What, then, are we to make of the RESURRECTION that we celebrate on this Easter Sunday? It is usually presented as such a dramatic and unique intervention of God into the affairs of man that it will never be duplicated – certainly not in each and every one of us.

But to believe this would violate everything Jesus taught and lived. There are no exceptions to divine law – although there are certainly higher levels of understanding and expressing that law. But to stand in awe before the resurrection is to totally miss the point. Jesus was not uniquely saved from the ravages of death because of his unique relationship with God. He was simply and eloquently demonstrating to us that we are all exempt from death, because as eternal spiritual beings, death has no reality for us at all. Jesus did not rise from the dead! He experienced death as the shadow it is, a doorway of transformation into another form of expression. And he calls us to the same realization.

We have all experienced resurrection moments, transition points after which our lives were forever altered because our consciousness, our awareness of life and love expressing, had permanently shifted. This Easter, then, let us allow the Resurrection of Jesus to remind us of our own resurrection experiences, and let us appreciate the spiritual awareness we have come to, the crucifixions through which we have released old patterns of thinking and expressing, and the wonderful new possibilities that lie before us.

With Charles Fillmore in KEEP A TRUE LENT, the book that has served as our guide through the Lenten process, we affirm today: I AM resurrected into a new dimension of the Life, Light and Power of God. Thank You God!

This Saturday between the crucifixion and resurrection is similarly a time of release and trust – a time of stillness in the rich and fertile silence of the tomb. A human life that began in a borrowed manger ends in a borrowed crypt, and both locations serve the same purpose. They are gateways through which Jesus Christ passes as he takes up and then puts down a human form. The silence is a silence of all possibility. “We are resting in God,” Charles Fillmore says, “and at the same time gathering strength for the power of greater demonstrations to follow.”

Mr. Fillmore could be speaking of Jesus Christ in the tomb, or of us today, at the end of our Lenten journey, when he writes these words: “A degree of cleansing, a wiping out of sense consciousness has been accomplished. By mentally reviewing our experiences, we recognize that nothing is really destroyed, but rather transmuted. Through faith we take stock of the progress we have made and find that we are getting a consciousness of radiant substance and of a higher life. Nothing is lost. When sense consciousness is raised to a higher plane, all that belongs to it is saved with it.”

Today I rest in the consciousness of completing my Lenten process. I may not yet see the changed manifestation that must result in my life from the releasing in consciousness that I have done since Ash Wednesday, but I know and give thanks that its expression is assured. I AM open to my resurrection. I accept my good. I leave the final step to God. I AM at peace. Thank You, God.

Jesus was always the Christ in potential, just as we are. And his realization of the Christ, his ability to express it, to be it, grew through his interactions with his followers – yes, and with his enemies. Contrary to some of the non-scriptural folk tales about a magical childhood, Jesus did not arrive in that life experience as a full-blown expression of the Christ. I believe he had achieved that level of spiritual awareness through previous life experiences, but he was willing to return to square one in order to show us our own indwelling possibility. His remembering of the Christ potential was quicker than ours, his progress in returning to that level of consciousness was relatively smooth. But he trod the same spiritual path that we do, simply to show us that it could be done.

And so, as Charles Fillmore writes in his Good Friday Lenten lesson, “Jesus’ crucifixion on Calvary was a final step in a work that had been going on in Him for thirty-three years.” Fillmore also explains that crucifixion is “a mental process with a physical effect,” which helps us to more clearly see the crucifixion experiences that we have been called to move through ourselves. When we ‘cross out’ in consciousness patterns of error thought that have become deeply ingrained as fixed states of mind, we are experiencing crucifixion. It is a process of releasing the mortal to reach the immortal within us, dissolving the limits of the physical realm to more fully express our spiritual nature. And it is an unfailing characteristic of crucifixion that moving through it is much, much less painful than thinking about it in advance. That’s why Jesus” most difficult moments were in the Garden of Gethsemane, before the drama began to unfold. Once it did, he moved gracefully through it, certain of the Resurrection that was to come.

We can be equally certain that our Resurrection is guaranteed, so long as we neither run from the cross nor cling to it. Crucifixion is not the high point of anyone’s life. It is simply a necessary step to the spiritual glories that lie beyond. Thank You, God.

As he sits alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ has decided to set aside once and for all time every appearance of limitation, to stand forth in his true spiritual identity as a shining example for all of humanity of the God Presence eager to express through each of us. What is often referred to as his agony is, I think, simply a regretful realization that nothing will ever again be the same. He has richly enjoyed his human experiences as Jesus, he would gladly continue it longer if that were possible, but he accedes to the Will of God, the spiritual energy that moves him forward.

We can easily identify with that bittersweet awareness that change is inevitable, that our comfortable and secure existence is about to take a turn into the unknown. We may know, as Jesus surely knew, that only greater and greater Good awaits. But we also know that every step into a new spiritual dimension seems at first to produce confusion and disruption. Emily Cady, in her classic book Lessons in Truth, called this process “chemicalization.” It is brief, but it can be intense. “There are always deeply rooted error thoughts stored away in the subconscious,” Charles Fillmore writes, “and on their own account they come forward to crucify the new unknown power, the indwelling Christ,” just as soldiers and accusers come for Jesus in the Garden. Fillmore continues that “this breaking up and passing away of old error states of mind and making ready for the new is a process in soul evolution of all those who are faithfully following Jesus” in his full expression of the Christ.

As we agree today to surrender those error thought that do not conform to our new spiritual awareness, we give thanks that they have now passed away. Affirm: I am a new spiritual being, centered in and expressive of the Christ Presence within me. Thank You, God.

The details and importance of the Seder, the Passover meal, has changed very little for Jews in the 2,000 years between Jesus’ time and now. From its ritual questions and answers to its traditional food and drink, it carefully focuses on the central event in Jewish history, the deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt through God’s active intervention on their behalf.

Wine and unleavened bread are both important elements of the Seder meal, and had been for hundreds of years before the time of Jesus. As he promised in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did not repudiate Jewish Law, including the Seder traditions. He carefully honored them during the final Passover celebration of his life. But he added to them a different dimension. He moved the emphasis from group obedience to individual responsibility. He used the pure power of his unconditional love to demonstrate a new level of spiritual awareness within every person.

Thus the Seder meal took on a new dimension of communion. “Take and eat,” Jesus said of the bread, “for this is my body.” “Drink,” he said of the wine, “for this is my blood.” Charles Fillmore explains that the bread symbolizes substance, a body of spiritual ideas. The wine is life, the circulation of divine ideas that will purify our mind and heart and renew our strength. “Through the appropriation and assimilation of the substance and life in our own consciousness,” Fillmore writes, “we blend our minds with God Mind, and there is a harmonizing of every fiber of our body with the Christ body, which is life and light.”

Today we affirm: The pure life and substance of God are constantly renewing and rebuilding my body, which is God’s holy temple, and regenerating my mind, which is God’s creative channel. Thank You, God.

What is the nature of the Spirit of God that must pour out upon all flesh? Clearly it is the spirit of FORGIVENESS, for it is the purpose and effect of forgiveness to dissolve every appearance of separation among ourselves and, especially, between us and God. It is not an easy energy to work with. It is drastic and difficult, because it is absolute: it is a spiritual fire that purifies us of the dross of judgment and error thought.

To receive the power of forgiveness is to agree to see everything from the perspective of God – to share the compassionate understanding, the unconditional love with which God embraces all human frailty. But the promise is surely worth the effort: To prophesy, to see visions, to dream dreams – and to find the creative energy of God within ourselves that will make those visions and dreams the reality of our lives.

Today let us affirm together that we allow the purifying flames of divine forgiveness to radiate from our hearts to every cell of our bodies, every thought in our minds. We are whole and perfect, one with all of life, and one with God. Thank You, God.

“The double action of the soul,” she writes, “standing away from the Perfect in contemplation and seeking union with it in love, and this double consciousness of the Holy as both our Home and our Father, are the characters of a fully developed spirituality.”

Jesus demonstrated this ‘double action of the soul’ throughout his entire ministry, embracing the rich experiences of his human existence without ever losing sight of his true identity as Spirit. He calls us to do the same: “You must be in the world but not of it.”

The Book of Revelation expresses this new possibility as the coming of “a new heaven and a new earth. ...Behold, the dwelling of God is with men (Rev. 21: 1,3).”

Today let us affirm without hesitation that the dwelling of God is with us. It is within us. And we are open and receptive to all of the transformations that will express in and through us as we surrender to our newly realized spiritual energy. Thank You, God.

We have based this review of spiritual process on the Christian concept of Lent, which reaches its point of highest drama in the final days preceding the great spiritual breakthrough that Easter represents. This is a spiritually powerful time, but it is also a time of great temptation. We can easily become so caught up in the pain and pathos of the drama that we lose sight of its great message and spiritual significance.

We experience this same danger in our own lives, as well. The closer we get to a new level of surrender, a deeper acceptance of our spiritual role and power, the more resistance we may encounter in the material world. If we get caught up in the drama of resistance and resisting the resistance, we risk losing sight of the simple, clear and unconditional spiritual truth that has brought us this far.

Jesus Christ carefully placed the elements of Palm Sunday to guide us into a full appreciation of the energies at work in and around us as we stand on the threshold of a new spiritual awareness. For example, he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, knowing that Jerusalem is the political center of the energy of fear that seeks to overpower and destroy him.

But Jerusalem is also the heart of the world in which he lives, and it is from the heart that his new spiritual message must radiate. It is equally true for each of us as well: to be centered in the heart is to be in creative control of all aspects of our lives. We have been trying to solve all problems and understand all possibilities from a head perspective, and that has served us well for a time. But only when we are centered in the heart, allowing the spiritual energy of God to radiate to every cell, every thought and every challenge in the world around us, can we fully claim our co-creative power and transform our life experience.

Our invitation, then, is to set aside mental doubts and fears, and allow an indwelling sense of peace to carry us to the spiritual power of Jerusalem in our hearts. As we move through fear and resistance, we are greeted with loud hosannas, as our every cell and every thought begin to vibrate with new possibilities, to respond to a new energy of peace and compassion.

Today let us enter Jerusalem, choosing to experience our lives from the Power of God radiating from the center of our hearts. All fear and resistance is gently dissolved as we affirm that the love and strength of Jesus Christ dwell in us, and we joyfully allow the kingdom of heaven to express from the divine power of our hearts. Thank You, God.

What Jesus taught and demonstrated, however, was something quite different. Our spiritual work will give us dominion over our material existence, in the same way that Adam is given dominion over the earth in early Genesis – not controlling it as lord and master, exploiting it to our own selfish needs, but rather responsible for the proper harmony of the whole.

When we are fully expressing the Christ Presence within us, then the smallest expression of substance will feed 5,000 people, as it did in the great demonstration of Jesus Christ. The substance of God that expresses as water is the same substance of God that expresses as wine When we truly understand that, creating water from wine or wine from water will be as simple as it was for Jesus at the wedding feast in Cana.

Nothing that we love and cherish about our human experience will be denied us in our new spiritual awareness, but everything will be transformed. Indeed, this process has begun already; it is expressing daily in our newer, more energized lives.

Let us affirm today that The Christ Presence of God in us is transmuting our bodies and our lives into perfect expressions of Spirit. Thank you, God.

We have talked often in this 46-day appreciation of our spiritual process about the importance of becoming a clear channel so that the Power of God can flow into our consciousness. When we allow this to happen, we find even our deepest fears being replaced with a sense of love, peace, joy and power.

In this reading from Chapter 17 of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus shows us clearly that this realization in consciousness is only the beginning of our spiritual possibilities. Our consciousness forms our material world. When we connect more fully through prayer with the Presence and Power of God, that new energy of love will express through every cell in our bodies. We will be transfigured – we will glow with a new inner light, as Moses did after he had intimately communed with God – as described in the Book of Exodus – and as Jesus clearly does in this incident.

Taking Peter, John and James – who metaphysically represent his spiritual faculties of faith, love and discernment – Jesus ascends a mountain, rising to a higher realm of consciousness, the realm of prayer. And his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. Charles Fillmore writes that “when the mind is exalted in prayer the rapid radiation of mental energy causes a dazzling light radiation from all parts of the body, and especially the head.”

We are often tempted to think of our bodies as excess baggage, destined to be left behind when we move into the kingdom of heaven. That may well be so, but it doesn’t have to be. Nothing in the material plane – nothing! – is so dense that it cannot be penetrated and transfigured by the prayer-focused power of God. Our cells and organs are never an impediment to God’s love, and as we continue our spiritual growth they will become an expression of that love, shining with an eternal light.

Let us use Charles Fillmore’s great affirmation many times today: My mind and body are radiant with the light of Spirit, and I am triumphant, glorious, splendid. Thank You, God.