The crucifixion and ascension: sacrifice and enduring life

He Who was Thy Spirit (Jesus), O my God, withdrew all alone in the darkness of the night preceding His last day on earth, and falling on His face to the ground besought Thee saying: "If it be Thy will, O my Lord, my Well-Beloved, let this cup, through Thy grace and bounty, pass from me."

But when Christ appeared, all objected, all denied, and even denounced Him as an infidel, and finally crucified Him.

When they pressed it upon His blessed head and spat in His beautiful face, they laid the foundation of His everlasting Kingdom. He still reigns, while they and their names have become lost and unknown.

Finally matters reached the point where they mounted that Noble One on a donkey, placed a crown of thorns on His head, paraded Him through the streets and bazaars, and finally hung Him on the cross.

Therefore, thou must become the manifestation of divine mercy and the dawning-place of the bounty and grace of the sovereign Unity. When they crucified Christ (may my soul be a sacrifice unto Him), a soldier thrust his spear into His blessed side. That holy Soul immediately offered this prayer: "O Lord! Forgive these souls, for they know not what they do. If they knew, they would not do it. Therefore, grant them Thy forgiveness."

How can we love another whose personality is unpleasant?

See how the enemies of Christ persecuted and crucified Him, yet He loved them all.

The Light of Guidance was shed forth by that radiant Star, and He at length gave His life in sacrifice for humanity.

All through His blessed life He suffered oppression and hardship, and in spite of all this humanity was His enemy!

… Later they realized who He was; that He was the Sacred and Divine Light, and that His words held Eternal Life.

His heart was full of love for all the world, His goodness was destined to reach each one -- and as they began to realize these things, they repented -- but He had been crucified!

When Jesus Christ was on earth He taught for three years and was then crucified. As He hung on the cross, during those dark hours one might imagine that He looked afar through the vista of time and saw the great honors the world would render Him. One might think that He saw the various churches and cathedrals erected in His name. But these were not His thoughts. He was thinking of the disciples,- the little group that had been freed from the toils of the world and belonged to the heavenly kingdom, and His thoughts went out lovingly to them.

"If a king wished to forgive his subjects, would he send his son to be killed by them? Certainly not. If this would be unjust in a king, how much more unjust would it be on the part of God to send His Son to be killed. Christ came of His own will to be a sacrifice that the people might become educated and progress.

This is the meaning of Christ's words that I gave My blood for the life of the world. That is, I chose to bear all these trials, afflictions and calamities, even the most great martyrdom, to attain this ultimate objective and to ensure the remission of sins--that is, the detachment of spirits from the material world and their attraction to the divine realm--that souls may arise who will be the very essence of guidance and the manifestations of the perfections of the Kingdom on high.

Just as the sheep sacrificed its life, likewise this natural state of man, which is the animalistic state, must be sacrificed. How should it be sacrificed? The vices of the animalistic state of man must be entirely annihilated, and he must be characterized with divine virtues. … This was a mystery of that higher sacrifice and when Christ came he said, I will sacrifice myself for the sake of the salvation of all. What did He mean? He meant to change their characters, and in this way make them heavenly, in this way make them God-like, spiritual and divine.

Their speeches in the meeting will be to the effect that Christ sacrificed Himself in order to redeem us from our sins. But they do not understand the inner meaning. After the meeting He spoke extensively on this subject, saying that the redemption of sins depends on our acting upon the admonitions of Christ, and the martyrdom of Christ was to cause us to attain praiseworthy morals and supreme stations.

O Christendom! Did not Christ have to live a pure, perfect earthly life as an eternally shining example to his deluded contemporaries; did not He, the great Master, have to refresh and teach again the Revelation, the guidance of God, and imbue with the laws and ordinances of the All-Highest a generation gone astray, blind and deaf?

… With His life Christ, the Holy One, proved His obedience, in His death he proved His complete sacrifice! Even you, O Baha'i friend, will be able to walk the way to the Kingdom of God only through a life of action in obedience to God's Will and through daily suffering and dying in self-sacrifice. - How much more then the Holy Heralds of God?"

"His Holiness the Christ was fighting even upon the Cross, and His triumphant work continued through ages and cycles."

His holiness Christ after his crucifixion had only eleven disciples. One of his disciples betrayed him, another denied him thrice and the rest deserted him on the crucial night of his life. He was left all alone, friendless and helpless.

In the Gospel record, when Jesus Christ was crucified and ascended, Mary Magdalen and the other disciples had fallen into such a state of excitement and agitation that during three days the Cause of God was annihilated for them.

As can be observed, when Christ departed to the vast world, His banner was raised high and His Cause became glorious.

But at the hour of His crucifixion, He knew He was leaving the mortal for the immortal life; He knew He was leaving the physical to ascend to the spiritual world. When they put on His head the crown of thorns, He thought of the crown of the Kingdom. While He was hanging on the cross He thought of the eternal throne.

When the Lord Christ was crowned with thorns, He knew that all the diadems of the world were at His feet. All earthly crowns, however brilliant, powerful and resplendent, bowed in adoration before the crown of thorns!

Remember Christ, when they placed the crown of thorns on His head. At that very moment, as the thorns wounded His brow, He looked down the vista of the centuries and beheld innumerable kings bowing their jewelled crowns low before that crown of thorns.

Verily the heaven into which the Messiah rose up was not this unending sky, rather was His heaven the Kingdom of His beneficent Lord. Even as He Himself hath said, 'I came down from heaven,' and again, 'The Son of Man is in heaven.' Hence it is clear that His heaven is beyond all directional points; it encircleth all existence, and is raised up for those who worship God.

By heaven is not meant the physical heaven but the spiritual heaven. As He came from heaven, so did He return to heaven; and yet outwardly He had not come from the visible heaven but was born of Mary. But in reality He had come from the spiritual heaven, as He said: "I came from heaven."

And His ascension to heaven, likewise, is spiritual and not material in nature.

Aside from this, it has been established by science that the material heaven is a limitless space, void and empty, wherein countless stars and planets move.

O thou whose breath is fragrant with musk! The interpretation of the dream is this: that certain souls will strive to extinguish the Fire of God that has been kindled, but through their efforts the flame will grow mightier and the penetrating power of the Word of God will increase. It will become clear and evident that Christ remained unharmed, and "they slew him not, neither crucified him, but it appeared so unto them."

Every trouble befell Him; they crowned Him with thorns, and finally killed Him. Imagine how ignorant they were. Some of them shouted out, 'Crucify Him for he is not the true Messiah, whose coming is to be under special conditions, which must take place according to the facts mentioned in the Bible: but this man is from Nazareth, and we know where He lives, how does He claim to have come from Heaven while we know He is the son of Mary...

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But when Jesus came, the oppression and cruelty were so great He was crucified. This Kingdom, wherein even the animals must live in peace, was not fulfilled in the time of Jesus, for even He was crucified.

They thought that after Moses no other Divine Man must appear in the world; that he revealed the law and God's revelation was consummated in him. For this reason the Rabbis and the high-priests gave him the title of Belzebub, thought of him as a pretended upstart and cried out: 'Crucify him! Crucify him.'

The people of Moses consider themselves first in obedience to Moses and practitioners of all commandments, yet they crucified the Spirit (Christ).

As you have observed, after His ascension the greatness and glory of Christ was established both in the realm of the hearts and across the reaches of the earth, even unto the very dust itself. So long as He dwelt in the corporeal world He was despised and reviled by the weakest nation on the earth, the Jews, who saw it fit that a crown of thorns be placed upon His blessed brow. But after His ascension the gem-studded crowns of all the kings became humble and submissive before that crown of thorns.

I said to the interpreter - "In the days of Christ the Jews denied Him, and jeered at Him and at last crucified Him, but He said nothing, and if in these days they do the same to me, I shall say nothing."

After the martyrdom of Christ, among her [Mary Magdalen's] services was that she met with the Roman Emperor, and that meeting took place at a time when Pilate and Herod had realized that the Jews had falsely instigated Christ's execution and that Jesus was innocent, and therefore they were setting upon the Jews.

So Christ never suffered upon the cross. From the time the crucifixion began His soul was in Heaven and He felt nothing but the Divine Presence. He did not say, speaking in Aramaic: 'O God! O God! why hast Thou forsaken me?', But this word Sabacthani is similar in sound to another which means glorify, and He actually murmured, 'O God! O God! How thou dost glorify me!

When I was in America a number of Christians came to me and asked a most subtle and difficult question. It was this: 'While the apostles longed with perfect resignation and radiant acquiescence for the station of martyrdom and many of them and thousands of later converts sacrificed their lives with joy and happiness, how is it that his holiness Jesus the Christ, just before his crucifixion prayed to His Father to take away this cup from him, saying: 'The spirit is truly ready, but the flesh is weak?'

… I said: The answer to your question is very simple and given in a few words: The body or the flesh was 'sorrowful and very heavy' (Math chap 26th v. 37) because it loathed to be separated from the companionship of such a divine, celestial Spirit and be returned to clay and dust. This was the secret of its weakness, sorrow and heaviness.

Then We sent forth the Spirit and dispatched Him with a spirit from Our presence and a mercy from Our side, and He called the people unto this Great Name. He said: "Verily He shall come with the truth and shall fulfill for you what ye possess." Thus was the matter decreed from the presence of One knowing, informed. He would hasten through the field of praise and remembrance, and proclaim the mystery of this Secret that hath appeared with the ornament of God, the Powerful, the Supreme, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

Hence what injustice and inadvertence it was for those who believed in Moses as a prophet of God to apply the opprobrious term Beelzebub to His Holiness Christ.

… Inadvertence so blinded the people to the light of Christ that they crucified that glorious personage who had been the cause of life to man.

It was an excellent display, for it was exactly the same one that Christ held. Christ held a religious display in a bygone age, and now this cardinal has held another display. Both were religious displays, but there is a 'minor' difference between them, which is that one of these displays was held at a church with consummate majesty and grandeur, whereas the display of Christ was held on the cross in the utmost humiliation, torment, and cruelty. In one of these displays, the cardinal had a jewel-studded crown on his head, while in the other display, Christ wore a crown of thorns. One of these displays was held with the greatest festivity and magnificence, the other with abject oppression. In one of these displays, fifteen thousand people fell prostrate on the ground; in the other, the Apostles were subjected to taunting, cursing, and reviling. In one display, the 'honorable' cardinal was dressed in silken clothing, while in the other, Christ was naked on the gallows. In one of these displays, the cardinal had a scepter of gold in his hand; in the other display, Christ did not have so much as a plank of wood.

"If His Holiness Christ had not been martyred, His Cause would not have become so famous. When they placed the crown of thorns on the head of Christ, and carried Him around the streets, His Holiness Christ used to sec that all the sovereigns of the world were bowing before Him. All the crowns bowed before his crown of thorns.

The tourists who come to visit the sacred spots, are not real pilgrims, for while they are visiting the tombs they are not thinking of Christ: their thoughts are distracted; they are not mindful of the place they are visiting. You will be real pilgrims. You will be conscious of how Christ suffered, how much he endured, and how they denied Him; how He was falsely accused until at last they crucified Him. You must think of His Holiness Christ so that you may be real pilgrims.