The master key / Christian Science Sentinel (2024)

It can feel imprisoning or frustrating if we’re shut in or out of a place. When I inadvertently locked my office door from the inside before leaving and shutting the door, and then needed to get some papers to perform an urgent task, the realization that someone had the master key that could open the door was a tremendous relief.

It can sometimes seem that many doors in life are shut to us—maybe when we’re looking for a job, seeking admission to a school, finding a home, trying to escape poverty, or exploring different treatments for a troubling diagnosis. How reassuring it is to know there’s a master key that can open any door and lead to the resolution of every human problem. This master key is Christ.

What is Christ? The Bible provides an insight given by Jesus. He said that the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, who lived centuries before him, “rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it,” adding, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:56, 58). This reveals a fundamental fact: Christ, Truth, so fully expressed in the life of Jesus, is timeless and incorporeal. Christ isn’t limited to a particular person, time, or locationbut is the unchanging divine influence of God’s all-encompassing power, which, though divine, is applicable to every human need.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, writes of the practical evidence Christ affords, “It was the living, palpitating presence of Christ, Truth, which healed the sick” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 351). So, how can we experience the ever-available healing activity of the incorporeal Christ? How can we see its beneficial effect and universal applicability in our experience today, similar to that shown in the analogy of the master key?

First, by accepting that Christ, Truth, is not out of reach. The Bible account of the woman who was hemorrhaging and whom many physicians had failed to heal illustrates this. The woman, seeking healing, reached out and touched Jesus’ garment and was healed instantly. Jesus then informed her that it was her faith, rather than a physical reaching out and touching, that had brought healing. Our faith enables us to experience the healing activity of Christ as “a divine influence ever present in human consciousness” (Science and Health, p. xi). Faith in God is a crucial first step.

How reassuring it is to know there’s a master key that can open any door and lead to the resolution of every human problem. This master key is Christ.

Faith becomes spiritual understanding through consecrated study of God’s Word, trustingly turning with our whole heart to God in prayer and practicing what we are learning. Christian Science teaches the metaphysical, Christianly scientific foundation of Jesus’ ministry, which anyone can learn. Its rules are stated in Science and Health. It opens the door to freedom, right opportunities, and permanent healing. Understanding these rules to some degree, and adhering to them, enables anyone to access this master key that unlocks the metaphysical process that transforms character and heals disease. It also resolves myriad knotty issues, as a recent experience proved.

My husband faced what seemed to be an insurmountable roadblock during the processing of his international travel documentation. There was no obvious way to move things forward, let alone expedite the process. So, I turned to God, the unfailing divine Spirit that governs not only individuals but governments. Reaching out to God in prayer, I was reassured by this verse from Revelation: “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (3:8). Within a few days, doors that had for weeks seemed inexorably shut opened effortlessly.

Anyone can learn, through the understanding gained from studying and practicing Christian Science, that God’s unfailing goodness, power, and love are proved through the activity of the universal, timeless, freeing Christ, Truth. This is why Truth meets every need and is applicable to any human situation. The divine authority that made Jesus’ teachings practical is Christ. It’s our authority, too. As we better understand the import of Jesus’ example and strive to follow, as closely as we can, the way of salvation he mapped out for mankind, we shall find, step by step, that Christ, the true idea of God, is able to resolve every adverse situation. Christ reveals our true nature to be spiritual right now.

This divine master key effortlessly opens all locked doors. Science and Health states: “Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the human understanding. None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door” (p. 99). This kingdom—the reign of harmony—is within us all. Christian Science demonstrates that we all have full and free access to the master key that “openeth, and no man shutteth” (Revelation 3:7).

Through faith, study, spiritual understanding, prayer, and trust in God, we employ this key. Christ not only opens doors that before seemed shut but, more importantly, opens our eyes to see that there really are no closed or locked doors. We can begin to prove our freedom today.

Moji George,Associate Editor