Responsive Reading: Isaiah 60 : 1-4, 18-20

1.     Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

2.     For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

3.     And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

4.     Lift up thine eyes round about, and see.

18.     Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.

19.     The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

20.     Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

1. Genesis 1 : 1, 26 (to :), 27, 31 (to 1st .)

1     In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

26     And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

27     So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

31     And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

2. Genesis 2 : 6, 7, 21 (to :)

6     But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7     And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

21     And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:

3. Proverbs 6 : 9, 20, 22, 23 (to 1st ;)

9     How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

20     My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

22     When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.

23     For the commandment is a lamp;

4. Isaiah 52 : 1 (to 2nd ,), 2 (to 1st ,), 5, 6

1     Awake, awake; put on thy strength,

2     Shake thyself from the dust; arise,

5     Now therefore, what have I here, saith the Lord, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the Lord; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.

6     Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.

5. John 11 : 1, 4 (to 2nd ,), 11 (Our)-15, 17, 32-34, 38-44

1     Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

4     When Jesus heard that, he said,

11     Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

12     Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.

13     Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.

14     Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

15     And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

17     Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.

32     Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

33     When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

34     And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

38     Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

39     Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

40     Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

41     Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

42     And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

43     And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

44     And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

6. Acts 26 : 8, 16 (rise) (to :), 18 (open) (to 1st ,), 18 (turn) (to 2nd ,), 27 (I)

8     Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

16     …rise, and stand upon thy feet:

18     …open their eyes, …turn them from darkness to light,

27     I know that thou believest.

7. I Corinthians 15 : 22, 33 (to :), 34 (to ;), 45, 47, 49, 51 (We)

22     For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

33     Be not deceived:

34     Awake to righteousness, and sin not;

45     And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

47     The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

49     And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

51     We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

8. Romans 13 : 1, 11, 12

1     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.

11     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.

12     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.

1. 516 : 9 only

God fashions all things, after His own likeness.

2. 249 : 21 (God)-22

God never slumbers, and His likeness never dreams.

3. 556 : 18-24

Sleep is darkness, but God's creative mandate was, "Let there be light." In sleep, cause and effect are mere illusions. They seem to be something, but are not. Oblivion and dreams, not realities, come with sleep. Even so goes on the Adam-belief, of which mortal and material life is the dream.

4. 230 : 4 (awakening)-8

…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.

5. 493 : 24-2

That man is material, and that matter suffers, — these propositions can only seem real and natural in illusion. Any sense of soul in matter is not the reality of being.

If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?

6. 75 : 12-20

Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.

7. 76 : 18-21

Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When divine Science is universally understood, they will have no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by divine authority.

8. 472 : 26-30

Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God.

9. 417 : 20-26

To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to the physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him. To do this, the physician must understand the unreality of disease in Science.

10. 396 : 26-32

Keep distinctly in thought that man is the offspring of God, not of man; that man is spiritual, not material; that Soul is Spirit, outside of matter, never in it, never giving the body life and sensation. It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind.

11. 71 : 10-20

Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a flower, — that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn that the flower is a product of the so-called mind, a formation of thought rather than of matter. Close your eyes again, and you may see landscapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves and which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From dreams also you learn that neither mortal mind nor matter is the image or likeness of God, and that immortal Mind is not in matter.

12. 250 : 14-27 (to 2nd .)

Mortal body and mind are one, and that one is called man; but a mortal is not man, for man is immortal. A mortal may be weary or pained, enjoy or suffer, according to the dream he entertains in sleep. When that dream vanishes, the mortal finds himself experiencing none of these dream-sensations. To the observer, the body lies listless, undisturbed, and sensationless, and the mind seems to be absent.

Now I ask, Is there any more reality in the waking dream of mortal existence than in the sleeping dream? There cannot be, since whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream. Take away the mortal mind, and matter has no more sense as a man than it has as a tree. But the spiritual, real man is immortal.

13. 491 : 21-23, 28-2

Science reveals material man as never the real being. The dream or belief goes on, whether our eyes are closed or open.

When we are awake, we dream of the pains and pleasures of matter. Who will say, even though he does not understand Christian Science, that this dream — rather than the dreamer — may not be mortal man? Who can rationally say otherwise, when the dream leaves mortal man intact in body and thought, although the so-called dreamer is unconscious?

14. 223 : 25-31

Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last trump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth.

15. 347 : 26-27

The dream that matter and error are something must yield to reason and revelation.

16. 529 : 8 (this)-12

…this revelation will destroy the dream of existence, reinstate reality, usher in Science and the glorious fact of creation, that both man and woman proceed from God and are His eternal children, belonging to no lesser parent.

17. 218 : 32-2

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.