In today’s digital age, 24/7 exposure to news events is common. Such information often seems focused on sensational subjects – including bad actors and bad actions. But there is a power that can bring change to such situations: the power of Christ, the true idea of God, as illustrated in Jesus’ healing works.
Years ago, I experienced how that power can transform threatening circumstances. I was working in a Christian Science Reading Room. It was in a busy downtown area of a large city, and I was the only staff left in the empty store on a dark, thundering Friday night. In walked a rugged giant of a man who had a fearsome aura about him. He commanded me to call him a cab, which I immediately tried to do, but the line was busy. He became angry.
I could see that he was under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, and possibly both. As his agitation at my inability to reach the cab company mounted, he started threatening me. He said he was a mercenary who was hired by groups around the world to “eliminate” people and further his clients’ causes. He insisted that it would be easy to end my life in seconds if I didn’t do what he wanted.
I was almost overwhelmed with fear, so fierce and cold seemed his energy. The hair on the back of my neck raised, and “fight or flight” adrenaline spiked. But even as those bodily reactions tried to grab my attention, my heart opened to God for help. My thought expanded beyond the human situation, making me receptive to a power far greater than what seemed to be governing my immediate circumstances.
The man suddenly slumped into a chair and closed his eyes. All was quiet, and I felt a deep stirring in me that was filled with spiritual hope. Looking across the room, I saw a poster that read, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (II Corinthians 3:17). At that moment, these words felt like a bright light. My heart welled up with a widening sense of God, good, as the only Life. This brought a spiritual peace so powerful that it felt as if it had a life of its own and was governing everything.
I again called the cab company, got through to them, and was assured that they would arrive soon. I wordlessly thanked God, while feeling an all-pervading love that no words can describe. After some minutes, the cab arrived. I gently awakened the visitor, who stared at me. His face was no longer red, and his eyes were bright – no longer dilated or bloodshot. He was alert and calm.
He arose and walked to the door. As he crossed the threshold, he turned back to me and said, “Thank you, brother, … for healing me.”
These words from Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John remind me of how things felt as I witnessed the Christ moving in that experience: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (14:10). It had felt as if the visitor and I were, together, one with God, but also as if there was another in our midst, and it was this presence of Christ that revealed this oneness and brought about the healing. The experience felt holy.
There was a sense of “me” – my personhood, my human story, you might say – getting out of the way through spiritual inspiration. And in turn, there was a sense of following – like birds in formation drafting off the lead bird – with the Christ-spirit leading the way. Christ had embraced and changed both of us.
Turning to Christ, which I had learned to do through my study of Christian Science, is something I continue to trust. In the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy explains that in seeking to understand how Jesus healed, she discovered that “it was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick” (p. 351).
Jesus, speaking of Christ, “his divine nature, the godliness which animated him” (Science and Health, p. 26), reminds us that because it is always present, it is with us forever: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). This Christ is transformative and restorative. No circumstance or presentation of human life can supersede its ameliorative power, for it is Immanuel, “God with us,” here and now. Mrs. Eddy describes Immanuel as “the sovereign ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill ‘that flesh is heir to’” (Science and Health, p. 107).
In other words, it is unstoppable!
Adapted from an article published in the Dec. 15, 2025, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
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