Easter ~ Manifestations of God

It was Easter and my 5-year-old goes to preschool at a Catholic Church, so I knew they had been talking about that.

We worked on the Remover of Difficulties Prayer. Then we talked about Jesus and the Resurrection. I did kind of gloss over the crucifixion with the words "He died."

"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." ~ Baha'u'llah

And from 'Abdu'l-Baha's Some Answered Questions:

"Therefore, we say that the meaning of Christ's resurrection is as follows: the disciples were troubled and agitated after the martyrdom of Christ. The Reality of Christ, which signifies His teachings, His bounties, His perfections and His spiritual power, was hidden and concealed for two or three days after His martyrdom, and was not resplendent and manifest. No, rather is was lost, for the believers were few in number and were troubled and agitiated. The Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body; and when after three days the disciples became assured and steadfast, and began to serve the Cause of Christ, and resolved to spread the divine teachings, putting His counsels into practice, and arising to serve Him, the Reality of Christ became resplendent and His bounty appeared; His religion found life; His teachings and His admonitions became evident and visible. In other words, the Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body until the life and the bounty of the Holy Spirit surrounded it.

Such is the meaning of the resurection of Christ, and this was a true resurrection."

Then I talked to them a little bit about how Jesus was a Manifestation of God and that God has sent other Manifestations too. I even tried to sing the "Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Bab, Baha'u'llah - the Spirit's the same" song for them. (It'd help if I had a firmer grasp on the melody!)

Then they made a cut-and-paste timeline of the Manifestations project. (They love the cut-and-paste!) I found the symbols on the internet.

We showed the project to the grown-ups and my friend Beth said it reminded her of the book The Light of a Good Character, which is published by the Baha'i Publishing Trust in New Delhi, India. She pulled it off the shelf and gave it to me for next week.