To Rudolf Steiner the Mystery of Golgotha was far more than the central
event of the Christian religion. It was the pivotal event of the whole
divine process of creation, of the whole process of human evolution
from its beginnings in the womb of the Spirit to its final far-distant
consummation in man's attainment of his divine nature. Its significance,
he held, must be looked for in all human history, in all the arts, in
human thinking, in all social relationships, and, if men could but see
it, even in the materialistic triumphs of science.
So too the Christian Festivals were
never for him merely the commemoration of the great historical events
or truths of the Christian revelation. They are in themselves, each
year, spiritual events, carrying a significance that grows and deepens
with the developing phases of human evolution. Especially is this true
of the Easter Festival, with its answer
to man's deepest needs, its quickening of his highest hopes; with its
message of the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of
life over death. Again and again, from
all points of view, Rudolf Steiner lectured upon the deep meaning of
the Easter Festival in the eternal working of the divine worlds upon
mankind, in the prefiguring myths and
symbols of the ancient Mystery religions, in its relation to the world
of nature and the cosmic universe, in which the date of its keeping
contains unique, but almost forgotten,
significance. But, above all, he speaks of it as the Festival of man's
spiritual future, the Festival of Hope and also the Festival of
Warning.
This book contains a selection from
many lectures. They were given originally to those who were familiar
with Steiner's anthroposophical teaching, and to those they will
be a mine of meditative reading. To the ordinary reader, much in them
will perforce be strange, at times startling and even provoking. But
we live, not by what we already think
we know, but by what we can receive in revelation. Those who read
these lectures in that spirit will find in them illumination and
inspiration, the opening of new doors, and
the unexpected lighting of dark places by the freshly-revealed
significance of familiar Easter truths.
|