About the Sacrifice of Jesus

flowersToday is Good Friday, and Sunday is Easter. It’s a time when many are observing the occasion, as they think about the profound sacrifice of Jesus and the impact His sacrifice has made on the world ever since then.

So I offer the following Baha’i quote, in honor of my Christian friends and family. The passage describes the extreme grief when Jesus died. Yet, it also describes the influence of His teachings and His supreme sacrifice. It’s a reminder of God’s power to produce dramatic changes in the world and in those who believe in Him.

Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified.

Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.

(Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, XXXVI)

For those who celebrate, may your Easter Sunday be a beautiful occasion.

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