REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON
SPEAKS ON
Let Us Understand the Heart
of the Resurrected Jesus
Former Church Headquarters
Seoul, Korea
April 17, 1958
Mark 16:1-20
Today is the day of resurrection, the day when Jesus resurrected 2,000
years ago. Although there have been many Christians in this world,
they have not understood this day. When you consider this, you begin
to fathom how pained and sorrowful the heart of Heaven is as it looks
down upon people who are ignorant even about this day of resurrection.
The Heart of Jesus Toward Heaven
and His Desire Toward Humankind
At least you who are here should celebrate this day no one understands
on behalf of Heaven and all people. You should become the internal and
external friends of Jesus Christ, the ones who feel his heart in this
hour. You should sense that the place that you are sitting is a
precious place where the attention of Heaven, earth and all things is
focused. Thirteen years ago on this day, I remember when Jesus
appeared before me and revealed to me that this was the day of his
resurrection.
What kind of person did Jesus want to be? What kind of person did
Heaven want him to be? Although Jesus came to the earth as the
bridegroom, people on the earth did not receive him from the position
of brides. Therefore, the bridegroom and the bride had to be
separated. If you understand this reality, you will then also realize
that Heaven wants you to become the bride who can feel the
inexpressible heart of Jesus for the sake of all people.
Jesus knew he had the responsibility to fulfill the purpose of the
4,000-year providence of God, and the enormous mission to pour out all
of his heart and strength to pay indemnity for the sins of humanity,
which had piled up for 4,000 years. Therefore, he led a life of
internal and external ordeals and sorrows, surpassing anyone in
history.
Jesus wanted the restoration of the world of creation. The objects of
his words were the people of the earth with whom he was to accomplish
the task. This is why Jesus unveiled the urgent heart of God to people
and appealed to them to fulfill that will. Yet the people of that time
neither received nor understood him. As a result, those who received
the words of Jesus were limited to certain spheres. He could not speak
freely, even within those limited spheres. We must be able to console
and mourn over the heart of Jesus, who was trying his utmost in such
troublesome circumstances.
The time came when, after persevering through these hardships for
three years, he should have been welcomed by all people. Yet not even
one person received him as the son of God who represented God's will.
Not even the family of Joseph and his relatives recognized him,
although they certainly should have. The Jewish faith and the
Israelites who should have recognized him did not. The world not only
did not recognize him, it opposed him.
Even as he received opposition from all fronts, Jesus looked upon the
unfaithful land and comforted the deep sorrow of Heaven. He still had
to be concerned about the earth. Even the moment he died on the cross,
facing the faithless people, Jesus had to bless them. You have to
understand the heart of Jesus.
If you sincerely want to become the bride of Jesus, you must
understand the heart of Jesus, who came and died in this manner. You
must single-handedly pay indemnity for the sins of all your ancestors
and become someone who can cherish the heart of the Lord in your heart
and live it in your daily life.
If there is no one in this land who understands the sorrow of God and
Jesus and possesses this mind-set and heart, then you who are here
must try your best to do so. If there is someone today who possesses
the heart Jesus exhibited on the earth, that person will be
overwhelmed by deep grief and will not know how to face Heaven.
Although there might be a 2,000-year gap of time between Jesus and
that person, such a person can still become the bride who can comfort
the heart of Jesus
If you understand this situation, then you must compare your life with
that of Jesus. If your life and the life of Jesus differ too much, you
cannot become a friend or bride of Christ.
The Disciples Should Have Inherited the Will of Jesus
What then must you do? You must at least possess the apologetic and
awe-stricken heart of Peter after the resurrection of Jesus. You must
try to take after the heart of Mary Magdalene, who was groping and
struggling to find him. However, until the moment Jesus shouldered the
cross, he did not have even one such friend or comrade.
What was Jesus' heart like right after his resurrection? His heart
after the resurrection was sorrowful, and he felt compelled to offer a
prayer of disgrace before Heaven. When he was facing the Father and
the countless prophets and patriots who had been toiling for 4,000
years, he felt both gladness and endless sorrow. He shed disheartened
tears. You have to fathom this heart of Jesus.
Although the people of faith in Heaven were joyful, Jesus was sad.
Even God felt both joy and sorrow. Among the people who are living on
the earth today, there is no one who understands this heart of Jesus.
However, having learned this, you must make a new determination in
your hearts.
What kind of determination are you going to make? The cause and the
original reason that Jesus met such a fate was not because of the
people or because of Heaven. It was because of Satan. Jesus emerged to
seek the apostles who had been lost and trampled upon by Satan. When
we consider how the apostles, who had once pledged their lives, let
evil people guard the corpse and tomb of Jesus, we can see that if
Jesus had been an ordinary person, he would not have come back looking
for them.
However, because Jesus only felt burning indignation toward the enemy
Satan and had unwavering determination to find the disciples, and the
people who were suffering inside Satan's bosom, he came looking for
them. Moreover, when he beheld the Father, who had repeatedly
persevered through the burning anger He felt toward traitorous human
beings for 4,000 years, Jesus renewed his heroic resolution to win
back the pitiful people and went in search of them. You have to
possess this heroic determination today.
After Jesus secured the determination in the remaining apostles to
again fight against Satan, he could stay with them no longer. As Jesus
watched over the disciples who had to inherit the will and scale the
long course of history, who had to walk a bloody course and go over
the pass of the crucifixion, Jesus felt sorrow and pain in his heart
comparable to what he felt when he was dying on the cross. Moreover,
when the forty days were over and he had to leave his beloved
disciples among enemies, he felt deep agony.
What kind of mind-set did the apostles have? After Jesus left, they
should have understood his sorrow in coming and going, but they only
mourned over the fact that their beloved teacher had to part with
them. When Jesus observed this, he felt a piercing agony in his heart
which cannot be described in words.
When we consider the question of what kind of heart you must possess,
you must inherit the tasks which remain after the departure of Jesus
and come to possess an unchanging heart of steel, of rock, which will
never yield an inch, even in a life and death battle. By doing so, you
must directly experience and allay the heart of concern Jesus felt,
even as he passed away.
If the apostles at that time had been united in heart and determined
to be hung on the cross together with Jesus, God would have not
resurrected just one person. If that had taken place, all the apostles
would have been resurrected, and Christianity would not be in the
state it is today.
You must inherit the mission these apostles left behind. You must feel
the indignant heart of Jesus toward Satan as if it were your own. You
must consider the determination of Jesus, who overcame the
crucifixion, as your own. By doing so, you must become the second
apostles who do not die on the cross but who survive it and emerge
resurrected. On that foundation, you must become the apostles who can
vanquish Satan in one day, the one who has been afflicting God for
6,000 years. With heroic determination, you must win in the fight
against Satan and leave traces of the victory, even if you must walk
the path of death.
The Great Mission of the People of Faith in the Last Days
You who have gathered here! Have you become such that your every cell
can reach harmony with God? Only when your mind and your very cells
can become one with God will God come seeking you, as Jesus searched
for the apostles after the resurrection. These apostles must gather to
search for the humanity of the world. Up to now, apostles have made
heroic determinations based on the conviction that Jesus came to die.
Therefore, you who understand that Jesus did not come to die must make
an even more heroic determination.
In the past, Peter could not keep his pledge to follow Jesus even at
the cost of his life. He paid indemnity for it later by making a
second pledge after Jesus' resurrection. It can be said that Heaven
has been working through the providence until today using this as the
condition. Therefore, you are not to make a pledge before Jesus now
and you are not to make a pledge to Jesus after his death as Peter
did. Further, you must make the pledge to Heaven, earth and the Lord.
In this way, you must fulfill the pledge that Peter could not fulfill
before his death. When this is done, it stands as the condition to
alleviate the bitter grief of the cosmos.
You must fulfill the children's position before God and the position
of younger brothers and sisters before Jesus. The apostles of the past
had a teacher-student relationship with Jesus, but today you have a
brotherly relationship with Jesus. Thus, you must behold God and Jesus
from the position of brothers and feel a sense of responsibility to
pay indemnity for their distress. You have to understand that, in the
same way Jesus persevered through agony in his course, you have the
great mission to battle against hardship. Therefore, you must always
pay attention to the voices you hear in the last days. Fathoming the
wishes of Heaven and earth, you must realize those wishes. When you
can do that, you can stand firm as the sons and daughters of God.
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