EASTER: Focus on Christ's Rebirth Not His Suffering
Posted by Swami Anand Kul Bhushan Friday, April 06, 2012 at 01:19
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 Easter is the second most important Christian festival after Christmas and is a major holiday in the West that lasts from Good Friday to Easter Monday. Easter is the time for holidays, festivals and for gifting chocolate Easter eggs.
Easter is the story of Jesus last days in Jerusalem before his death. The Easter story includes Thursday, the day of The Last Supper, Good Friday when Jesus was crucified, Easter Day or Easter Sunday which Jesus came back to life and Easter Monday celebrated as a holiday in largely Christian, and especially Roman Catholic countries.
Easter marks the end of Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of the Lent is called the Holy Week containing Good Friday. It is a sad story because Jesus was crucified. His body was taken down from the cross, and buried in a cave. The tomb was guarded and an enormous stone was put over the entrance, so that no-one could steal the body.
 On the following Sunday, some women visited the grave and found that the stone had been moved, and that the tomb was empty. Jesus himself was seen that day, and for days afterwards by many people. His followers realised that God had raised Jesus from the dead. But the story has a very happy ending, because Jesus came back to life and visited his friends and followers once more.
The Christians concentrate on the suffering of Christ on the cross and believe that he died for the sins committed by the people. For Christians, the dawn of Easter Sunday with its message of new life is the high point of the Christian year. But do they give it the highest importance? Almost all images and sculptures of Christ show him in great pain on the cross. The priests say that Christ suffered for our sins. Thus they give us the guilt complex. Osho calls this ‘Crosstianity’. If the Christians focused on his rebirth, this religion would be life positive, maintains Osho.
With a radically different perspective, Osho says...
"Go to a Christian church and you feel as if you have entered a cemetery dead, very serious, corpse-like. You enter a church and you start feeling that you are also becoming serious. The very vibe is not of laughter, no. Christians say Jesus never laughed. I don't believe it I cannot believe it, because I know Jesus better.
"But Christians say Jesus never laughed if I write the gospels, I would write that Jesus laughed his whole life. In fact, when he was crucified he had belly laughter. He laughed tremendously, uproariously because this was just ridiculous. To try to kill that which cannot be killed, to try to kill Jesus the very idea is ridiculous, he must have laughed. I can still hear his laughter.... But Christians have not heard his laughter; they have based their religion more on the cross than on Christ.
"Christianity would have been benefited tremendously if the cross had been forgotten because with the cross, death comes in. I call Christianity ‘crossianity’. It is a religion of death, of the cross - serious, sad. If Christianity had paid more attention to Jesus, then a totally different world view would have arisen. More emphasis should have been given to the resurrected Christ not to the crucified. Then Christianity would have been more life-affirmative, even death could not kill, even the cross could not destroy Jesus is resurrected. Then Christianity could have danced, then there would have been singing and celebration, and churches would have been more human. But that didn't happen; the whole of Christianity became attached too much to the cross."
OSHO
Ch 1., The Divine Melody. |
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| It is a fact that Osho is only such a master who explained the truth inherent in any religious organizations in this world. In fact, He has helped the mankind by revealing the truth behind every religions. Osho is a gift of Existence to whole human life.
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| Comments by 'Bijay Sangroula' from 'Nepal' on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 04:56 |
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