April 10,2020-

“God works in mysterious ways.”  “Nothing happens until something moves”.  “_____________died for your sins.”

Today is Good Friday, the “good” part was explained to me, when I was a child, as being due to the sacrifice made by Jesus the Christ on that day; a sacrifice that showed God’s love for mankind and gave the human race another lease on the life of the spirit.  There is a great case to be made for the poswer of atonement.  For Christians, and all those who came after them-Muslims, Sikhs and Baha’is, that atonement includes recognizing the Divine Nature of Jesus.

I will not go into theology any further, here.  The most meaningful aspect of Good Friday, for me as a Baha’i, is that it serves as an ever present example, and presently the most universally well-known example, of God showing each of us how to face a situation of supreme, and supremely unjust, deprivation and suffering, and then turn it around to shower love upon all-even those who perpetrated the injustice.  It is God telling all men-“Even when you hurt Me, My love for you is undiminished.”

The life stories of all Messengers of God contain persistent and often misunderstood, elements of intense personal suffering.  The Passion of the Christ is the best known of these, and it’s well that His Crucifixion and Death serve to remind us of the supremacy of  the Creator’s eternal Love.  That Love would be further demonstrated,  three days later.