As recently as five years ago, scientists thought nothing could live in glaciers in the Antarctic. But now a group of researchers has carefully thawed out microorganisms that had been locked in Antarctic glacier ice for 100,000 years. When heat and nutrients were supplied, the microorganisms came to life and resumed growing, doubling in a week.

It was quite the surprise to many, although perhaps it shouldn't have been. As one microbiologist not involved in the study said, "It stands to reason. In the lab, if we want to preserve a sample, we stick it in the freezer."

All this hints at a potent spiritual fact that has nothing to do with microorganisms: good can always be restored and cultivated, even when it seems totally absent. All we have to do is provide the right conditions.

Christ Jesus was the Master at providing the right conditions. He restored sick bodies to health and dead bodies to life. He also led people to give up bad behavior and do good instead.

What were the right conditions that produced good where there didn't seem to be any? Jesus explained them several ways. For instance, at the start of his healing career he said "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 4:17). The word translated repent means to rethink or think again. So Jesus was saying we need to think about things differently—from a spiritual perspective that recognizes that the kingdom of heaven and all its goodness are at hand right now. This puts us in a position to experience this goodness in humanly tangible ways.

Jesus said much the same thing when he raised Lazarus from the dead. The people, including Lazarus's sisters, were sure he was dead and that nothing could be done about it. But Jesus saw things differently. He said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 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" (John 11:41, 42). He knew that God and His goodness were with him, and this was proved when Lazarus walked out of his tomb alive. Jesus said, "Loose him, and let him go" (John 11:44). While this referred to getting Lazarus out of his graveclothes, it also can be seen as a command to set Lazarus free from the popular thought processes declaring he had to be dead. Jesus rethought things from the perspective of God and His goodness being readily available, always present, and this restored Lazarus to life. Now other people could more easily think along these lines too.

And then there's the account of Jesus transforming the behavior of Zacchaeus, a dishonest tax collector. Apparently everyone else saw Zacchaeus as a creep, but Jesus said "This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham" (Luke 19:9). This line of thought, recognizing Zacchaeus not as a sinning mortal but as the child of God who must express God and His goodness, transformed Zacchaeus, who promised to give half his goods to the poor and to restore fourfold any amounts he had improperly taken.

So the conditions that restore life are ones that acknowledge that God and His goodness are always at hand to be experienced and that all of us are part of that goodness. Bringing this spiritual understanding to any human situation, we're in a position to bring that goodness to light.

This is the spiritual understanding that the Christ and Christian Science bring to us, and it has the same results now that it did centuries ago: it restores good in all sorts of circumstances, including those where it seemed totally absent. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 342),

Christian Science awakens the sinner, reclaims the infidel, and raises from the couch of pain the helpless invalid. It speaks to the dumb the words of Truth, and they answer with rejoicing. It causes the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the blind to see.