To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple, we recommend that
you read the corresponding chapter and section in the Text of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Read ACIM Chapter 15, Section XI (pages 327-329)
In this section Jesus describes Christmas as the time of awakening to the Christ in our mind. He tells us, “The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See [the light] not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.” (2:1-2) The time of accepting Christ within brings with it the end of belief in deprivation, the end of of our belief in separation from Perfect Love, which is all inclusive and everywhere.
The time of accepting Christ is the same as accepting the holy instant, which is the time of the Great Awakening to the truth that we are still one in the Mind of God. We are still one, as God created us. And because we are one, this includes everyone we see in our dream.
Jesus tells us, “Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever want to have.” (9:4-5) This means that accepting the reality of the Christ in everyone is accepting the only relationship that is real. And this relationship has nothing to do with bodies or individual personalities. But it has everything to do with joining with the oneness of our Father in the one Mind of Love. Jesus tells us, “In the holy instant the condition of Love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference, and where there is communication there is peace.” (7:1)
The opposite of accepting the truth of the one Christ Mind is belief in being separate from Love’s oneness. It is belief in separate bodies. It is the belief in loss, deprivation and death. Jesus says, “As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside without a sense of sacrifice and loss?” (5:1-3)
In the previous section Jesus showed us how, when we think we would be losing something if we let go of our belief in a world of separation, we think that joining with Love’s oneness would be a sacrifice of something that we still want. In this section he elaborates on this. “You who believe that sacrifice is love must learn that sacrifice is separation from Love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as Love brings peace. Guilt is the condition of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself.” (4:1-4)
As we learn to accept peace instead of the conflict that comes with believing in separate bodies, we will remember our relationship with the truth about every brother. We will remember our relationship with God. We will find true communication. With belief in the reality of separate bodies and a whole world where everything is separate and distinct comes interference to true communication. Accepting true communication reestablishes that minds are joined and could never be separate.
“The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of Love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice nothing, and communication, which must be of the mind, cannot be sacrificed.” (7:2-3)
Here Jesus gives us a different way of looking at the idea of communication. In this world of separation, communication seems to be able to occur only between what separate bodies say to each other. It seems that we need the body’s senses in order to communicate. Jesus tells us,” The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and Love is everywhere. For communication embraces everything, and in the peace it reestablishes, Love comes of Itself.” (7:5-6) As we learn to accept the oneness and inclusiveness of true communication, we will never experience loss or deprivation. We would laugh at such a silly idea.
It is uplifting to approach Christmas in the way Jesus talks about in this section. Instead of using the holiday as a reason to focus on the things of the outer world, it can now be used as a reminder to “accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.” Christ is within everyone’s mind and the time is now to become aware of what has always been there. We do this with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says, “This Christmas give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you. Let yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us.” (3:1-2) We release everyone by not believing in separation and seeing them as they really are now… in the Mind of God. In this way we are reminded that we are shining in the Heaven within, with them. That is how we can use Christmas as the end of sacrifice.
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