Theme: Wake
Hymn 9
Violet Hay
All glory be to God most high,
And on the earth be peace,
The angels sang, in days of yore,
The song that ne'er shall cease,
Till all the world knows peace.
God's angels ever come and go,
All winged with light and love;
They bring us blessings from on high,
They lift our thoughts above,
They whisper God is Love.
O longing hearts that wait on God
Through all the world so wide;
He knows the angels that you need,
And sends them to your side,
To comfort, guard and guide.
O wake and hear the angel‑song
That bids all discord cease,
From pain and sorrow, doubt and fear,
It brings us sweet release;
And so our hearts find peace.
Readings from the Bible.
Psalms 17:15 I will
I will behold thy face in
righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Psalms 57:1‑6 (to 1st .),7‑11
Be merciful unto me, O God,
be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy
wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that
performeth all things for me. He shall
send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me
up. Selah. God shall send forth his
mercy and his truth. My soul is among
lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men,
whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens;
let thy glory be above all the earth.
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have
digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves.
My heart is fixed, O God, my
heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake
early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among
the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and
thy truth unto the clouds. Be thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.
Psalms 108:1‑6
O God, my heart is fixed; I
will sing and give praise, even with my glory.
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people:
and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and
thy truth reacheth unto the clouds. Be
thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth; That
thy beloved may be delivered: save with thy right hand, and answer me.
Psalms 139:1‑18
O Lord, thou hast searched
me, and known me. Thou knowest my
downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down,
and art acquainted with all my ways. For
there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it
altogether. Thou hast beset me behind
and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto
it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell,
behold, thou art there. If I take the
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there
shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;
even the night shall be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day:
the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast
covered me in my mother's womb. I will
praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works;
and that my soul knoweth right well. My
substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book
all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet
there was none of them. How precious
also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in
number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
Isaiah 51:4,5,9 (to .),11
#Hearken unto me, my people;
and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will
make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near; my salvation is
gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me,
and on mine arm shall they trust.
#Awake, awake, put on
strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations
of old.
Therefore the redeemed of the
Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall
be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning
shall flee away.
Romans 13:1,7,8,10‑12
Let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be
are ordained of God.
Render therefore to all their
dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear;
honour to whom honour. Owe no man any
thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the
law.
Love worketh no ill to his
neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is
high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we
believed. The night is far spent, the
day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put
on the armour of light.
Ephesians 5:1,2,6‑14
Be ye therefore followers of
God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath
given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling
savour.
Let no man deceive you with
vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the
children of disobedience. Be not ye
therefore partakers with them. For ye were
sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of
light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and
truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them
in secret. But all things that are
reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is
light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
4:17
Simply asking that we may love God will never
make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily
watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will
mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness. We reach the Science of Christianity through
demonstration of the divine nature; but in this wicked world goodness will
"be evil spoken of," and patience must bring experience.
95:28
Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is
asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of
existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense
into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds
Christendom with chains.
190:21‑15
The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts,
thus swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:
As for man, his days are as grass:
As a flower of the field, so he
flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is
gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no
more.
When hope rose higher in the
human heart, he sang:
As for me, I will behold Thy face in
righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with
Thy likeness. . . .
For with Thee is the fountain of life;
In Thy light shall we see light.
The brain can give no idea of God's man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infinite
Mind.
As mortals give up the delusion that there is
more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God's likeness will appear, and
this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element.
As a material, theoretical life‑basis is
found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle
of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to "where the young child
was," ‑‑even to the birth of a new‑old idea, to the spiritual sense of
being and of what Life includes. Thus
the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing
away the darkness of error.
218:27
The Scriptures say, "They that wait upon
the Lord . . . shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not
faint." The meaning of that passage
is not perverted by applying it literally to moments of fatigue, for the moral
and physical are as one in their results.
When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness,
weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will
forever cease. My method of treating
fatigue applies to all bodily ailments, since Mind should be, and is, supreme,
absolute, and final.
230:1
If sickness is real, it belongs to
immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth.
Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or
condition of Truth? But if sickness and
sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will
bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of
Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the
sick. This is the salvation which comes
through God, the divine Principle, Love, as demonstrated by Jesus.
291:12‑32
Universal salvation rests on progression and
probation, and is unattainable without them.
Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the
manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there
and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of
"the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.
"In the place where the tree falleth,
there it shall be." So we read in
Ecclesiastes. This text has been
transformed into the popular proverb, "As the tree falls, so it must
lie." As man falleth asleep, so
shall he awake. As death findeth mortal
man, so shall he be after death, until probation and growth shall effect the
needed change. Mind never becomes
dust. No resurrection from the grave awaits
Mind or Life, for the grave has no power over either.
No final judgment awaits mortals, for the
judgment‑day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, even the judgment by which
mortal man is divested of all material error.
As for spiritual error there is none.
323:6‑6 np
Through the wholesome chastisements of Love,
we are helped onward in the march towards righteousness, peace, and purity,
which are the landmarks of Science.
Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause,‑‑wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought
walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine
glory.
In order to apprehend more, we must put into
practice what we already know. We must
recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not
understood until demonstrated. If
"faithful over a few things," we shall be made rulers over many; but
the one unused talent decays and is lost.
When the sick or the sinning awake to realize their need of what they
have not, they will be receptive of divine Science, which gravitates towards
Soul and away from material sense, removes thought from the body, and elevates
even mortal mind to the contemplation of something better than disease or sin. The true idea of God gives the true
understanding of Life and Love, robs the grave of victory, takes away all sin
and the delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortality.
The effects of Christian Science are not so
much seen as felt. It is the
"still, small voice" of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this
utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher. Willingness to become as a little child and
to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced
idea. Gladness to leave the false
landmarks and joy to see them disappear,‑‑this disposition helps to precipitate
the ultimate harmony. The purification
of sense and self is a proof of progress.
"Blessed are the pure in heart:
for they shall see God."
327:22
Fear of punishment never made man truly
honest. Moral courage is requisite to
meet the wrong and to proclaim the right.
But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage,
and who has not the true idea of good?
Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in
seeking material means for gaining happiness.
Reason is the most active human faculty.
Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dormant sense of
moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures
of human sense and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences
the material or corporeal. Then he not
only will be saved, but is saved.
342:16‑26
If Christianity is not scientific, and
Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an
accident. Shall it be denied that a
system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?
Christian Science awakens the sinner,
reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless
invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words
of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing.
It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see.
420:28‑32
If it becomes necessary to startle mortal
mind to break its dream of suffering, vehemently tell your patient that he must
awake. Turn his gaze from the false
evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts of Soul and immortal being.
552:32
Naturalists describe the origin of mortal and
material existence in the various forms of embryology, and accompany their
descriptions with important observations, which should awaken thought to a
higher and purer contemplation of man's origin.
This clearer consciousness must precede an understanding of the harmony
of being. Mortal thought must obtain a
better basis, get nearer the truth of being, or health will never be universal,
and harmony will never become the standard of man.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 254
Christ My Refuge – Mary Baker Eddy
O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind
There sweeps a strain,
Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind
The power of pain,
And wake a white‑winged angel throng
Of thoughts, illumed
By faith, and breathed in raptured song,
With love perfumed.
Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show
Life's burdens light.
I kiss the cross, and wake to know
A world more bright.
And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea
I
see Christ walk,
And come to me, and tenderly,
Divinely talk.
Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,
Upon Life's shore,
'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,
Oh, nevermore!
From tired joy and grief afar,
And nearer Thee,‑‑
Father, where Thine own children are,
I love to be.
My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 181
Rosemary B. Hackett
Loving Father, we Thy children
Look to Thee in fear's dark night
While the angels of Thy presence
Guide us upward to the light.
Then we feel the power that lifts us
To Thy holy secret place,
Where our gloom is lost in glory
As we see Thee face to face.
We would learn, O gracious Father,
To reflect Thy healing love.
May we all awake to praise Thee
For Thy good gifts from above.
Make us strong to bear the message
To Thy children far and near:
Fear shall have no more dominion.
God is All, and heaven is here.
