The Sorrow of Jesus Remains on this Earth

Leviticus 23

39 Remember to begin the Festival of Shelters on the fifteenth day of the seventh month after you have harvested your crops. Celebrate this festival for seven days in honor of me and don’t do any work on the first day or on the day following the festival. 40 Pick the best fruit from your trees[n] and cut leafy branches to use during the time of this joyous celebration in my honor. 41 I command you and all of your descendants to celebrate this festival during the seventh month of each year. 42 For seven days every Israelite must live in a shelter, 43 so future generations will know that I made their ancestors live in shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Lamentations 2

Those who pass by
shake their heads and sneer
    as they make fun and shout,
“What a lovely city you were,
the happiest on earth,
    but look at you now!”

Heaven’s Sorrowful Heart

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
January 3, 1959

Matthew 1:18-2:12

Father, please extend Your hands of blessing over the whole of humankind in this hour. Please extend Your hands of blessing over the thirty million Korean people. Over the numerous children who remember Your name, please grant Your grace of love. Moreover, Father, please lift Your hands of love in blessing over the heads of the children, who are prostrated to pray from the depths of their heart in a lonely place in this hour. I pray from the bottom of my heart that You remember the members who are concerned for You in this hour, wanting to comfort You in the space of a generation for the sorrow You left behind on this earth where sin and evil dwell. Please bless them in this hour.

People on the earth do not know about this day nor do they know about Heaven’s festering sorrow. They know even less about Your infinitely sorrowful heart. Father, we cannot help being grateful for the glorious grace with which You granted this day to us, we who were unaware of the lamentable fact of this day. Now we may celebrate this day, which none of humankind recognizes as Christ’s birthday. Please remember Your sons and daughters gathered here.

Please allow our celebration this day to be the start for us to be able to console the heart of Jesus, who has grieved for 2,000 years. Please allow this to be the hour when, looking back on Christ, we can inherit his old battlefield as an unfinished work. He cared nothing about the path of Golgotha, giving his life after having been born in a sorrowful position. We realize that this must be the hour when we have to inherit the great achievement he left in his lifetime as our mission. Continue reading “The Sorrow of Jesus Remains on this Earth”

The Sorrowful Situation of Jesus’ Birth

Cheon Seong Gyeong 241

This True Family was found as a
result of experiencing the deepest sor-
row of all sorrows, enduring the great-
est hardship among all hardships, and
paying the highest price in blood of all
such payments throughout the course
of history. To resolve historical sorrow,
such miserable indemnity conditions
had to be made in history. The price
paid through people’s deaths through-
out the course of history is redeemed
when the True Family is found. Accord-
ingly, the True Family’s appearance on
earth is a cause for unparalleled joy and
value. For such a true family to come
about, there have to be True Parents. At
the same time as True Parents, a true
husband and wife must emerge. Becom-
ing a true couple, they must give birth
to true children. These True Parents
should have no condition permitting
Satan to accuse.

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1699

When seeking the fundamentals of
the universe, we arrive at the concept
of subject and object. Even the smallest
woman sitting here has power within
her, does she not? Would the power in
this small woman desire to be the weak
power of a small man, or the strong
power of a big man? This is the case for
the man too; if he were a small man,
he would yearn for the power of a big
woman. Why is this so? It is to attain a
balance. Balance is the issue; you need
to be perfectly perpendicular on a hori-
zontal base. That is why the term ideal
of reciprocity arises; it is from there that
the ideal of reciprocity is derived. (216-9,
1991.3.3)

Heaven’s Sorrowful Heart

Rev. Sun Myung Moon
January 3, 1959

Matthew 1:18-2:12

18 This is how Jesus Christ was born. A young woman named Mary was engaged to Joseph from King David’s family. But before they were married, she learned that she was going to have a baby by God’s Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph was a good man[a] and did not want to embarrass Mary in front of everyone. So he decided to quietly call off the wedding.

20 While Joseph was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord came to him in a dream. The angel said, “Joseph, the baby that Mary will have is from the Holy Spirit. Go ahead and marry her. 21 Then after her baby is born, name him Jesus,[b] because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, 23 “A virgin will have a baby boy, and he will be called Immanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

24 After Joseph woke up, he and Mary were soon married, just as the Lord’s angel had told him to do. 25 But they did not sleep together before her baby was born. Then Joseph named him Jesus.

When Jesus was born in the village of Bethlehem in Judea, Herod was king. During this time some wise men[c] from the east came to Jerusalem and said, “Where is the child born to be king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east[d] and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard about this, he was worried, and so was everyone else in Jerusalem. Herod brought together the chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses and asked them, “Where will the Messiah be born?”

They told him, “He will be born in Bethlehem, just as the prophet wrote,

’Bethlehem in the land
    of Judea,
you are very important
    among the towns of Judea.
From your town
    will come a leader,
who will be like a shepherd
    for my people Israel.’”

Herod secretly called in the wise men and asked them when they had first seen the star. He told them, “Go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, let me know. I want to go and worship him too.”

The wise men listened to what the king said and then left. And the star they had seen in the east went on ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 They were thrilled and excited to see the star.

11 When the men went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they knelt down and worshiped him. They took out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh[e] and gave them to him. 12 Later they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and they went back home by another road.

Prayer

We are aware of the facts of history, tragedies and grief no words can express. We are also aware that, because of the fall of Adam and Eve, the heart of the Father, who took pleasure in looking at the Garden of Eden, was transformed into a heart of sorrow. That became the historical sorrow throughout the long 6,000 years. In addition, we are also aware of being entrusted with the historical mission to restore the lost Garden of Eden, clinging to the Father’s worried heart, exerting ourselves both mentally and physically.

Father, we now know that after toiling 4,000 years to regain the lost Adam and Eve, You sent Jesus to this earth equipped with the image of Adam. The greater the Father’s toil before the time of Jesus’ birth, the greater the pride of Heaven in Jesus being born as a result of that toil. Jesus should have been the pride of all created things and of all humanity. While Heaven welcomed Jesus to this earth, in its ignorance, humanity could not give him a favorable reception. Today, we cannot help feeling ashamed about this.

As we look back upon the pitiable fact that the toiling Father’s hopeful glance had to linger on the pitiful appearance of Jesus lying in a manger, we feel keenly that our ancestors were unbelieving and inadequate. Once more, human beings revealed the fault of the fall of Adam and Eve. Because we are aware of this, we are deeply saddened today when we are mindful of this sorrowful fact. I sincerely wish and desire that You allow us to be able to console You in Your sorrow in place of the chosen people, the Israelites, who could not comfort the Father in ancient times. Continue reading “The Sorrowful Situation of Jesus’ Birth”