by Alan S. Cajes
I
used to think that human beings perform an act to promote their own
vested interest. They love, and they are loved in return or simply find
fulfillment in loving; take good care of other people to enjoy freedom
with responsibility; cheat, material
gain; steal, financial security; lie, freedom with no responsibility,
and so on.
This Good Friday, as we join the Christian community in
remembering the passion and death of Christ, I could not help but
question my own assumption. Did Christ die to fulfill the prophecy? Did
he go through the process of betrayal to experience what it is to be
human? Or did he just do it to please the Father? He said so himself:
"Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”
In the Garden of
Gethsemane, however, we learned that he somehow had second thoughts
about his mission and that he was terribly afraid. He first prayed: “My
Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will,
but as You will.” Deeply troubled and aggrieved as he was, Christ
eventually chose to accept his fate saying, “My Father, if this cannot
pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”
Thus, there is a higher
form of vested interest -- giving it up. As we transcend the logic and
music of our right and left brains, we plug ourselves into a higher form
of consciousness, that of the Divine, where there is no more vested
interest, but only a higher level of selflessness.
A blessed Good Friday
to all.
