Millennium
December 30, 1999
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
As noted last week, we were concerned with possible computer glitches and terrorism as well as unrealistic projections of a "new era" associated with the arrival of the year 2000. Our topic Millennium was intended to cover all this, but some found as our study unfolded that Millennium is something more than a change of date. It represents a lot of active psychic material needing assessment in the light of Science.
We were hard put to understand fundamentalist Christian thought concerning the Apocalypse, which tends to rise up at such dates, but felt we must get at least some of its major concepts clear in order to proceed. One member ran us through the imagery, particularly from Revelation 20, of the Second Coming of Christ, the Rapture — when some will be transported to Heaven — and of course, Armageddon. All the references in the chapter to a thousand years were conventional, indicating a great quantity of time.
One member observed that while year 2000 is based in Christian history, many other year counting systems exist — for instance Hebrew, Chinese, Moslem and Persian. The fact that Western business and scientific practices now dominate the world assures a wide observance of the Christian date but sensitivity must be shown to the other systems, all based in deeply held religious beliefs. This said, there is still something very strong in all people celebrating an event together — emblematic of the oneness of man. Even the problems with computers and terrorists show our interdependence and our need to get along. The student of Christian Science would take this further — seeing "needs" as fully supplied. The oneness of God-man is the only thing truly worthy of celebration.
Another member deconstructed some of the fundamental Christian views of agony and salvation. He noted that catastrophic endings and idyllic new beginnings are not restricted to Christian mythology but inhabit many other, if not all, religions. In fact while doom is said to hang precariously over Christians, Indians have several hundred thousand years before the next extinction. Whatever the system and the attendant hope and horror it evokes, the student of Christian Science will welcome the glad news buried in it. For instance, the Second Coming is the never absence of God with and as us. The Rapture is the now Heavenly residence of everyone. Armageddon is the totality of Good.
One member observed how little meaning most of the traditional Christian views of Millennium have for people today but nevertheless the deep underlying significances still haunt us in visions of catastrophic nuclear destruction, evil terrorists and computers out of control. Religious wars, whether between say, Moslems and Hindus or various religious fundamentalists and their more moderate cousins are very much still with us. On the other side, dreams of progress in political, medical and scientific fields are described in almost biblical terms. We may consciously disown millennial thinking while our unconscious projections rise up to meet us everywhere. What to do?
As students of Christian Science we need to live the millennial energies consciously and unitively as the one cause and effect. Mary Baker Eddy has given us much to ponder in this regard — always pointing us away from the dualistic raw material data to the oneness beneath. We found this statement particularly helpful: "The millennium is a state and stage of mental advancement, going on since ever time was. Its impetus, accelerated by the advent of Christian Science, is marked, and will increase till all men shall know Him (divine Love) from the least to the greatest, and one God and the brotherhood of man shall be known and acknowledged throughout the earth" (Miscellany, p. 239:27).
Also helpful was the recent issue of The Warm Line, devoted to the Millennium. Here we found wonderful assistance in seeing the face of God where every person and even thing exists.
We found that a transition from one year to another is a convenient point to take stock of where we've been and where we're going and then to do the work in Science of translating all into the divine ideas such activities proclaim.
Three healings were reported:
1) The member whose revelations about his family were recorded last week had further unfoldments this week. He had been trying to see his birth family as "God being familiar with Himself" but realized he could also pray to see this more generally, perhaps ultimating in a very different family configuration — embodying friends and intimates more promotive of his growth and progress than his conception of blood family would ever allow. He could see the need for care here — there may be much pain locked in his idealization of birth family, requiring healing. And he must let the new family — is this a millennial projection? — emerge through demonstration, not mere human effort.
2) Another member seemed to shock his colleagues at work by loudly celebrating the beauty of his cosmetics customers. They were not doing the same for theirs and resented what they saw as his lush overstatements. His enthusiasm is leavening thought however, since he truly sees the beauty of his customers, based on the scientific facts. He's looking for ways to help his co-workers see similarly.
3) Another member, listening to James Hillman, the Jungian analyst, speak of some of his theories on TV, had an opening of thought. Mr. Hillman — along with many others, by the way — feels one should live his age. He should not try to retain youth, undertake face and body lifts etc. but just go along and glory in whatever fate deals him. This does have a kind lulling effect. Our member felt however that we should live our true age, which is eternity. The notion of mortals trying desperately to retain youth is indeed pitiable but so is trying to act out what dualistic fate wants us to manifest. Let us rather live as the reflection of God.
For next week we want to look at a topic requested by an internet friend: Church Organization — Friend or Foe.
If all who seek his commemoration through material symbols will take up the cross, heal the sick, cast out evils, and preach Christ, or Truth, to the poor,—the receptive thought,—they will bring in the millennium.
No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.
As material knowledge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real objects will be apprehended mentally instead of materially.
Christ's Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God.
The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness —yea, the divine nature—appear in man and the universe never to disappear.
Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony.
The individuality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the millennial estate pictured by Isaiah:—
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
^Must mankind wait for the ultimate of the millennium—until every man and woman comes into the knowledge of Christ and all are taught of God and see their apparent identity as one man and one woman—for God to be represented by His idea or image and likeness?^
God is one, and His idea, image, or likeness, man, is one. But God is infinite and so includes all in one. Man is the generic term for men and women. Man, as the idea or image and likeness of the infinite God, is a compound, complex idea or likeness of the infinite one, or one infinite, whose image is the reflection of all that is real and eternal in infinite identity. Gender means a kind. Hence mankind—in other words, a kind of man who is identified by sex—is the material, so-called man born of the flesh, and is not the spiritual man, created by God, Spirit, who made all that was made. The millennium is a state and stage of mental advancement, going on since ever time was. Its impetus, accelerated by the advent of Christian Science, is marked, and will increase till all men shall know Him (divine Love) from the least to the greatest, and one God and the brotherhood of man shall be known and acknowledged throughout the earth.