leading to perfection. Another type may see before him little else than the seemingly steep and tedious mental footsteps, and no goal as yet in sight. So his cry goes up, “How long?” To both of these states of thought, Christian Science brings the assurance that through God’s gift of inspiration the goal can be kept in sight, while at the same time every footstep is clearly indicated all the way from sense to Soul.

Sure of the unending inspiration of divine Mind, the Psalmist declared with conviction, “I shall be anointed with fresh oil,” which, spiritually interpreted by Christian Science, means being supplied with heavenly inspiration and divine qualities day by day. Our Leader, too, freshens flagging hopes with the statement in “Miscellaneous Writings” (p. 342), “Each moment’s fair expectancy was to behold the bridegroom, the One ‘altogether lovely.'” Through spiritual perception, coupled with obedience to Truth, the goal of demonstration is approached day by day.

Christian Science assures and reassures the faithful watcher that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the spiritual understanding of man, typified by the bridegroom, is quietly enlightening his consciousness in much the same gentle way as the dawn steals through his window every morning. If a room had no window, the occupant would remain oblivious of the rising sun. Now, the sunlight is impartial in its choice of entry, and everyone is sure of the dawn. Would anyone be so fearful, or so presumptuous, as to imagine that he could stay the entrance of the radiant morning light by holding up futile hands to arrest its entrance at the window? On page 295 of Science and Health our Leader refers to “the manifestation of God through mortals” as analogous to “light passing through the window-pane.” Here the word “through” should be noted; for the passage does not refer to the manifestation of God “by” mortals, but “through” mortals. In other words, God, good, shines through, wherever the old has given way to the new; wherever one has yielded up the old personal sense of himself in order to bring to God that divinely cleansed heart “through” which divine Love itself is ready to shine with clear, enduring joy and harmony. However dark and dense the fears may seem to be, Love can outshine them all.

One who is learning to depend totally and continuously on God will not stoop to entertain a suggestion of doubt or possible failure. He knows that doubt and personal sense are both egotistical states of so-called mortal mind. Christian Science enables one gradually to exchange the old sense of mortal personality for the true sense of man’s spiritual individuality, so exchanging the mortal sense of separation from good for the purity and serenity of reflection as God’s child.

In man’s spiritual identity there is continuous activity; and Christian Science throws a new and encouraging light on the meaning of activity. Notwithstanding the fact that for the time being one may seem to be working out his salvation within the four walls of his own room, he can nevertheless express that true mental activity which is the sure precursor of physical healing. One who is slowly awakening out of the dream of invalidism needs to watch lest he allow himself to be governed by the mortal belief of law, which is apt to justify him in being self-centered and exacting in his attitude towards those who lovingly minister to his many wants. Right mental activity and watchful reflection of love and grace will emancipate him from this belief. If, for instance, at the close of the day which has been spent in bed he can look back and say that through God’s power he has remained faithful to Truth; has not consented to entertain suggestions of fear, doubt, impatience, or discouragement; has persistently thought and voiced the truth, and nothing but the truth —then he can thank God for enabling him to prove in a measure that divine Mind expresses through its reflection perpetual motion, perpetual right thinking. One who is learning always to take sides with the bridegroom, the spiritual understanding of man, obeys the loving warning from our textbook (p. 369), “It is error even to murmur or to be angry over sin.”

Perhaps one feels that he is doing all this, and yet the bridegroom tarries. Let him watch, then the quality rather than the quantity of his study. When reading the Bible and our Leader’s works, and studying the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly, let him carefully observe whether or not he is at the same time assimilating, appropriating, claiming for himself, as God’s likeness, all that he reads there as to spiritual perception, perfection, freedom, purity, health, and Godlikeness.

Too often there is a tendency to read about true being, theoretically admitting the oneness and perfection of God and man, and yet continuing to feel apart from God, separated, a lone mortal looking longingly at this distant vision of God and His image. Such a mistaken method of study is apt to be discouraging, and only partially fruitful; for, to the one who is thus reading without appropriating, the wistful and remote contemplation of the perfection of God and man is apt to intensify and render more acute his own mortal sense of personal imperfection and isolation. To study thus does not truly feed consciousness; it is as though one sat down to a well-spread table, noted all the viands spread before him, took them up one by one and laid them down again, and then rose from the table, still hungry, having beheld but not partaken of the nourishment set before him. The Revelator tells us to take the little book and “eat it up.” Christian Science feeds the famished spiritual sense in proportion as the student realizes his at-one-ment with God. In order to grasp his real relationship with God, he must clearly see that in absolute Truth there are not three factors, God, God’s image, and a mortal, but that, speaking absolutely, there is no mortal, no subtraction from God’s creation, and no imperfection added to it, since “without him was not any thing made that was made.” There is, then, no suffering, sinful mortal anywhere.

Only through the personal sense of one’s self is the argument of isolation from God accepted; only through profound humility, unspeakable gratitude in knowing that God is indeed All-in-all, is that warm, pure sense of at-one-ment attained, that close, safe shelter of Love realized. Thus every page is illumined, and Love’s message rises in his consciousness “with healing in his wings.” Every idea of God is loving, lovable, and beloved; and every idea is always conscious of being beloved. Whatever argument of separation from God besets consciousness through the indulgence of fear, or through ignorant or willful sin, it is silenced by the sincere, heartfelt, and loyal admission that God, good, is universal, impartial, boundless, beneficently available to all at all times.

Foremost among the spiritually transparent qualities, we find gratitude; and foremost among the opaque beliefs which seem for the time being to exclude the healing rays of Truth is ingratitude. Because it sometimes seems impossible to feel, as yet, a sense of gratitude, Christian Science lovingly bids the watcher turn his gaze towards the myriad evidences of divine influence present today in human consciousness in such movements as prohibition, world peace, penal reform. These heralds of universal salvation are trumpeting forth rousing calls to that spiritual gratitude which leads on and up, and does not wait to follow in the wake of God’s ever advancing victory over the human beliefs of sin, disease, and death.

Our victory, our gratitude, blends into and helps towards the universal demonstration of the omnipotence of God, good. God’s soldiers sustain one another in the long march heavenward, and in this heavenly choir every voice is needed. It requires unselfed love to arouse in ourselves a right sense of gratitude for others’ benefits; and so we should pray for that spiritual pure-heartedness through which Love’s own gift of unselfed love may penetrate the dense walls of selfishness and personal sense. Spiritual gratitude is inspired and sustained by divine Mind; and it is in the darkest hour that this angel of gratitude is most earnestly heeded.

Our faithful, courageous, and compassionate Master well realized mankind’s need of perseverance. In his last earthly struggle, even when hard pressed by the fury and murderous hate of the carnal mind, Christ Jesus remained loyal to God. The more he was tempted, the more did he seek repose in the consciousness of Spirit, whose pure, calm strength lifted him above the would-be mesmeric evidence of the senses. Thus, in spite of the terrible temptation to believe himself the target of hate and death, Christ Jesus steadfastly communed with Life and Love, and faithfully, courageously, maintained his at-one-ment with God until spiritual sense came out the victor, as it always must. The false claims of corporeal sense are annulled by spiritual sense, for God is All-power, and the real man is His true witness. The faithful student of Christian Science knows that God will sustain his faith so that he will never turn traitor to his knowledge of Truth.

In the twelfth chapter of Luke are to be found many helpful warnings and admonitions with regard to watching. One such refers to those who are waiting “for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.” One should watch lest he resist the demands of Truth, or delay compliance with what he knows to be God’s will; lest he temporize with error, and postpone the correction of secret faults, of which he alone is aware; lest he procrastinate and take sides with error rather than with Truth. Such procrastination inevitably delays the healing; whereas the more perfect and prompt the obedience, the more perfect will be its results. Christian Science has taught the great lesson of cooperation with God, divine Love, who supplies all the qualities needed by the faithful watcher. God supports; it is for us to lean. No one knew better than did Christ Jesus that the earlier stages of watching seem easier than the later ones; therefore he said: “Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching…. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.” In other words, Jesus emphasized the sure reward of courage and perseverance.

The student of Christian Science does not watch the disappearance of night, but the coming of the dawn of divine Love, which transfigures his waiting consciousness with its own undying radiance.