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Hi and good evening
I hope you are all well and fresh.
In my last "chapter" I spoke of sacrifice, joyous sacrifice.
The full story of how Jesus felt when He was to die on the cross we do not know. Some, very little I think, has been told, mostly it was about the agony He felt. However, He said, in the midst of His agony: "Thy will be done" and so He died volontarily. I get so moved when I am now writing these lines and all over my body I feel gooseskin. Therefore I will write about Christ and...
Therefore I wish to tell you what Bahaullah has said praising Him: (Even if I may have quoted this before)
"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 splendour of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprocy 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....He it is who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him."
This is not all that Bahaullah has uttered in praise of Jesus and His works and His sacrifice. He has repeatedly referred to Jesus and His Holy ministry. When I find more texts about this enlightening theme I will show you promptly.
Now I'll return to the picture or similie of the Messengers as Holy Mirrors of the Sun of truth.
Michael Sours: Gods Mirror, like Jesus Christ, is always stainless and perfect, but the intensity of the sun's reflection appears to vary according to the hour of the day and time of year. We can say that each mirror is essentially the same, each perfect, none greater than the other, but the light, its intensity, may appear to us to be greater at one time than at a previous time. In this way the Messengers are all equal, yet they differ. Hence the writer of the Hebrews exalts Jesus above Moses (Heb.3:3), a point which is also made in the QOURAN (2:253)!!!!!., and elaborated on by Bahaullah (in His Book of Certitude 176-9).
Abdu'l-Baha states:
"If in the day of Jesus Christ the Jews had forsaken imitation and investigated reality, they would assuredly have believed in and accepted Him, for the Messianic effulgence was far greater than the Mosaic. The Sun of Reality, when it appeared from the dawning point of Christ, was as the midsummer sun in brilliancy and beauty." (Promulgation of Universal Peace 274)
And
"Likewise, must we set aside prejudice in considering other divine Educators by investigating reality. For instance, let us take Christ, He achieved results greater than Moses. (Promulgation...345)
Michael Sours continues:
With regard to His influence, as Abdu'l-Baha indicates, Jesus is greater than Moses. Yet from a Bahai point of view, They are also essentially equal: both perfect, both Messengers of God. Even in their teachings, where some types of distinctions can be made, They are still essentially equal, in that They both speak the Word of God.
The Ten Commandments was taken from the Mosaic dispensation and spread all around the world by the Christians!. This is the greatest proof of the deep unity of the Law of Moses and the Teachings of Christ. The Christians were the ones who understood the duty to go on missioning even the commandments of a former religious dispensation as well as preach the Glad Tidings of Divine Love to their neighbour..
Returning to the twofold station of the Messengers I'l let Michael Sours say:
"The twofold station of the Manifestations can be seen in the prophetic unfolding of God's plan as outlined in the Bible-.According to the Bible, Jesus Christ will return. The second appearance of Jesus will be different from the first. It signals the beginning of a long awaited peace, the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth, when "all nations" flow unto"the mountain of the LORD'S house" (Isaiah 2:2). In this respect, Christ's second appearance is a new and greater outpouring of God's Revelation on earth than the first. Yet Christ Himself is still the "same yesterday, today and forever" (Heb.13:8)
The second appearance of Christ succeeds the first, yet does not demote Christ because no separation can be made between what is essentially the same Spirit of God. The Bab illustrates this truth by using the sun as a metaphor for the Manifestations:
"And know thou that He indeed resembleth the sun. Were the risings of the sun to continue till the end that hath no end, yet there hath not been nor ever will be more than one sun." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab)
I will come back to the Bab separately in another article
Bye for now
Kind regards from
Laila
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