Hyung Jin Moon
July 18, 2009
Headquarters Church, Seoul Korea
Transcriber: Diane Chaillie / Misael Sagala
Proofreader/Polish: Karen Katayama / Bruno Klotz
Kyle Toffey's Prayer:
Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother,
How thrilled we are to be here today, in this warm and cozy sanctuary, where we can meet with You, and tell you we're brothers and sisters! Outside there may be a monsoon, blowing rain, getting us wet, trying to depress us, trying to keep us from coming here today. But Heavenly Father, we're so happy to be here. We're so excited to hear what is it that You want to tell us today. How thankful we are, that out of this dark world of misery and suffering You have not only given us great truth, You have not only given us great hope, You have given us True Love. That example of True Love reigns in our heart. Heavenly Father, we want to be inspired, we want to inspire You by truly becoming true sons and daughters in whom You can dwell, whom You can trust, in whom You can find joy. Heavenly Father, come and be with us on this great and special day. Thank You so much for this opportunity to be here again. We pray that we can have open minds, open hearts, to feel You not only with our mind, but to feel You within our hearts, and within our heart of hearts. Thank You so much, we pray these things together with our brothers and sisters around the world. Aju!
Yeon Ah Nim's Welcoming Remarks:
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters, welcome to the headquarters of the Unification Church. As you know, it's already the first anniversary of True Parents' helicopter crash and substantial resurrection. Today we're really grateful to Heavenly Father that He allows True Parents to be here on earth. We're truly praying for our True Parents' health and their continuous good God's work. We're really welcoming you again to this sanctuary. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters.
Hyung Jin Nim's Welcoming Remarks:
Welcome brothers and sisters! Let's start by manifesting the principle, let's do it together. Are you ready? Give and receive action, four position foundation, coming together, may I inherit the True Love of God! Thank you! Aju!
Let's read from Cheon Seong Gyeong today, Cheon Seong Gyeong 1638:
"What would be the center of love? It must be God. He's the unique, eternal and unchanging being who existed before the foundations of the universe. Love is the flow of the heart, it is the manifestation of the internal heart flowing substantially. Hence God's essence is this heart of love."
I love that today; if it made you feel something today, let's give it a big round of applause! Brothers and sisters, when we look at the purpose of the creation, we see that God wanted to allow His incredible parental heart to be passed down into His children. He wanted to manifest what we do when we manifest the Principle, give and receive action, four position foundation, centered on the True Love of God. That love is something profound; it's something that we're going into today.
Brothers and sisters, on this day, the day of the incredible and substantial resurrection of True Parents, let us hold that in our hearts when we are offering praise this day. And let's remember, don't be an observer or a spectator. Be a participator. Participate in the singing, participate in the prayers, in the clearing of your mind. Prepare that mind for victory and next week, get ready for something incredible to happen, get ready for God to make a miracle in your life! If you believe in this, let's give it up for God! We have to be expecting things, brothers and sisters. We don't want to sit passively. We want to be on the offensive, we're going to be expecting the greatness of God. Brothers and sisters, once again welcome! Let's all rise. We're going to read the family pledge together.
Family Pledge # 3
Hyung Jin Nim:
God and True Parents have blessed us with the blessed life, to inherit the True Love of God, and to become a greater blessings in our relationship with our spouse, our family, community, nation, world, cosmos, and a greater Blessing to God almighty. Let's gather our hearts, let's manifest the principle and gather our hands in give and receive action, four position foundation, lift it up, coming together, may I inherit the True Love of God! Aju!
Brothers and sisters, listen to the sound of the songs, to the words. We take this time to pray for those who have passed on before us.
Let us remind them that we still love them. In unison prayer let us pray together.
Unison prayer
Hyung Jin Nim's conclusion of the unison prayer:
Father, thank You so much, and we pray that You may continue to bless those Abel good spirits and give them strength, and we pray that all the good Abel spirits come into our heart today. Our ancestors are here with us. Father, we open our hearts to You today so that You can come down and awaken us. Father, allow us to feel Your true love with our emotions, our heart, our spirit. Father, be with us in this place. We offer all the glory to You. In our own names as blessed central families we pray. Aju!
Interesting Story:
Brothers and sisters, we always have something a little interesting before we start. You know, I heard a little story about a situation where there was a temple, a Jewish temple, a church and a Catholic church right on the same block. The priest and the rabbi and the minister would carpool to get to their respective places of worship. And one day, they came out to see the Christian pastor putting his two hands on the car, the hood of the car, praying for the car.
And the priest said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m dedicating this car to God. I’m praying for the car.” The priest said, "That’s a great idea. You know what I’m going to do?” He went to his house and he brought out his water, consecrating sprinkler, and he walked around the car and sprinkled the car. The minister said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m consecrating the car with holy water.” And then the rabbi went on to say, “This is a great idea, I’m in the spirit now. It’s a fantastic idea.” He went into the house. He brought out a hacksaw. And he went out, he went out to the back of the car, grabbed the tailpipe and cut off 1 inch. He said, “It’s a promise to God.”
You guys didn’t get it? He said, “I circumcised the car.” Now, you get it, okay? Now, you got it.
Main Sermon by Hyung Jin Nim:
Brothers and sisters, today is actually a very special day, we are celebrating the one year anniversary of the substantial resurrection, the helicopter incident, that happened one year ago but it feels literally like yesterday. So we’re celebrating this here at this service. Also tomorrow the service will be dedicated to that.
Now brothers and sisters, I want to talk to you about following true love, and I think this is very important. I want to jump right into the world scriptures. I’m just going to jump right into the world scriptures and I want to read them together. We’ll start with Christianity today. This is John 15:13. We’ll read that together.
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
(John 15:13)
We’ve all heard this one, right? A very, very powerful statement of love that Jesus made.
Listen to Buddhism today. This is the Garland Sutra 23. We’ll read that together, let’s read it together.
“I vow to protect all sentient beings and never abandon them. I have set my mind on enlightenment in order to liberate all sentient beings”
(Garland Sutra 23)
The words from Buddhism talk about what is known as “Maha Karuna”, Great Compassion.
Let’s take a look at Islamic tradition here, Hadith of Ibn Majah. Let’s read it together.
“The believer who participates in human life, exposing himself to its torments and suffering, is worth more than the one who distances himself from his suffering.”
(Hadith of Ibn Majah)
This is talking about the greater love of sacrifice and enduring the suffering to be of greater meaning to all the people around.
And let’s center on True Father’s speech; this is from True Father’s speech compilation. Let’s read this together:
“The position of love can be established when one sacrifices oneself and gives oneself for others. Sacrifice always accompanies love.”
Brothers and sisters, today we are celebrating the one year anniversary of the “Substantial Resurrection”, the “Helicopter Incident” which made news all around the world. In looking at these incredible scriptures about love, that we just went through with the Gospel of John, Buddhism, Islam etc, I was watching a program this week. It was a program about Christians who converted into Islam -- they became Muslims -- and Muslims who converted and became Christians. So they had two sides, and they were interviewing the respective individuals. And when you looked at the Christians who converted to Islam, there was a constant theme of why they converted to Islam. This included such things as, “You know, in the Christian tradition we have God’s Word, but we have so many versions of it. We have the ‘New International’ version Bible, we have the ‘New Standard Revised Edition’ Bible, we have the ‘Catholic’ version Bible, and we have the 'King James’ version Bible.”
Some of them actually say, for example, “The King James version has grave errors. So we see that there are many versions of the Word of God. I don’t see the consistency here if it’s God’s Word. Why so many copies? But then I went to Islam and I found the Koran. In the Koran there is ONE word of God for 1,400 years in Arabic, still to this day, recited in Arabic to this day, by Western believers, new believers, whatever, they still recite the Koran in Arabic. That appealed to me, that showed the consistency of God’s word -- one book, one God.”
Another theme that they represented was, “I don’t understand the Trinity. I can’t understand how the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one. It’s a very mysterious thing. It’s called one of the mysteries of Christ. You know, that’s very mysterious, I don’t get it. But when you go to Islam, the first pillar of Islam we hear this, ‘La ilaha ila Allah; Muhammadur-rasul Allah’ (There is no God but God; and Muhammad is His Messenger). We hear this in Islam. So when I went to Islam, then I saw there was one God, not three Gods. Did you know that in the Koran there’s a mention of Trinity, but in the Bible there’s no mention of the Trinity, no mention whatsoever of that vocabulary. So in going to Islam, I really was moved by the fact that there was only one God. It is very clear, one God.”
Also the Christians who converted to Islam said, “You know, when I go to Islam, then what I also found is that in Islam Jesus, of course, is not the son of God, but he is the prophet and he is the Messiah and that he is to return on the clouds. We see that in the Qur’an in Surah 3:45. The Muslims believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Anointed One. So as a Christian now who converted to Islam, it’s very appealing. I like that fact that there has been one word of God consistently for 1,400 years. I like the fact that it is very clear about one God and I like the fact that Jesus is really recognized in that tradition. Also, the people that I know, Noah, Moses and Abraham, they’re also recognized in the Islamic tradition. So I like that.” So those are the people who converted to Islam.
On the other side, there were Muslims who converted to Christianity. And there were again some consistent themes. Out of the 99 names of Allah -- ‘Allah’ is just simply God; even Christians call God ‘Allah’ in the Middle East. Okay, so it’s just God -- Out of the 99 names of God, there are many incredible names -- God the Beneficent, God the Magnificent, God the Great, God the All-knower, all these incredible names of God. But when you interview the Muslims who converted to Christianity, they say, "Out of the 99 names of God, there’s not one that says ‘God is Love’.”
With the Muslims who converted to Christianity there was this one lady who came out and she was talking, and she was under attack, too, from her people in the community because she changed her faith. And she was struggling of course, but she said, “When I realized Jesus’ incredible love, that Jesus died so that I may be free, that Jesus died for me, and that his love was so great, that God’s love was so great that He sacrificed His only son so that we may have eternal life...." She said, that she stood before her bed, kneeled down and prayed, not in the traditional form that Muslims pray but in the more spontaneous way that Christians pray. She said she knelt by her bed and she prayed and she ended up praying for six hours straight. She said she wept and wept, wept and wept, thinking about God’s love and that if we believe and accept Him, we can enter His eternal kingdom of glory.
These were the consistent themes that occurred with people who converted into Christianity from the Muslim tradition.
You know, brothers and sisters, we had a very important meeting this Wednesday. We elected regional women leaders for our Korean church. All the Korean central members were here, and we had that election. And I asked some questions that I want to ask you. I asked them the question, “Why are you an Unificationist? Why did you choose Unificationism? You think about it. There are so many incredible religions in this world. Christianity talks about the agape love of God, the incredible sacrificial love of God. Buddhism talks about Maha Karuna Brahma Vihara, all these incredible virtues; the ocean-like compassion. And they are so established. Christianity has over a billion followers. Scholars say Islam would be, probably, the largest religion by 2050. So why do you choose Unificationism? It’s still small. It’s a cult in many people’s eyes. It’s a wacky religion in many people’s eyes. Why do you choose to be a Unificationist? Why are you a Unificationist?"
You know, this question has always been racking my brain, ever since I really started taking life seriously. Ten years ago, after Young Jin passed, I started studying religion, trying to find this answer. I studied the world’s religions, traveled different areas, you know, very remote areas, stayed in monasteries and with different religious communities -- in Italy, in Tibet, in China, wherever -- and studied the different religious traditions, becoming one with them. For ten years I’ve been training; every morning we’ve been doing devotional training, ascetic training, monastic training. And for about two years now I’ve been doing ministry. And in that time I’ve experienced these incredible Christian communities which talk about the incredible love of Christ, which talk about the incredible type of sacrifice, the agape love of Christ, the passion of Christ, you know, the great suffering of Christ. Passion is suffering, but in that suffering is the great love of Christ, the great sacrifice that Jesus paid for our sins.
From Buddhists I have heard about the great compassion of Buddha. So great is the compassion that they let go of the fact that they can get into Nirvana, or heaven, so that they come down and save and liberate the sentient beings on this planet, and on the other planets. Even so much that even the little insect, we do not want to harm. Such a great compassion!
I heard about the great devotional love of Mohammed, when following and being obedient to God’s will and God’s word, the incredible devotional love towards God. But how then is our Unificationist teaching greater? You know, Sarah Coakley, my Christian theology professor who is an Episcopalian priest at Harvard, a teacher at Harvard, she said, “I’m an Episcopalian priest because I believe that this is the best religion.”
So we’re Unificationists. We believe that somehow we have a higher truth, that we have a greater insight into reality, into the truth of the universe, into the truth of the divine, etc. And we heard about our True Love. We heard about our Give and Receive and relationships, and our Four Position Foundation, we heard about the Principles of Creation, we heard about the Fall and the restoration, we heard about all that. And I heard all the standard explanations of love, of true love. Love that can make Satan naturally surrender, love that gives and gives, or love that lives for others, lives for the sake of others, exists for the sake of others. We’ve heard this, and I’ve heard it millions of times, millions of times. I’ve wrestled with this because I was a theologian as well. I was wrestling with this.
Here it was, in my head. But I couldn’t FEEL it in my spirit, in my emotion, or in my heart. Somehow, I started feeling, “Wait a minute, we are teaching an incredible true love, but is that not the same or is it at least similar to the great love of Christ who offered his life, laid down his life for the sake of the sinners of the world, his friends? Is not the true love that we talk about somehow similar to the great Maha Karuna of the Buddha, the great compassion that doesn’t even harm one little insect?
Where is the great true love, the devotional love, that Mohammed had for God as his master? That great love! Isn’t the love that we are talking about at least something similar to that? Are we actually teaching something greater or is it something similar to that? And we, as Unificationists, have come to believe that we are teaching something kind of similar to that! "Somehow, yes, they have great teachings in the other world religions, and we are one of them. And we are all going to the same mountain top."
But this is very unsatisfying if you have faith as a Unificationist. You chose this religion because you believed that it had the greatest truth. You gave your life to be inter-religiously married because you felt that that was the highest truth, the highest way. So somehow it is unsatisfying to say that we’re all the same. I know for a fact that Christians don’t say that. I know for a fact that Buddhists, when they talk about the supreme highest enlightenment, which is “anuttara-sambodhi”, they don’t say that, they say that the Buddha attained that.
But we as Unificationists have come to believe, "Maybe we’re just kind of the same thing." And so this has been racking my brain. When I was studying religion, when I was studying theology I thought, "How is it that the true love we talk about is greater than the incredible love of Christ, the incredible compassion of the Buddha, the incredible devotional love and service of Mohammed? How is it greater?" And it was so elusive! I could not put my finger on it, could not get it. "Why? How is it that it is an incredible elevation?"
I heard that it was, but I could not sense it in my heart, couldn’t feel it… until this Tuesday! I really had an incredible Tuesday! I had a really life-changing Tuesday this week! I realized why we as Unification Movement have really relativized our own faith and come to believe that we are kind of just the same and similar. This is really an insult to the Unificationists who sacrificed their life. Even some have been killed and tortured and imprisoned for their faith. It’s a real insult to say that to those people. I came to realize that the reason why we come to believe this as a movement is because we’ve seen the manifestation of true love, which is True Parents, with our physical eyes… with our PHYSICAL eyes, and not with our spirit self!
See, Jesus said in John 15:13, ”Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends." And Jesus did this. He sacrificed his life. He walked the way of the cross. After three days he was resurrected. He laid down his life for his friends. But after he died, what happened? Read the Apostles' Creed. Christians saw something with their spiritual eyes; they saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes. And what happened after he was crucified? They saw him descending into hell, to liberate believers and bring them into the path, bring them to paradise. They saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes. Not just with their physical eyes. His body was on the earth, his body was physically on the earth. But the Christians saw him with their spiritual eyes. They saw him descend, for the sake of those souls, into the Purgatory.
And it came to me in a dream, in a kind of a vision-dream, that the reason why we don’t understand True Love, the reason we really can’t see why it is greater, is because we understand it with our physical senses and physical eyes. In a dream I saw True Parents, True Father, descend into the bowels of hell, and I saw True Parents going down there, crying, weeping. They were running down there to save the fallen children of God. And in this one scene, Father ran up to this huge Satan that was torturing and punishing these souls and he said, “Take MY flesh, take this holy spirit, this messianic spirit, in that child’s stead! Let that child go! Take my body and do as you will…” And he flung his holy body, his messianic body, into the hands of the demon, and that demon ripped him open, shredded him, and tore him into pieces. It was an absolute horror to see.
With our physical eyes we see that True Parents have been imprisoned six times. They’ve been imprisoned, incarcerated. They’ve been demeaned, dehumanized, imprisoned and tortured. They suffered the seventh imprisonment in the helicopter crash. That thing was literally a prison when it hit the ground and burst into an inferno. It was a prison.
But then I realized that when we see True Parents with our spiritual eyes, just like the Christians saw Jesus with their spiritual eyes and continue to see with their spiritual eyes to this day, which is the reason why when you enter into a Christian church, you’ll going to feel some kind of incredible Holy Spirit. Every time True Parents were unjustly incarcerated, tortured, lacerated and beaten physically, their spirit bodies were descending into the most dangerous and evil hells. They were sacrificing their spirit and flesh for the sins of all mankind. They were pierced and cut and ripped and torn; they died so that we may live. They gave their life and took our place. They took my place in hell so that I would be free, so that I could have a place in heaven.
And they did this not once, not once, but they did it seven times! They died for us, on the individual level, on the level of our family’s collective sin, tribal, societal, national level, world level, and cosmic level, the cosmic level, on the seventh stage, which was the substantial resurrection. It ascended up to the eighth stage, perfection, which is God’s stage, because of the power of that true love, that parental love, which will die and die, forget and die again, so that no harm will come upon their children. That is what we are talking about when we’re talking about true love. And because of the power of that true love they overcame physical death. We know the story, when Father was thrown into the snow. Physically he was dead; spiritually he went into the hells and was resurrected seven times, this time in the helicopter, in the cosmic level death, entering God’s realm and opening the kingdom for us.
So when I received this, I realized, “My God! I never understood what parental heart was! I never grasped what true love really was! I could never put my finger on it. I had all the standard explanations -- they exist for the sake of others, it gives and gives and gives - I could not feel it. What was it? What are we trying to inherit?”
When I realized that True Parents died for us seven times, they sacrificed their flesh to be beaten, unjustly beaten, and incarcerated. Whether it was Colonial Japan or North Korea or being imprisoned in South Korea or America, they offered their body to be beaten and their spirit to be torn. They went into the lowest realms, so that we would be free. They rose from the grave, not once, but seven times, and this is not because of any human power, but because of the inheritance of the true love that they received, and of which they are a manifestation. And because of that incredible victory from the individual to the cosmic level, because of their deaths and their resurrections, we have been given permission to enter into the nation of Cheon Il Guk even though we do not deserve it, and I don’t deserve it, and even though we are filled with sins and even though we are filled with flaws and imperfections.
Let’s give it up for God and True Parents one time, brothers and sisters. (Clapping) We have to understand why we call them the savior, why we call them the messiah. You see, in John 15:13 Jesus talks about the greatest love. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Listen to that closely. Listen to those last words: “for his friends.”
You see, we know from the perspective of the Principle that Jesus was the second Adam. He was the second Adam. He came to fulfill the purpose of creation, which was to establish and inherit the PARENTAL heart of God, establish a true family, to inherit the parental heart of God. That was what was needed to be inherited. But Jesus went too early. He did not have time to become a parent, and so he was crucified, and he inherited an incredible love, an incredible love, that sacrifices for his friends, that can lay down his life for his friends. That was what Jesus said was the greatest love.
But you see, True Parents came as the third and final Adam, who came to inherit the parental heart by establishing the True Family. I am not saying that True Family is perfect. By establishing the True Family, True Parents inherited the true love, the parental heart, and that’s the victory. They showed us the greatest love of all. Much, much, much greater than the love that Jesus spoke about in John 15:13, of laying your life down for your friends. They showed us that the parental heart is so unbelievable. It is the heart that is willing to die for their children, and die again for their children and forget and die again for their children, without any complaint, without any reward.
Once we realize this spiritual dimension of the seven tortures and deaths and resurrections, then we will realize why we say that Jesus and the saints bow down to True Parents. Why are they overwhelmed by the power of True Parents’ true love? True Parents took on the burden of our own individual flaws, our families’ flaws, and flaws of tribes of the past, present and future, and they died seven times. When we understand that they went into the lowest realms, took our places in those realms, in the lowest hells, so that we can enter and be free in the eternal kingdom, then we can finally understand why we call them Cosmic True Parents, Peace King, and King of Kings.. It was seven times that they died for us.
You know, for ten years I have really been searching for this. Ten years I have been struggling; I couldn’t explain about this answer. My problem was that I’ve studied a lot of religious texts and scriptures and communities, and that’s wonderful. I had incredible experiences there. But I didn’t understand that there was this spiritual dimension. I didn’t understand that. You can’t understand this with just your physical eyes. It’s the same as if you were a Christian. Then you couldn’t understand with your physical eyes that Jesus died for your sins. You can’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why Christians have spiritual eyes that are open.
And I even did ministry for 2 years. I’ve been teaching Principle, I’ve been teaching true love, and I didn’t even know what it was! I could not put my finger on it; what is true love? How is that different or greater? How is that a greater love than the great loves of Christianity, the Agape love of Christ, the great compassion of the Buddha, etc. I could not understand what it was, could not feel it. But now finally I realized, not on my own. This was given.
But now finally, after I realized the seven deaths and resurrections of True Parents, once I understood and I experienced this, something incredible happened that never happened to me before. I literally just started weeping and weeping and weeping, like a baby! I was so repentful. I could not understand what the heck we were talking about; we were talking about true love, about inheriting true love! "What are we talking about? I cannot put my finger on it! I do not know what I’m supposed to inherit." Then I realized in that vision that True Parents descended into our place, took our place, so that we would be in heaven… seven times, not once, but seven times! Over and over, with a parental heart.
So what did I do then? I wrote a report to Father. I said, “You know what, I am a minister and I didn’t even know what true love was! That’s a pretty big sin. I’m here talking about true love, and teaching the Principle, and I don’t even know what it is. Really, I don’t really understand what it is." And so I wrote a report to Father.
You know, in Matthew 17 Jesus ascends up a mountain. He goes up the mountain, and the disciples are following him. All of a sudden they see him floating, and this is known as the transfiguration of Christ, where Jesus gets up there on the mountain, and he’s floating and transfigured. In Matthew 17:2 it says, “His face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” Jesus showed his divine status, he was not just a normal man. So here Jesus was up there, Moses and Elijah were there, and Jesus was talking to them. That is known as the transfiguration.
And after I had this insight into True Parents’ seven deaths and resurrections, into the incredible heart of a true parent, which will die for their children over and over willingly and do it again and forget it. That night while I was writing this thing I was falling asleep, too, and I had this dream where I saw True Parents come spiritually. True Father came spiritually, and I saw his face. And it was a normal face, he was smiling, but when I walked up to him, when I walked up to him, from his eyes shone this incredible light as bright as 10,000 suns, just like the transfiguration of Christ that we hear about in Matthew 17. So spiritually I felt calm and at ease and at peace in my heart
So I wrote the letter. I was too ashamed actually to go to see True Parents. I had not really understood what they had done. And that morning after Hoon Dok Hae Mr. Peter Kim read the letter to True Parents. He was saying that while he was reading it he was having some spiritual experience. While he was reading it, he started weeping and weeping. And he said, “I never understood true love of True Parents. I didn’t get it, I’ve been serving them, right next to them everyday, and I didn’t understand what kind of true love they gave to ME.” And as he looked up and saw True Parents, he saw True Mother weeping. He saw Father trying to hold back his tears, but, as he told me, he couldn’t hold them back. “Finally the children understand,” Father said.
You see, brothers and sisters, what I realized that day was that Father couldn’t tell us, he couldn’t tell us what has happened. Just like the Christians who had to understand Jesus with their spiritual eyes and realize the SPIRIT of Christ, Father could not tell this to us, for we see him with PHYSICAL eyes. It’s in the principle that true love gives and gives and forgets, forgets. Father couldn’t say, “I did this for you all.” He forgot about it, even though he died for us. He forgot every single time he died for us. Individual, family, tribe, nation, world, cosmic level.... he forgot.
But he did hope that one day we would understand, that one day we would see him with our spiritual eyes, just like believers in Christ see Christ with their spiritual eyes, and understand this incredible, immense true love that we received. And when we do that, we realize something incredible, we realize that our life is not ours, it’s not ours. When we realize that we are the recipients of this kind of incredible immense love that is willing to die for their children over and over again, then we realize that this parental heart is the thing hat we are trying to inherit as their children.
So it was in front of that incredible, incomparable grace and love that I realized that this is why we say we have to live with True Parents. That’s why we say we have to glorify them. That’s why we are singing songs of praise and thanksgiving. Now I understand why we were singing those songs of praise. I didn’t know why I was singing them before. Maybe it was just as a concert, I thought. Now I understand why we’re singing those songs of gratitude and songs about the victory of true love.
Brothers and sisters, what can we learn today, on this one year anniversary of the substantial resurrection? It’s now our time to open our spirit eyes to this incredible sacrificial parental heart of true love and inherit this true love. Now I finally can feel what I’m trying to inherit. Now I can finally understand what kind of heart I’m supposed to try to inherit. I couldn’t feel that before with the explanation we used to give in the workshops or whatever, you know… living for the sake of others. I couldn’t feel what that was, "What is it? What am I suppose to inherit?" I couldn’t feel it with my heart and spirit.
Christians have the passion theology, the love theology of Christ. Once we understand this true love theology, once we understand the true love theology, we cannot only sense where true love is with our intellect, like we can understand the Principle, but we can start FEELING what kind of true love, what kind of sacrificial love, what kind of parental love this kind of true love is. We then can start sensing it with our emotion and our spirit and our heart. I believe that it is our task to believe in True Parents in this age, in this amazing grace of true love. I believe that this is the power and the kind of true love that we people have been talking about, but we couldn’t really put the finger on it. This is the kind of true love that will allow the Unification Movement to truly unite the religions as the parent, to truly be able to do what we’ve been talking about.
The only way to do that is by opening our spiritual eyes, not just seeing through our physical eyes. When we start understanding the gravity and the incredibleness of this true love then we will realize, "Oh my God, this IS an incredible elevation in what the world understands love to be. It IS an incredible elevation! This kind of true love we have never seen in the history of mankind. And I believe that it has come because of this. And once we understand this with our heart and our spirit, we can really understand the true love that we are trying to inherit, I believe, just like it says in the prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I believe that once we do inherit that kind of incredible true love, that will die for their children over and over and never complain and do it again -- even though the children have sinned, and even though the children deserve to be punished -- the parental heart that will sacrifice their soul and their flesh for their children over and over and over, seven times, that kind of incredible true love, when we open our eyes to that kind of true love, then we can understand what kind of value True Parents have. Then we understand what kind of value our Principle has. Then we understand why we call them the savior of the world, and why we call them the Peace King, and why we call them the King of Kings, and the inheritor of True Love, etc. And why we cannot see why that amazing understanding of true love can bring the world into unity.
Brothers and sisters, on this one year anniversary, I pray that we can inherit this kind of true love, that we can understand this kind of true love. I want to show you that picture here. I wrote in Chinese characters, very short version, which means the seven deaths and resurrections, the perfecting of the eight stages, True Parents' victory and the theology of true love. I believe that when we do understand this with our spirit, in faith, through our spiritual eyes, we will see the Unification Movement grow, not only grow, but we will become able to teach the world the highest level of love that has ever been experienced.
Brothers and sisters, let’s give it up for God and True Parents in this incredible year. (Clapping) That’s the victory!
Meditation:
Let’s gather our hearts for our final homeland meditation. Let’s now close our eyes and visualize ourselves not in this sanctuary, but walking in a beautiful meadow.
We are going to return to our homeland now. Let’s visualize beautiful soft grass; we’re walking upon it. And notice, right around your feet, as we walk, the beautiful flowers that are blooming. When we look to our left we are going to see a beautiful, beautiful meandering stream. We are going to feel the beautiful life of that stream. Let’s hear the sound of that living stream. As we look up to the heavens, let’s notice the blue sky; that vast, incredible, limitless, blue sky, totally pure. Not a cloud in the sky.
As we look up, we see True Parents, they are waiting for us. Let us walk toward them. Let us kneel down before them and see True Father with his right hand, Mother with her left hand, place their hands on top of our head. As they bless and anoint us, they say, “May you inherit the true love of God.” Let us feel the power of that blessing. Let us feel that power move through us, from the top of our head all the way to the tips of our toes, like a wave of energy that’s purifying and rejuvenating, which makes all things brand new.
Notice any cells that are sick or stressed or not healthy recuperate and become healthy, completely perfect. See it and feel the health. Feel the healing. We will notice in our spirit body, if there are any black stains or dark stains, let us notice those things being washed away. In the victory of the seven deaths and resurrections, let us see the spirit body shining in the twelve directions, completely illuminated. In our hearts let us say, “I will inherit the true love of God.” Let us breathe in deeply with our hearts. Let us say, “I am alive.” As we breathe out, in our hearts let us say, “Thank you.” As we breathe in, in our hearts, “I am alive.” As we breathe out, let us say, “Thank you.” Final inhalation, all things brand new, “I am alive.” Final exhalation, “We thank you.”
God and True Parents have blessed us with the blessed life. That is to inherit the true love of God -- a love that will die for their children over and over without any reward, for great is Thy love. Let us inherit their love and be a greater blessing to our families, to our spouse, our nation, our world, to this cosmic spirit world, and to God. Let us join our hearts and pray.
Prayer by Hyung Jin Nim:
Heavenly Father, thank You so much for his day. Father, we want to celebrate on this day, this one year anniversary of the incredible substantial resurrection day. Father, we didn't know what You have done for us. We followed True Parents, but we doubted them and we lost faith many times. Father, we couldn't understand why their love was so great. Father, we talked and lectured about it, explained it, but we couldn't feel what kind of love that True Love was. Father, You have given us that incredible True Love.
Father, True Parents in their life course have been imprisoned for the sake of their nation, they have been tortured in the prisons. They have bled for us, they have been beaten, their bones have been shattered, but Father, their spirit has descended to the most fearful realms of the spirit world so that we all may be free. Father, we stand on the incredible victory of that True Love. Not once, but seven times, for the sake of the individual all the way up to the cosmos and spirit world.
We want to give You an incredible “Thank you” today for You have given us that True Love, showed it in the life of True Parents. Father, that's a great victory, that they have inherited Your parental heart which is True Love. Father, let's understand what this True Love is, what kind of sacrifice this parental heart will do. Father, let us inherit that True Love. Let us become this kind of children so that Your victory may not be in vain.
Father, we want to give You all the glory today, we know now why we call You the King of Kings, we know now why we call True Parents our lord and our savior. We now know why they've paid the price for our own misdoings and sins, so that we could come to You, that our families could come to You and our tribes, our nations, and our spirits could come to You. Father, those seven deaths and resurrections are the greatest victory that You have shown to mankind.
Let us understand that incredible True Love, and let us be the inheritors of that and manifest that in this world, in whatever we do. Father, we want to give You one more thanks because You brought us where we are, You brought us up to this point when we could have given up and been defeated so many times. But You led us here, You guided us and You are faithful. Father, let us renew ourselves to You, and let us offer ourselves to You just as You have done with the lives of True Parents, for the sake of this world and for our own spirits.
We thank You so much and Father, please bless each and everyone of our Unificationists worldwide. We pray that they may all live in that incredible victory that You have prepared for them. Father, we pray that we may walk with confidence, and we may teach with confidence and live with confidence, knowing that the True Love that You have shown to our True Parents, the parental love that will repeat these sacrifices for its children, is the highest type of love that the world has ever known.
Let us inherit that, let our Unificationists around the world inherit that and become the great victors of True Love, to make this world into what You have always wished for it to become, the great nation of Cheon Il Guk. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! Father, we pray with our hearts, with our minds, with our spirits this day. We want to give the greatest praise and the greatest thanksgiving in gratitude and in humility. We pray in our own names, as blessed central families. Aju!