The Incorruptible Body

Chapter 19 – 10. The Incorruptible Body

From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in opposition to life and
innocence, and to the Will of God himself. Where can such opposition lie
but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the
peace of Heaven? One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor
death, wills not that you be bound by them. he knows of neither sin nor its
results. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor
of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. They are not following his will;
they are opposing it.
 
And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body which they
dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin
to feed upon and keep itself alive; a thing condemned, damned by its maker
and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself. You who
believe you have condemned the Son of God to this are arrogant. But you
who would release him are but honoring the Will of his Creator. The
arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part
of your unrecognized dedication to death. The glitter of guilt you laid upon
the body would kill it. For what the ego loves, it kills for its obedience. But
what obeys it not, it cannot kill.
 
You have another dedication that would keep the body incorruptible and
perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose. The body no more dies
than it can feel. It does nothing. Of itself it is neither corruptible nor
incorruptible. It is nothing. It is the result of a tiny, mad idea of corruption
that can be corrected. For God has answered this insane idea with his own;
an Answer which left him not, and therefore brings the Creator to the
awareness of every mind which heard his Answer and accepted It.
 
You who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through your
acceptance, the power to release from corruption. What better way to teach
the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing
you the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first? The
body can but serve your purpose. As you look on it, so will it seem to be.
 
Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of
communication, which is the ego’s goal.
 
Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they call to it, and
bid it come to save them from communication. For death is seen as safety,
the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer, the
silencer of the Voice that speaks for God. Yet the retreat to death is not the
end of conflict. Only God’s Answer is its end. The obstacle of your seeming
love for death that peace must flow across seems to be very great. For in it
lie hidden all the ego’s secrets, all its strange devices for deception, all its
sick ideas and weird imaginings. Here is the final end of union, the triumph
of the ego’s making over creation, the victory of lifelessness on Life Itself.
 
Under the dusty edge of its distorted world the ego would lay the Son of
God, slain by its orders, proof in his decay that God himself is powerless
before the ego’s might, unable to protect the life that he created against the
ego’s savage wish to kill. My brother, child of our Father, this is a dream of
death. There is no funeral, no dark altars, no grim commandments nor
twisted rituals of condemnation to which the body leads you. Ask not
release of it. But free it from the merciless and unrelenting orders you laid
upon it, and forgive it what you ordered it to do. In its exaltation you
commanded it to die, for only death could conquer life. And what but
insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and think it real?
 
The fear of death will go as its appeal is yielded to love’s real attraction. The
end of sin, which nestles quietly in the safety of your relationship, protected
by your union with your brother, and ready to grow into a mighty force for
God is very near. The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love,
preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready
to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given you. Your newborn purpose
is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God
himself. It needs not your protection; it is yours. For it is deathless, and
within it lies the end of death.
 
What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless?
 
What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? What has been
given you, even in its infancy, is in full communication with God and you.
In its tiny hands it holds, in perfect safety, every miracle you will perform,
held out to you. The miracle of life is ageless, born in time but nourished in
eternity. Behold this infant, to whom you gave a resting place by your
forgiveness of your brother, and see in it the Will of God. Here is the babe
of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him,
not to the cross, but to the resurrection and the life.
 
When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation
strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of
fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has
perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember, then,
that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must
stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie in
them, but must be sought in what they represent. And they may thus mean
everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which
they reflect. Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it
not. Remember the holy Presence of the One given to you to be the Source
of judgment. Give it to him to judge for you, and say:
 
Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.
 
Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for
destruction.
 
Teach me how not to make of it an obstacle to peace,
but let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming.