“Your Hope of Glory”
Many years ago, a woman told me about an experience she once had. At the time of that experience, she was a young mother of two. She was on an operating table, and the doctors were losing her. She felt herself leaving her body and rising up, she saw her body on the table and her doctors. At that moment, she prayed. She prayed that she could just live long enough to raise her two children. Then, she went unconscious, and later woke up in her body again. When she told me this story, she was in her 80s.
Thirty years ago, Dr. Raymond Moody did a study of about 150 people who had experiences similar to the one that woman told me years ago. That study was the basis of Moody’s fascinating book Life After Life. The stories Dr. Moody gathered in his research had many similarities. One such similarity is recognizable in the following excerpts from those stories:
“I was above the table, and I could see everything they were doing. I knew that I was dying, that this would be it. Yet, I was concerned about my children, about who would take care of them. So, I was not ready to go. The Lord permitted me to live.”
“The doctor had already said that I was gone, but I lived through it. Yet, the experience I had been through was so joyous, I had no bad feelings at all. . . . I felt as though I had been called back – magnetized back – through the love of my sister and my husband. Since then, I have believed that other people can draw you back.”
Reading these reports, and having heard others myself, I sometimes wonder: was Jesus called back by love? Did his love for his disciples and humanity, and his disciples love and prayers for him, draw Jesus back into his body? Was the resurrection of Jesus, like these modern reports, the result of God’s Love working through simple human affection and concern? There is no way to know; but this I know – Divine Love gives life.
On the first Easter morning, moved by love, women came to a tomb and found it empty. When you let yourself be moved by love, you cannot lose the ones you love; love is stronger than death. There is no death in God, for God is Spirit and Spirit is life itself. Death is a seeming end, like a ship that seems to disappear when it sails beyond our sight. But on another shore, other eyes see the ship sailing toward them. Death is a seeming disappearance of life, like boiling water disappearing into thin air; the water has simply taken on a more subtle form, one not seen by eyes but known by mind. Life moves into subtler and higher forms. There is nothing to fear in that.
On the first Easter morning, illumined by faith, hope, and love, disciples saw their resurrected Master. When you let yourself be illumined by faith, hope, and love, you see the way, the truth, and the life; you witness the resurrection. The way, truth, life, & resurrection are not visible forms but invisible Spiritual realities. The cores of the sun & earth & all forms are invisible to our eyes, but discerned by understanding. Gravity is invisible cause and reality behind visible effects. Your mind is not seen, yet only your mind sees.
The resurrection principle is invisible, yet always working to raise up your consciousness to new and higher understanding. The resurrection principle is invisible, yet always working to raise you up to new and higher life.
Paul wrote: “. . . I became a minister . . . to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1: 25-27)
Recently there’s been much media fuss over a best-selling book called “The Secret.” Evidently, “the secret” in the book is the law of attraction. There is a law of attraction: what you persistently hold in mind will be drawn into your life. That may seem like a secret to those who didn’t know it yet. However, since Unity, Religious Science, and New Thought have been teaching the law of attraction for over 100 years, it has not been a well kept secret. I am glad that more and more people are getting in on this “secret.”
The law of attraction is not the deepest “secret.” The deepest “secret” is that God is in you, a silent realm of great riches. The deepest secret is your hope for, confidence in, and expectation of manifesting those riches. This is the secret behind the secret. God in you – what Paul called “Christ in you” and what Jesus called “your Father in secret” - is the source of the thoughts of riches that you hold in mind, the source of the thoughts that attract riches according to the law. The Spirit of God in you is source of more than outer riches; the Spirit is the very source of all truth and integrity, love and wisdom, life and healing, peace and joy. These are riches greater than anything that you can put in a bank, or drive, or wear.
The Resurrection symbolizes these great riches made apparent. Easter celebrates the hope of glory in you made manifest.
The Resurrection appearances described in the New Testament symbolize realizations of the inner glory; they symbolize the revelation of the deep mystery of the riches of God in you.
Beyond the realm of conscious thought, in the depths of your soul, there is a pattern, a divine idea just for you. This divine pattern may be thought of as the form of what Paul called “Christ in you.” This divine idea can mold the life-energy flowing in you to bring forth into manifestation radiant health and vitality. Even now, this perfect pattern is directing the circulation of breath in your body and the circulation of your body’s blood. The divine idea is eliminating from your system old cells that are no longer of use to your body and generating new cells to raise up a new body, stronger and more vibrantly alive than your current expression. This raising up of a new body is the resurrection principle, constantly at work within you.
You can cooperate with this resurrection or you can hinder it, according to your attitudes and thought. The cooperative attitudes are those which mirror the nature of the Spirit that was in Jesus. What are those attitudes? Those attitudes are openness and receptivity to the direction of Spirit. They include non-attachment to egotistical desires of the world. They are the attitudes of divine love: compassion, mercy, forgiveness, & givingness. Those attitudes are the attitudes of faith: hope, confidence, positive expectancy, and trust in the omnipresence and absolute goodness of Spirit.
As you adopt the attitudes of Spirit, your thoughts and feelings align with the ways of peace. Undisturbed by the ways of the world, you find that serenity and happiness are not effects of outer conditions, but rather a flow of energy and intelligence from the Divine Center in the midst of you to the outer circumference of your consciousness. You find that Divine Center whenever you still your anxious thoughts & listen for the Inner Silence. The Silence is that realm that Paul called the “mystery hidden for ages and generations . . . Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In that realm are riches greater than anything that can be attained in the economy of the world. Jesus called those riches “buried treasure” and “a pearl of great price.”
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you.” (Rom 8: 11)
The Spirit of God is all around you and in the midst of you right now. This is the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. This is the same power that has raised many from the dead; raised many not only from physical deadness, but from emotional deadness, creative deadness, relationship deadness, and vocational deadness. This omnipotence is able to heal any illness, regardless of the diagnostics and prognostics of human thought. This omnipotence is Infinite Love and is willing to raise you up from any condition into new and grander experience of life.
The Spirit gives life and new life because that is Its nature. The Spirit gives life to all creatures and vegetation. The Spirit does not care about your color, or language, nationality or religion. The Spirit gives life to Protestant and Catholic, Muslim and Jew, Atheist, Agnostic, New Ager, and New Thoughter. The Spirit does not ask, “What is your religious belief?” The Spirit only asks, “Are you open to new life? Do you trust Life? Are you ready for a resurrection?”
Are you willing to accept Spirit-God as the only power?
Let the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus well up into your awareness and fill you with gratitude for the gift of life. Let it fill you with gratitude for the gift of nature’s beauty and order. Let it fill you with gratitude for the gift of love. Let it fill you with the limitless creative energy of being.
Let your thoughts and words be yes and no. Christ in you says no to thoughts of dark and gloom; no to thoughts and fears of seeming powers; no to thoughts of evil powers. Christ in you says yes to thoughts of light and joy; yes to thoughts of faith and assurance; yes to thoughts of love; yes to thoughts of Good, the only Power.
Faith is affirmation; it says yes to the Spirit that is riches and glory and resurrecting power. Live with faith, and faith enriches your life. Love is oneness with the Spirit of Infinite Life. Live in love, and love gives you abundant life.
In the Silence is hidden the mystery of the ages, the riches of glory; Christ in you, your hope of glory. Listen! The word of God is speaking to you, telling you the deepest secret. Let this word of God into your body, to give it life. Let this word into your soul, to give you light. Listen - to the still small voice of your own higher nature; it is telling you, “You are my beloved child, today I am begetting you. You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased. I am the way, the truth, & the life. I am the resurrection. Lo, I am with you always.”