Sunday, 22 December 1912
Blomfield Residence, 97 Cadogan Gardens London, England
[The following transcript was originally recorded, in Persian, in Khiṭábát-i- Haḍrat-i-‘Abdu’l-Bahá, vol. 3, pp. 74–75. It has been rendered into English provisionally and annotated by the present compiler. This rendering has not yet been reviewed or approved by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice.]
He is God
Last night, there was a theatrical performance about the birth of Jesus Christ. [1] It was truly skillful to the utmost. It was, however, surprising that all those involved in this event acted as if they were awaiting the Messiah and that they recognized Him. Yet when Christ appeared, He remained a stranger, single and alone; the Messiah came and no one realized it. And so it was that the people went on searching for the Messiah in anticipation of His advent. Christ had come, but the Jewish leaders continued to await the Messiah’s appearance—a desire they cherished. But when He came, they were deprived [of Him]; indeed, they rejected Him, saying, “This is not the true Messiah!” Rather, they made allegations that I am ashamed to recount. You all have surely read the Gospel and seen that title which they gave Christ.
To put it briefly, they dubbed Him “Beelzebub,” meaning
“Satan.” [2] It is with this title that they made Christ notorious. A hundred
thousand times alas, a hundred thousand times indeed, that they called that
celestial Beauty “Beelzebub”! A hundred thousand times alas, a hundred thousand
times indeed, that they failed to recognize Him! A hundred thousand times alas,
a hundred thousand times indeed, that that Sun of Truth remained concealed by
the clouds of vain imaginings!
And to this very day, the Jews still await the advent of the
Messiah. It has been two thousand years since the Messiah appeared, and yet the
Jews continue to wait. Observe what unawareness does! They set their
expectations on the text of Isaiah—that the Messiah would come from the skies,
an unknown place, [3]
and that, when He came, He would break the mountains apart and cause a mighty earthquake. [4] In fact, these things did happen, but they did not understand the symbolism thereof. They failed to apprehend this allegory: that by “mountains” was not meant mountains of stone, but rather people who resembled mountains and were scattered apart, and that the intended meaning of “earthquake” pertained to the realm of human thoughts, not this world of dust.
