The second dispatch

If a friend passes on, it's a time that may bring some deep soul-searching. A time when one might want to be alone for a while, or with a few close companions, just to think things through.

Of course we can only speculate about how Jesus felt, but there was a time when he had to deal with the loss of a good friend. John the Baptist had lost his life in the most difficult circumstances. The disciples cared for his body. Then they went to give Jesus the sad news.

We don't know exactly what Jesus said to them, but the book of Matthew tells us, "When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart" (Matt. 14:13).

Surely any of us can appreciate for ourselves the meaningfulness of having time alone with God. Moments to commune with Him. To feel closer to the source of all life. To try to understand. Whatever Jesus' thoughts may have been at that time, and however secluded he may have wanted to be, it seems to me there's real significance in what happened as the people found the Master. He wasn't long alone. The multitudes were reaching out for healing. And he healed them.

In fact, this was the time Jesus fed the five thousand. It was one of the most overwhelming illustrations of the power of Spirit over matter that the world has ever witnessed.

This dramatic event has stood as a symbol to me. It's almost as if his actions were confronting a sense of loss with irresistible proof that God's abundance of good—His unlimited care for man—must prevail.

Shouldn't this be an enduring lesson for us today? As we learn of a friend's passing, yes, we may want to depart to our own desert for the moment. But the power of the Christ is with us, calling on us to come right back more strongly than ever, doing what the Comforter is teaching us to do—to heal, to bless, to help others, to be undefeated.

Mary Baker Eddy had to deal more than once with the way the world would attempt to slow or even defeat one's progress after the loss of a loved one. She offers a thought-provoking passage pointing out that one feels as much grief upon receiving "a blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the death of a friend" as one would feel had the friend really died. A second message, telling us there was no death after all, would free us of the heavy feelings (see Science and Health, p. 386).

I've often felt that this passage is asking us to think of that second dispatch, the one correcting the mistake, as the Christ. The Christ, that comforting message from God to His child, does reveal death to be a mistake. It tells us that God's idea, man, really never can come to an end. The Christ reveals that man is forever embraced in God's continuing love and care. The Christ helps us begin awakening to the truth that man always has been, and always is, spiritual and perfect, sustained in God's care.

To the extent we listen to and accept this revealing of truth in consciousness, we take important steps in breaking free of the belief that our true nature is ever encumbered by the limitations called materiality and mortality.

Years ago someone I was very close to passed on. At first I struggled with the question of how it could have happened. One day while agonizing over this point, I heard what seemed to be a voice in the room. The words were simple. "It didn't happen." I reacted negatively, feeling it was all too obvious what had happened. The message seemed too cold and empty.

Days later, again when feeling the weight of the loss, the same message came to me. This time I thought about it for a long time—still not sure of the full meaning of these words. But some time later, while I was wondering about the recent events, the words again surfaced in my thought. "It didn't happen." There's really no way I could explain to others the full significance of what occurred then, but I discerned something of man's deathless and eternal nature and I knew the words were true.

I wasn't naive about the evidence of mortality. But I had seen something of immortality that left me without any doubt that death actually is the mistake, and life is the reality. From that moment I never again agonized over this friend's passing, but felt a deep peace and an assurance that the Christ had revealed the truth to me.

It's understandable that any of us may wonder if we will ever see our friends again. One person who puzzled over that question asked Mrs. Eddy her view. She takes about a page to give a deeply thoughtful answer. In it she insists that man cannot be annihilated and she offers this assurance: "When we shall have passed the ordeal called death, or destroyed this last enemy, and shall have come upon the same plane of conscious existence with those gone before, then we shall be able to communicate with and to recognize them" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 42).

I'm especially intrigued by her phrase "or destroyed this last enemy." Why shouldn't we begin challenging this mistake that man comes to an end? Doesn't it make sense for us to start accepting now more of our friends' true, spiritual nature instead of thinking of them in human terms? After all, Christ Jesus was helping us see that each individual's true nature is spiritual, flawless, the perfect child of God. As we discern this relationship man has with God, we'll feel closer right away with friends, in the truest sense. Didn't Jesus prove in the account of the transfiguration (see Matt., chap. 17) that the world's great friends, Moses and Elias, were still very tangible and expressive of life, even though they had left earth's scene centuries before?

Mrs. Eddy captures a wonderful point when she writes, "Where God is we can meet, and where God is we can never part" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 131). She doesn't say, "Where John or Jane is we can meet ...." She calls on us to relate our lives to God. It's on this basis we can most meaningfully draw close to those we love.

I've known people who lived under the same roof and yet were planets apart. And others who weren't in the same geographical area, yet were very close. So corporeality isn't the only, or even the most significant, way to measure our unity with others. The closer we are to God, divine Love, the closer we are to all those we care for.

How long do we have to wait before growing closer to God? If we will begin that work right now, we'll be following Jesus' example with more integrity, refusing to surrender to the belief that man is mortal. We'll glimpse a deeper view of the Master's promise that life is everlasting. And we'll bring increasing proof into our daily experience that God, Life itself, is the reality.

Listen for that second dispatch.