1 Corinthians 16
13 Keep alert. Be firm in your faith. Stay brave and strong. 14 Show love in everything you do.
Isaiah 48
Your nation would be blessed
with more people
than there are grains of sand
along the seashore.
And I would never have let
your country be destroyed.
20 Now leave Babylon!
Celebrate as you go.
Be happy and shout
for everyone to hear,
“The Lord has rescued
his servant Israel!
21 He led us through the desert
and made water flow from a rock
to satisfy our thirst.
22 But the Lord has promised
that none who are evil
will live in peace.”
Members Who Will Live In God’s Family
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
September 27, 1959
Where and how does a meeting take place? It does not take place due to sweet words or good deeds alone. It comes about when there is an intense longing. How will the Lord look? What will his hands, eyes and nose be like? In the end what will determine whether or not you can meet him is the desire you have to touch and see him. This has nothing to do with the Jesus who spoke the words. It has nothing to do with God. When you meet, salvation is not attained by calling out the words of Jesus. You have to long for the substantial Jesus.
We cannot see Jesus no matter how intensely we desire to. Why doesn’t the Jesus who promised to come again come? Jesus told his disciples that he would come back soon. Why doesn’t he come? Why is this so? What is the reason that he cannot come when so many disciples and followers desperately want to see him and meet him? When there is someone who longs for him so badly that he is oblivious to the passage of time, he will certainly be able to meet him. There is a way this will happen.
We are orphans. God sees us as orphans. No matter how great the external family environment may be for someone on earth, in God’s eyes, he is still only an orphan. We have lost our true parents, our true brothers and sisters, our true spouses, and our true children. We are like orphans. Since this is how we are, how can we be at peace? Our hearts are pushing us. What are they pushing us to do? They are asking us to look for our original parents, brothers and sisters, brides and children. However, no matter how many times we circle around the earth in search of them we may not find them. Since we cannot find these even among the words of truth, where can we find them?
The beginning point of resolution is to put oil on our foreheads, enter the secret chamber and be overwhelmed with the desire to see the Father. If there is a way for the Father and the Lord to seek us, you should be ready to brave any path of death or any difficult mountain path, determined to move forward. Jesus went the path of Gethsemane and Golgotha while looking for such sons and daughters. Since he was not successful in his search, he went the path of death. We who long for the one day when we can meet our original parents, long for the day when we can cling to him and call him Father and Lord, how many hours have we shed tears?
Now the time has come when Christians all over the world must solve this problem. We have to yearn to see him more intensely than we yearn to see our own sons and daughters or anything else in the world. We must want to touch his clothes and hands, since he is our Father. We should be able to give all of our minds and bodies upon meeting him and share everything of our past upon entering his bosom, and receive consolation for all our difficulties and labors. We must understand that this is our highest hope.
We should long for the person more than we long for the words or his deeds. After we long for the person, we should long for his mind.
In the past some Jews were able to cling to Jesus. However, has there been even one person who related to him as if Jesus were his own parent whom he longed for, as if Jesus was the parent that he had lost and had been yearning to meet again? When God sent his only son to the earth as the Father of all people and the King of Kings, would He have sent him to be mistreated? God wanted people to honor him as the central person of history, the father of all people, someone everyone longed for and wanted to meet many times over. However, no one of his time treated him like that. This was the sorrow of Heaven and made Heaven most indignant. Although he came to give his blood and flesh for his children, his children pointed knives and weapons at him. How could it be a happy memory for Heaven? If Heaven ever had a cause for deep sorrow, there was nothing more sorrowful than the death of Jesus.