Daily Lessons Received at ‘Akká, January 1908/Sacrifice
SACRIFICE
[edit]‘Abdu’l-Bahá began by saying that He endured all the pain and hardship of this prison life for the sake of the people, that if it were not for the people He would not stay in a prison. He said, “You should thank God that you are visiting Me in this prison instead of a palace. Most people would like to visit in a beautiful palace, but it is not often that people can visit in a prison.” We told Him we knew of many who would love to visit Him in that prison, and that we understood that His was the Great Sacrifice.
He said, “The great Sacrifice is to forget one’s self entirely—to sacrifice everything, as did Christ. People might say, ‘Why should not God forgive the people without sacrificing His Son?’
“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.
“How was He to accomplish this? Must He not give them good counsel; must He not establish new laws and give them new teachings? And if He did all these things, did He not know that the people would rise against Him, give Him great pain and trouble, and finally kill Him? But knowing all this, He was willing to be a sacrifice for the sake of the world, and through
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this voluntary act He saved all those who believed in Him.
“Christ became a sacrifice that His qualities might appear in the people.
“If God forgave sins without the sacrifice, there would still be only the human qualities in the people. The divine qualities would not appear.
“Christ said to His disciples, ‘I am in you, the Father is in Me and I am in you,’ meaning that the qualities of the Father were in Him and His qualities were in them.
“There are many explanations of sacrifice. A seed in the ground sacrifices itself—that is, it becomes nothing that the beautiful plant may appear (the qualities of the plant are latent in the seed). The tree and its beautiful branches, leaves, and fruit are manifestations of the perfection of the seed.
“Christ sacrificed Himself, as the seed, becoming as nothing. He produced millions of beautiful trees with their leaves, blossoms, and fruit. The leaves, blossoms, and fruit are manifestations of the perfections that were in the seed, so the disciples became the manifestations of the perfections that were in Christ.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá turned to us and said, “As the perfections of Christ appeared in His disciples, I hope, through the Sacrifice of Bahá’u’lláh, His perfections may appear in you.” We replied that it would require much of God’s mercy to make that possible. He answered, “If you follow His instructions, it is certain to be accomplished.”
We told Him what Mr. Chase had said, that while he was at ‘Akká he felt that the outside world was the
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real prison, while ‘Akká was the place of freedom.5 He smiled and said that it was the freedom of the world outside that caused Him to be in prison. He said, “This prison is free because of the presence of the Spirit.”