Jesus Christ is the central figure of Christianity. Jesus was born to Mary and a carpenter named Joseph. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the ancestral hometown of Joseph.
He was regarded widely as a teacher and healer; he was baptised by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect on the charge of sedition against the Roman Empire.
He did not refer to external powers, but spoke with the quiet conviction of his own authority. He often preached through the form of parables – disarmingly simple stories from nature, agriculture and the life of the common people, which nevertheless carried profound and difficult teachings.
It is said that his teachings left people baffled and tongue-tied. He spoke of loving God above all other things, caring about all other people as much as we care about ourselves.
Jesus emphasised humility above all else. Once the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Forgive and forget,” was Jesus’s counsel to all men. We should always be willing to forgive others, even when they don’t ask for forgiveness. Holding a grudge, or seeking revenge should have no place in the lives of those who truly love their neighbours.
Time and again, Jesus refers to God as “the Father” or “our heavenly Father”. “The kingdom of God” that he talks about is not an earthly kingdom, but a spiritual realm. It is the kingdom of people’s hearts and souls. In a beautiful parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus tells us that three things are needed to belong to God’s kingdom: awareness, understanding, devotion to God and commitment to the faith. And this kingdom of God is not far to seek: “It is within you”. Entry to this kingdom is not through one’s right or privilege but through God’s grace and mercy.
(Dada J.P. Vaswani is humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.)
