Responsive Reading: Psalm 16 : 5-11

5.     The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.

6.     The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

7.     I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.

8.     I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9.     Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.

10.     For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

11.     Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

1. Matthew 26 : 1, 2

1     And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples,

2     Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.

2. John 2 : 13-19, 21, 22

13     And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

14     And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:

15     And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;

16     And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.

17     And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

18     Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

19     Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

21     But he spake of the temple of his body.

22     When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

3. Mark 15 : 1

1     And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate.

4. John 19 : 16-18 (to 1st ,)

16     Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.

17     And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:

18     Where they crucified him.

5. John 20 : 1-3, 5 (to ;), 8, 9, 11-14, 16, 19, 21, 22

1     The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

2     Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.

3     Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.

5     And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying;

8     Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.

9     For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

11     But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

12     And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

13     And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

14     And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

16     Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.

19     Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

21     Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

22     And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

6. Acts 1 : 6-9

6     When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

7     And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

8     But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

9     And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

7. II Timothy 1 : 1 (to 2nd ,), 8-10

1     Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,

8     Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

9     Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

10     But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

8. Revelation 1 : 1, 18 (to 2nd ;)

1     The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

18     I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen;

9. John 14 : 19 (because)

19     …because I live, ye shall live also.

1. 410 : 4-13

"This is life eternal," says Jesus, — is, not shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of his Father and of himself, — the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The Scriptures say, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," showing that Truth is the actual life of man; but mankind objects to making this teaching practical.

3. 469 : 4 (Life is divine)-5 (to 2nd .)

Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited. Death and finiteness are unknown to Life.

4. 497 : 20 (We)-23

We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.

5. 426 : 23-28

The relinquishment of all faith in death and also of the fear of its sting would raise the standard of health and morals far beyond its present elevation, and would enable us to hold the banner of Christianity aloft with unflinching faith in God, in Life eternal.

6. 509 : 4-8

Our Master reappeared to his students, — to their apprehension he rose from the grave, — on the third day of his ascending thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of eternal Life.

7. 314 : 10-2

The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed plainly that their material views were the parents of their wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of reproducing his body, — knowing, as he did, that Mind was the builder, — and said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," they thought that he meant their material temple instead of his body. To such materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre, seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of Life and substance.

Because of mortals' material and sinful belief, the spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher his demonstration of divine Science carried the problem of being, and the more distinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle, Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners and to those who, depending on doctrines and material laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submissive to death as being in supposed accord with the inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by his resurrection, and said: "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

8. 315 : 21-24

Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him to demonstrate the facts of being, — to prove irrefutably how spiritual Truth destroys material error, heals sickness, and overcomes death.

9. 46 : 13-17, 20-3

The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit, and after his resurrection he proved to the physical senses that his body was not changed until he himself ascended, — or, in other words, rose even higher in the understanding of Spirit, God.

Jesus' unchanged physical condition after what seemed to be death was followed by his exaltation above all material conditions; and this exaltation explained his ascension, and revealed unmistakably a probationary and progressive state beyond the grave. Jesus was "the way;" that is, he marked the way for all men. In his final demonstration, called the ascension, which closed the earthly record of Jesus, he rose above the physical knowledge of his disciples, and the material senses saw him no more.

His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is meant, that by all they had witnessed and suffered, they were roused to an enlarged understanding of divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation and discernment of Jesus' teachings and demonstrations, which gave them a faint conception of the Life which is God.

10. 34 : 18-28

Through all the disciples experienced, they became more spiritual and understood better what the Master had taught. His resurrection was also their resurrection. It helped them to raise themselves and others from spiritual dulness and blind belief in God into the perception of infinite possibilities. They needed this quickening, for soon their dear Master would rise again in the spiritual realm of reality, and ascend far above their apprehension. As the reward for his faithfulness, he would disappear to material sense in that change which has since been called the ascension.

11. 232 : 16-19, 26-31

In our age Christianity is again demonstrating the power of divine Principle, as it did over nineteen hundred years ago, by healing the sick and triumphing over death.

In the sacred sanctuary of Truth are voices of solemn import, but we heed them not. It is only when the so-called pleasures and pains of sense pass away in our lives, that we find unquestionable signs of the burial of error and the resurrection to spiritual life.

12. 292 : 7-10, 14-16 (to 1st .), 27-2

Truth will be to us "the resurrection and the life" only as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the only immortality of man, can be fettered by the body, and Life be controlled by death.

To mortal mind, matter is substantial, and evil is real.

This carnal material mentality, misnamed mind, is mortal. Therefore man would be annihilated, were it not for the spiritual real man's indissoluble connection with his God, which Jesus brought to light. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality.

13. 289 : 1-2

Truth demonstrated is eternal life.