W’s Post Scripts: Find comfort & strength in the Comforter (1-8)
“Find herein a ‘canny’ crumb” (Mis. xi) or insight from Cobbey Crisler or others on citations for
“Christian Science”
the Christian Science Bible Lesson for June 30, 2019
I’m sending this email of some spiritual sense application ideas from Cobbey Crisler and others in hope that you “find herein a ‘canny’ crumb… (to) become footsteps to joys eternal.” (Miscellaneous Writings, x1.)
Warren’s (W’s) PS#1A—Cobbey Crisler on John 14:12, 13, 16-26 (B6) –Jesus prophesies greater works AND the Comforter:
“In John 14:12 Jesus makes a prophesy. He makes a prophesy in impersonal terms…
“There are greater works, the ultimatum of the application of what Jesus had introduced to earth. So, when he’s talking about greater works being done, through what agency will these greater works come? We find the Comforter is introduced.
John 14:16, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter.”
We should know enough about prophesy and have enough respect to realize that most of the prophets in the Bible, including Jesus, had a tremendous regard for prophesy. They knew that it had come from God, not from man. Similarly, we should know how to recognize the Comforter when the Comforter arrives… The word “comforter” is parakletos, sometimes called paraclete… translated “comforter” given by our King James Version. You will find, however, that The New English Bible does not use “comforter.” It uses “advocate.” You’ll also find that I John uses parakletos and the King James translator of that uses “advocate.”
We should know that the word “advocate” is a technical word legally. It specifically means “defense attorney.” That has a lot of implications to it. By contrast the name “Satan” in Hebrew is a technical term for “prosecuting attorney.” There you have the battle joined in thought.
The Comforter is to come and defend man. We can see all the ways that Jesus had introduced various defenses for man…
John 14:16, “that he may abide with you for ever.” Is there a provision for a third revelation? The Comforter is apparently the final one.
John 14:17, “the Spirit of Truth.” Notice how that counters Jesus’ definition of the “devil.” What did he say about the truth? It was the recipe for freedom (John 3:8). So, it’s got something to do with that. But there is also a communications problem. The world “cannot receive.” It’s not going to be a popular arrival. “It doesn’t see him or know him.”
But, we will know, “because it’s within.”
John 14:26 picks up the description. “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost.” There’s another part of the list, identified with the Holy Ghost in Luke 3:22, the dove descending is the symbol of it. The words “dove” and “ghost” are feminine in the Greek, and the comfort aspect also introduces the feminine concept.
The role of the Comforter “will be sent by God in my name.” If one were to regard that literally, the Comforter’s name should at least have some recognizable aspect either relating to Jesus or to Christ. Another aspect of the Comforter is “he will teach you all things.”
The role of teaching what? Is anything left out? “All things.” And at the same time, “it will bring everything back to human memory that Jesus said.”
“Book of John: A Walk with the Beloved Disciple”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**
W’s PS#1B—Christine Irby Williams on “greater works…” (B6, John 14:12) (from a 12-29-13 Met)
“Jesus said… Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father…” (B6, John 14:12)
Christine Irby Williams nicely tackled the tough question of what works could possibly be greater than what Jesus did in a wonderful precamp inspirational talk to CedarS staff this May as well as in part of an inspirational address for the Christian Science Nurses conference at CedarS this September. She essentially said, in part: “Have you ever wondered what in the world Jesus meant by greater works? It does sound a little daunting. We read almost every week in the Bible Lesson something such as Jesus “went about…healing ALL manner of sickness and ALL manner of disease among the people.” He fed 5,000 men plus women and children with what had appeared to everyone else as a few loaves and fishes. He walked on water and suspended time and space. He raised to life a child who appeared to have just passed away, a young man who was on his way to be buried, and Lazarus, who had been in the grave four days already. And then, of course, he raised himself after the crucifixion, and he ascended. So what could possibly be greater than any, much less all, of that? I’ve often wondered, and I’m still pondering his promise… There has been one particular area in which it’s likely that we’ve all been aware that there is plenty of room for “greater works,” and that is working together, or what might be called collective demonstration: in families, church work, any kind of organizational work—in a church context or otherwise, in neighborhoods, in governments of all sizes, in nations, among the people, and in the world at large. Would you agree with me that these are areas that could benefit from the light of Truth, the touch of the Comforter—the healing and saving ministries of divine Love? Might we be so bold as to think about tackling the environment? World peace? World hunger? If not, why not? If so, let’s get on with it! Let us “then up and be doing,” as our hymn [#18] says!” You can read more inspiration on this and other topics from Christine that she shared at the 2012 Fern Lodge Annual Meeting at http://fernlodge.org/2012/11/jesus-promise-you-will-do-greater-works/
First posted in Warren’s Met on “Christian Science” for 12-29-13
W’s PS#2—Cobbey Crisler on Matthew 4:23 (B7):
Verse 23. And “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” Here are human problems that had defied solution, and Jesus solved them all based on his concept of theology, namely the kingdom. Remember a kingdom is not chaos. It’s an ordered government of heaven and harmony at hand.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master, A Tax Collector’s Report,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
W’s PS#3—Cobbey Crisler’s partial comments on Luke 8:41-55 (B8) raising Jairus’ daughter
“In this case we have something that might present a problem. Two people that need attention simultaneously. What do you do?… Here’s how Jesus deals with it. He is first summoned by a ruler of the synagogue with a great deal of human priority. Jairus has the rank and he asks first. He’s got a more urgent need. His daughter is on the verge of dying (Luke 8:41). But Jesus can’t even get to the location where this girl is because of the crush of people in the narrow lanes of the Palestinian villages. The Greek word for “thronged” is often used to describe how close these groups got to one another. Jesus was nearly suffocated by the crowd.
Later the disciples rebuked Jesus, in Verse 45, for asking “Who touched me?” To them it was ridiculous. Everybody was touching him. The Greek verb that’s used is a verb that means what happens to grain kernels between two grinding stones. They were ground really together. The people were that crowded.
What happens? The woman does not wish to delay Jesus’ mission, but she is at the absolutely desperate end of a rope. Here we find the receptivity. Blessed are those who are in this state. Happy are those because the state of mind can be changed.
This radical change of thought was in the presence of the Christ-correction that Jesus was exercising in the mental realm. It’s going to be sufficient and the woman feels that it will help her. She’s lost all her money on physicians. [No health insurance…] Mark even tells us that she’s worse because of that choice. [Mark 5:26] All she does is touch the border of his garment. The issue of blood, the continuous hemorrhaging that had occurred for twelve years had kept her out of the temple, kept her out of worship and made her as unclean as the lepers. With all sorts of legislative rules around her, she herself could not be touched because it would make the individual who did it unclean. But we find that Jesus welcomed that dear woman from the standpoint of God’s welcome, because he said, “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do.” (John 5:19).
In Luke 8, Verse 48 he calls that lady, “Daughter.” Who’s daughter? Certainly, not his. In fact, he lifts that word “daughter” entirely out of any sense of blood relationship. That was the woman’s problem. He lifts even her identity out of blood.
Daughter, be of good comfort” (Verse 48). Look at how he’s addressing the thought of that woman. Not only the precious relationship to God, but the comfort. She hasn’t experienced that in twelve years. She’d lost all her money. She was about to be thrown on the society. There was nowhere to go when you were thrown on society. That may have happened to the woman who had been a sinner. Prostitution was the only open career for many women when they were simply thrown out and discarded from normal humanity. She could not get a living unless her family supported her, and there is no indication of that happening.
Jesus refuses to allow that woman to walk away from the scene thinking that physical contact with his robe had anything to do with the healing. He says, again, “Your faith hath made you whole.” The word “whole” and the word “heal” in Anglo-Saxon have the identical root. It implies that disease is something less than wholeness, that it is a fragmentation of our being. Healing is the condition of being made whole.
We understand that equation when Jesus said, “If your eye be single” Matthew 6:22), indivisible, not shared, no divisions in it and no double vision. It is single-mindedness and persistency, as we see Jesus requiring later in our book, which results in man being whole as God views him.
When he goes to the raising of Jairus’ daughter, we don’t find any reason to bemoan the delay in getting there. Even though the news comes back that the daughter has died in the mean time (Verse 49). That is the human news. Jesus goes right in and clears the environment out (Verse 51). Notice, again, this must be telling us something about what is required in order to heal.
The thought of death is so weighted down with its inevitability and grief that Jesus has to clear it out. Notice how he does so, incisively and brilliantly. He couldn’t clear them out while they were weeping. That was acceptable at a funeral. Jesus would have occupied the villain’s role.
So, he simply tells them something that was an absolute fact to him, “That maid, right there that you see horizontal, no movement, no breath, no pulse, no anything, that little girl, she’s really not dead. That appearance that you see there is like sleep (Verse 52). And I am going to awaken her life.” All the paid mourners who were earning their salary for conducting a funeral service, and everybody else who had witnessed the tragedy associated with this little girl passing away laughed (Verse 53).
Can you clear laughers out of funerals? There is certainly more justification from a social standpoint than with weepers. It also showed how deeply their grief had run. Forgetting every reason why they were there, they turned to laughing him to scorn. He put them all out.
He went to the little girl, “Maid arise” (Verse 54). “Her spirit came again, she arose straightway” (Verse 55). And that beautiful practicality of Jesus, “Give her meat,” give her something to eat (Verse 55). What else would a twelve-year-old girl want anyway? It was also an announcement that everything was quite normal.”
“Luke, the Researcher,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
Warren Huff’s PS#4 –Here again is my gratitude for the purifying & invigorating “sunlight of Truth” (S14, 162:4): “Should we be silent? Ah, never.” (Hymn 283)
I can never keep from sharing my gratitude for the life-altering healing I had from applying this citation!
As part of CedarS Bonus Thanksgiving Lesson Met for 2009 I wrote: “After a joyous 2008 summer and fall of service, I found myself agonizing in the passenger seat during our evening move home from camp. I sang (along with the sound system) many hymns that I knew by heart—thanks to years of camp Hymn Sing experience—belting them out, at first through tears of intense pain, and later through tears of immense gratitude.
For the first part of the trip the disabling discomfort just wouldn't let up—no matter how I changed my position or what hymns or citations I prayed. The pain seemed to radiate from a huge internal growth that had been steadily growing for several months. It had attempted to rob me of my appetite and vigor as well as of all ability to lift one of my legs.
In deepest humility—and supported by the prayers of the dear driver, of my mom and of a practitioner who I kept calling—I continued to reach out to God and to sing each word with renewed understanding, conviction and vigor. With tears of joy I cherished the truths about my spiritual nature as if they were being tenderly told to me in order to save my life for God's service—and that they did!
All pain finally broke thanks to this all-out, fervent praying and singing—and I have hardly stopped smiling or singing since. I remain eternally grateful that I took "God-is-All" instead of Tylenol—that I chose Christian Science treatment to eliminate not only the pain, but also its cause rather that just opting to temporarily relieve suffering.
I knew when I got home without pain that I was healed, although the draining and dissolving of the growth took several more weeks of consistent "ray-delineation therapy" which "dissolves tumors" with the invigorating purity of "the sunlight of Truth" that "Christian Science brings to the body." (S&H 162:4, S28 in our "Substance" lesson) I applied each ray of this divine, healing sunlight –shining the specific, promising laws and wonderful ideas laid out in the following precious paragraph.”
"Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates (refreshes, revitalizes, stimulates, enlivens, energizes, animates, rejuvenates, strengthens) and purifies (cleanses, disinfects, sanitizes, decontaminates, filters). Christian Science acts as an alterative (a medicinal plant that causes a gradual beneficial change in the body, usually through improved nutrition and elimination, without having any marked specific action OR A medicine or treatment which gradually induces a change, and restores healthy functions without sensible evacuations), neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions (emissions, discharges, oozings), expels humors (4 Medieval ones to be balanced: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, black bile), dissolves tumors (growths, cancers, lumps, swellings), relaxes rigid muscles ("thought-forces"), restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir (rouse, wake up, budge, shift, get up, revive) the human mind to a change of base (basis, foundation, origin, heart, starting point), on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind." (S&H 162:4). Have fun letting your body and life sing-out about this transforming "sunlight of Truth"!]
W’s PS#5 —Cobbey Crisler on I Corinthians 13: 12 (B19) “see face to face”
Verse 12. Seeing “face to face” is a mental thing…
“then I shall know even as I am known…” What God know of us, we know of ourselves and others…
[Transcribed from notes from Cobbey taken in the margin of Warren’s Bible]
W’s PS#6 — Cobbey Crisler on John 6:16-21 (B12)
John 6:16. “The disciples go alone.”
John 6:17. “Over the sea toward Capernaum.” That means they had to be on the other side of the sea, which is Bethsaida.
John 6:18. “The winds that come suddenly sweeping down from the east and the desert, or from the west and the Mediterranean, often stir the sea up without warning. They [the disciples] are having trouble negotiating their little boat. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.
John 6:19, “Jesus is having no trouble approaching them on the sea.” This shows that he wasn’t really walking on the surface of the sea at all. As my father once pointed out, if the sea were churned up, walking would be more laborious than being in the boat. Jesus, however, had a method that was revolutionary and less laborious. He must be walking above the sea, not in the peaks and valleys. And if were, then it’s walking on air. But what’s the difference? They’re both rather difficult to do from the human view of it. This sounds mighty logical to me.
John 6:20. When he gets near he says, “It is I; be not afraid.”
John 6:21, “They willingly receive him into the ship.”
They learn a lesson in transportation. Space and time, as obstacles, can be overcome. “Immediately the ship, the disciples, everybody is beached. They’re right there at the destination. It’s a wooden boat. No one says it ended up in fragments. No one was holding their heads and complaining that they hit their head against a sonic boom of something.”
“The Book of John, A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
W’s PS#7—Cobbey Crisler on Revelation 1:1 (B14)
In the first verse of the first chapter of Revelation let us consider again the phrase “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” This is as close to the original title of the book that we will ever be. It is not John’s revelation, despite the heading that appears in the King James’ translation. In fact, the earliest form of any title of the Apocalypse, apart from its opening sentence, is dated in the second century, and reads “The Revelation to Saint John the Divine,” not “of”. It is originally not even Jesus’ revelation because the next few words tell us that God gave it to him. The message comes through Jesus who “sent and signified [it] by his angel unto his servant John.”
No other book of the Bible carries with it such dramatic credentials: God to Jesus, to John, to God’s receptive servants in general. The authenticity of this imposing claim, of course, has been widely challenged by scholars and lay readers alike. Should it not be true, however, it would impeach the credibility of the entire work. If it is true, it would rank at the top of the list of Scriptural books for Christian believers. It makes the meeting between Jesus and John-on-Patmos neither fortuitous nor imaginary, but a divine appointment arranged long in advance…
The human mind finds it difficult to conceive of divine appointment except in terms of earthly politics. Jesus had to respond to Peter [in Verse 22], “If I will that he tarry till I come, what [is that] to thee?” With these words, “tarry till I come,” Jesus fixed a prophetic appointment with his beloved disciple. The Bible doesn’t close before we are told of John and Jesus meeting on Patmos [in Revelation1:1].
W’s PS#8—Revelation 10:7 (B15)
In Chapter 10:7 of Revelation, Verse 7, there we read, “in the days of the voice of the seventh angel the mystery,” or secret, “of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” The word finished means completed or fulfilled in Greek. Some of these words are actually borrowed from the earliest literary prophet, Amos. It was Amos [3:7], who, nearly a millennium earlier, wrote, “The Lord God will do nothing but he reveal it his secret,” or mystery, “unto his servants the prophets.” Between the time of Amos and John on Patmos the voices of many prophets cry, [Revelation 6:10] “How long, O Lord?”
But strict chronology does not belong to the prophetic design of Scriptures. The question “What?” is answered, but the question “When?” Must wait to be answered until human thought is ready for the fulfillment.
Once in my high school Bible class a student asked, “Mr. Crisler, when does prophecy end?” as any teacher with classroom experience can tell you, if you don’t know the answer, ask the class. It gives you time to regroup. So I did. Nancy Frye raised her hand to inquire,” Wouldn’t prophecy end when time ended?” There was silence. Her comment had suddenly reminded me of the last few words of Verse 6 of Revelation 10 where it states, there should be time no longer.”
What I hadn’t remembered was what followed in the seventh verse, that prophecy itself would be finished or completed. The precision of the Bible’s answer to that twentieth century classroom kept us all transfixed. Nancy’s spontaneous spiritual sense for that moment had been at one with John’s on Patmos.
Another thing Verse 7 underscores is that the preservation of prophecy is one of the principal reasons the Bible was written. Jesus made this a key point in the gospels. In fact, he called his two disciples on the road to Emmaus “fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.” [Luke 24:25].
In the apocalypse [Revelation 10:7] the seventh angel signals a terminus ad quem, an end to which prophecy has been pointing, a point when time itself is no longer a limitation. God’s revelation is seen to be ageless, not subject to dictates of chronology. Only then does prophecy cease because its fulfillment is complete. As Jesus indicated at Mark 13, Verse 32, “Of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”
Would there be so much stress on prophecy in Bible if it were not God’s method of revealing to man his divine destiny? The Book of Revelation is certainly committed to this theme. We do not wish to be in the category of fools, or dull our discipleship by being slow in heart. To “receive a prophet’s reward” Jesus said [in Matthew 10:41]”, we must “receive a prophet in the name of a prophet.’ Revelation is based upon prophecy. It is “the head [stone] of its corner” even though it is “the stone [which] the builder’s refused” [Psalms 118:22].
newly transcribed from "Apocalyptic Pictures: "Prophesy and Parody,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**
**You can buy your own transcripts of most of Cobbey Crisler’s 28 talks at this website: www.crislerlibrary.co.uk Email your order or inquiry to office@crislerlibrary.co.uk, or directly to Janet Crisler, at janetcrisler7@gmail.com
PS As a weekly “email Met” subscribers, YOU are considered part of CedarS family and so are entitled to know the password [CedarS] that will enable you to catch some “glorious glimpses of… the divine nature, the essence of Love” (SH 333:24) poured into CedarS Session 1 and 2 activities, cabin groups and Hymn Sings!! (Here’s a link to search past sessions, back to 1962!!)
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“Prac Talks” this session on new insights on Christian Science as the science of Love are being delivered by Christie Hanzlik, C.S. and are posted by 9am (Central Time) for you to pray and practice with us. Feel free to share this with anyone you feel it might be bless.
PS As a weekly “email Met” subscribers, YOU are considered part of CedarS family and so are entitled to know the password [CedarS] that will enable you to catch some “glorious glimpses of… the divine nature, the essence of Love” (SH 333:24) poured into CedarS Session 1 and 2 activities, cabin groups and Hymn Sings!! (Here’s a link to search past sessions, back to 1962!!)
Please also Click here daily to join our metaphysical support team in listening to short CedarS Practitioner Talk(s) given after breakfast nearly every morning going forward (and backward to 2006)!
“Prac Talks” this session on new insights on Christian Science as the science of Love are being delivered by Christie Hanzlik, C.S. and are posted by 9am (Central Time) for you to pray and practice with us. Feel free to share this with anyone you feel it might be bless.