1 Kings 8
1-42 Foreigners will hear about you and your mighty power, and some of them will come to live among your people Israel. If any of them pray toward this temple, 43 listen from your home in heaven and answer their prayers. Then everyone on earth will worship you, just like your people Israel, and they will know that I have built this temple to honor you.
John 20
17 Jesus told her, “Don’t hold on to me! I have not yet gone to the Father. But tell my disciples that I am going to the one who is my Father and my God, as well as your Father and your God.” 18 Mary Magdalene then went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord. She also told them what he had said to her.
Richard: Jesus could not allow Mary Magdalene to embrace him, as he did not have the foundation on earth to be able to receive his bride.
The Incarnation of Jesus, A Pioneer
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
February 1, 1959
No matter how much the external circumstances changed, the heart of Jesus and the path he walked could not change. This path is the one that fallen humanity must inevitably walk. However, the Israelites, who should have followed Jesus, betrayed him. The crowd that had followed him betrayed him and the disciples, who should have believed in and attended him without any doubt, cherished different hopes and had different attitudes. You have to understand that Jesus looked at them with a gaze full of sorrow and grief.
Jesus knew that he had to be persecuted on the individual level, the family level, the church level, on the level of a people and on the national level. He also knew that he had to be persecuted on the level of the Roman Empire, which represented the world at that time. Knowing this, he silently walked his course. When he climbed over the Mount of Transfiguration and then headed toward the hill of Calgary, he made the determination: “Let any persecution and ordeal come to me. I will overcome all that I must in my time.” If he did not overcome them, all the preparations would have been more cause for grief, so he made his way toward the pass of death. To put this Will into practice, he made the determination that, as a sacrifice of death, he would share his flesh and blood with humanity before he left. Jesus was overwhelmed by the heart of Heaven on behalf of humanity and made a firm determination with every footstep he took. However, no one knew that he was taking those footsteps to carry out the determination that he had made during his preparation period. You have to understand this.
Jesus could not hold any grudges against the many people who ostracized him. He was more sensitive than anyone, and his indignation surpassed that of anyone else. Moreover, Jesus felt that he had the mission to pioneer the path of God’s Will centered on the Israelites. Jesus understood that because the heart of God had been bound up with them through the relationships of the 4,000 years, he could not abandon them. Thus, even when they turned their backs on him, he appealed to Heaven, “Please save them through me. Please save these people through me, even though they are persecuting me. Please.” Later, when his disciples also betrayed him, he prayed, “Please accomplish Your Will of salvation through me.” This is the course Jesus walked.
The twelve disciples said, “Lord! We will go wherever you go,” with the determination to share a common destiny with him, be it death or life. This was when Jesus appeared with the Gospels. You have to understand that the determination the disciples made: “We will follow you wherever you go,” reminds one of the heart of Jesus at the outset of his ministry and when he was heading toward the garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, birds in the air have their nests, yet the son of man does not have a place to rest his head,” and added, “I entrust my head, heart and body to the Father’s bosom.” This prayer was his final desperate prayer at the garden of Gethsemane, in which he clung to God, who had overcome all sorrows and ordeals of humanity and who had toiled, and entrusted his agonized heart to Him. Jesus made the determination that in place of God’s 4,000 years of suffering, he would offer himself as the sacrifice. This is the determination Jesus made in front of the fallen people who opposed him, not knowing the heart of God. We must never forget that Jesus was determined to offer himself as the sacrifice of death. In this way, the life course of Jesus came to end on a tragic note.
In other words, Jesus’ life came to an end without even one true friend by his side. This was how things were for Jesus. For this reason, Jesus gave his flesh and blood as the sacrifice of history and took determined steps that defied the fear of death for the sake of presenting this new course of life to humanity. This was the life of Jesus.