The Savior Has Come

That we human beings hope for a Lord who will save us is because we have fallen.

Then, by reason of this fall, are only human beings who require the Savior?

It is not so. God created heaven and earth and all things and hoped that human beings would accomplish the purpose of creation. But because human beings fell, the purpose of creation was not realized and came to nothing. And we know that, because human beings fell, God did not have the one day of consummating the purpose of creation, and God too came to be in a place of sorrow.

The mistake of those two people, Adam and Eve, the first ancestors of humankind, drove all humankind into a place of sorrow, and further, by reason of them, even God came to abide in a place of sorrow; and since God came to be in a place of sorrow, all created things too came to abide in a place of sorrow.

This is why we must realize that the being of the Savior is needed not only by human beings but is a being needed by Heaven and a being needed by all created things.

Up to now, many people think that in Heaven there is no such thing as suffering. Many think that Heaven is a perfect and flawless place, equipped with all the conditions of joy, glory, hope, and happiness.

But if God is in the position of the father of human beings, do you suppose God, gazing upon human beings groaning in a place of suffering, would be at ease?

The more He loves them, the greater His loving heart; in that proportion, the heart of God, gazing upon sorrowing human beings, cannot but be sorrowful too. This is a matter of course.

This is why, needless to say, humankind longs for the Messiah, Heaven too longs for the Messiah—that is, the Savior—and the earth too longs for the Messiah.

Because of the fall, Satan invaded even beneath God’s throne; because of the fall, Satan invaded even the blood lineage of us human beings—that is, our very bloodline; and because of the fall, even all things became Satan’s possession.

The hole that God made did not become God’s, nor did it become the human being’s, but it became the enemy’s.

So where is there a sorrow greater than this?

Then what is the purpose of the Messiah’s coming?

It is to liberate Heaven, liberate the earth, and further, to liberate God and liberate humankind. It is for this that the Messiah must come to this earth. The more the age passes, and the more the world grows evil, the more the Messiah becomes necessary.

We can infer that the more powerless one’s own strength is and the more difficult one’s actions become, the stronger the heart that longs for and craves the Messiah becomes.

God can by no means simply hand over heaven and earth into the enemy’s hands.

This is why, dividing and setting up good as good and evil as evil, He must lead the whole before God, centered on good. You must realize that the one who comes bearing such a whole responsibility is the Messiah—that is, the Savior.

In God’s sending the Messiah to this earth, there was a corresponding hope. There was God’s hope, and at the same time there were God’s circumstances, and at the same time there was God’s heart. That is, you must realize that God sent the Messiah with hope and circumstances and heart.

Because the Messiah was sent into an enemy world, charged with the responsibility of turning everything of the enemy back to Heaven’s side amid the enemy’s opposition, God could not but prepare, before this Messiah came, a foundation on which, according to the providential Will by which he could come and act, that purpose could be consummated.

This is why we know that God, to prepare that foundation among the chosen people of Israel, distinguished individuals, distinguished families, and distinguished clans and peoples for four thousand years, and so founded a nation.

The Israelite people and Judaism, thus established, ought to have become one and, living together with the ideal by which they could greet the Messiah, fixed that content and prepared for that day.

That was the mission of the Israelite people and the mission of Judaism. Yet the more disordered their environment, the greater their heart of longing for and hoping in the coming Messiah, but they failed to make the inner preparation to greet the Messiah.

We cannot deny the fact that the Israelite people and the Jewish church thereby brought about the historical tragedy of failing to greet the Messiah who had come.

Two thousand years ago, the Messiah came to meet the Israelite people and the Jewish religious body and the Jewish leaders whom God had prepared. The meaning is that God could not but send the Messiah upon the Jewish religious body that led the Israelite people—the people who, in the four-thousand-year course of a blood-stained history of struggle, survived dying, survived being driven, and survived being pursued.

And further, God, who carries on the providence centered on numerical standards according to the principle of indemnity, came to send the Messiah centered on one Will, because—even though the national preparation to take responsibility for that age and that season was not made—the long, long four thousand years of history had passed, and the numerical term of years was being fulfilled.

Then, where lay the purpose of sending the Messiah?

It was to meet the Israelite people and to live a heavenly life together with the Israelite people, centered on the ideal of the Messiah. By this, it was to leave behind, centered on God’s Will, the new messianic thought, a historical tradition that would shine brilliantly in the history of the Israelite people.

It was in order, centered on that tradition and harmonizing with that tradition, to inherit God’s desire and God’s circumstances and God’s heart, and so to liberate God. We must realize that it was the responsibility of the Messiah who had come to thereby attend God upon a foundation of rest.

The Messiah came seeking the Israelite people. He came seeking Judaism, the religious foundation that led the Israelite people. He came seeking the chief priests and teachers of the Law of Judaism. It is beyond doubt that the Messiah, who came seeking them so, came to meet them.

Then they ought to have become one, above and below, and the whole ought to have met the Messiah. At that time, the Jewish nation was a vassal of Rome and stood in the position of Rome’s enemy, so the national leaders, or the religious leaders, who strove to recover the nation’s sovereignty as they gazed upon their ravaged people, ought to have raised the banner of revolt before Rome and united around the thought of the new Messiah.

This was the attitude that the leadership that led Judaism and the Jewish nation of that time ought to have taken.

The Israelite people and the Jewish religious body, who had prepared to greet the Messiah God had sent, ought to have become one and attended Jesus amid joy.

They ought to have united, in the stead of the enemy Rome and the countless other peoples, by the ideal of the Messiah, and become one before the Will God desired, and followed the ideal of the Messiah.

This was the responsibility of the Jewish religious body and the Jewish nation. Yet we know that, because they failed in that responsibility, the Messiah Jesus walked a wretched path.

Jesus, when he was born, was born in a stable. And he passed through a preparation period of some thirty years.

Thereafter, passing through the three-year course of public ministry, he sought to establish what he intended, but failed to realize his Will and came to die hung upon the cross.

When we consider the course of the some-thirty-year life of Jesus, who came and went so, we can see that he never held the authority of the Messiah upon this earth for even a single day.

From birth until death, he had neither the environment of the Messiah God had sent nor a family nor relatives. John the Baptist, the forerunner of that age whom God had prepared and established beforehand, did not welcome him either, and the prophets of that age did not welcome him either.

The meaning is that, in his whole course of life, on no single day, among the whole people, was there a single person who treated him as the Messiah. This is why he must have gone bearing the sorrow of not having faced an individual, gone bearing the sorrow of not having faced a family, or gone bearing the sorrow of not having faced a clan, a people, a nation.

Considering such things, in this place of commemorating the birthday (January 3) of the Messiah who came and went, we must stand in a position of knowing the life of the Messiah, who came holding hope and went bearing sorrow, rather than the Messiah who came to this earth with hope, and of celebrating his birth. Otherwise, I hold that there is no true meaning in celebrating the day the Messiah was born.

Because God had to send the Messiah to one family, He chose the family of Joseph.

The family of Joseph and Mary was a family God embraced in His bosom. When the angel called the maiden Mary and foretold that she would conceive as a virgin, Mary refused. But on hearing the words urged a second and third time, Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Thy will.”

The Virgin Mary, who could conceive the Messiah from the position of having resolved to pay any sacrifice for the glory of the Messiah—from the very day it became known that this Mary had conceived, Joseph came to be troubled.

Since a betrothed maiden had conceived a child, Joseph could not help but be troubled. This was, whether by the social environment of the time or by the Law of Moses, a thing that could not be allowed.

To Joseph, troubled in such a position, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and commanded, “Do not fear to take Mary your wife.”

Joseph, having heard these words, so loved God and so prized God’s command that he did not hesitate to take the conceiving Mary.

Mary and Joseph, having made such an unprecedented start, had to raise a child without compare in the world. That was the responsibility of Joseph’s family.

Since the people did not attend to Jesus as the Messiah, Joseph, in the stead of the people, had to attend to Jesus—who was a stepson to him—as the Messiah.

Such a responsibility lay with Joseph. Mary, too, had the responsibility, facing the Messiah who had come to this earth in the name of the bridegroom, of being equipped with the content of the highest bride in the stead of the women of all the universe and of attending Jesus as the Messiah from his infancy. This was the original purpose for which God sent the Messiah to that family, but Joseph and Mary did not carry out that mission.

I declare that, even at the family standard, had Mary and Joseph truly known and attended the Savior Jesus—who was sent to a family more precious than any other, who came as a being more precious than any noble person of Israel, a precious being who could not be exchanged for heaven and earth—the life of Jesus would not have become a sorrowful life.

The Catholic Church today venerates the Holy Mother Mary, but if Mary had fully carried out her mission as Jesus’ mother, Jesus would not have become so pitiable.

Had Joseph, to uphold and serve the Will of heavenly order, taken an example from the devotion-pouring life of Mary and lived centered on Jesus—had he not made Jesus live as the assistant of himself, a carpenter—the meaning is that Jesus would not have become so pitiable.

Joseph ought to have realized that, although Jesus stood in the position of his son, in content it was not so. Seen by the flat, worldly standard, Jesus and Joseph were in the relation of son and father, but from the standpoint of the Will, they were in a relation of high and low.

Was it not different from the very start, different in content?

This is why Joseph, from the very hour he knew that Jesus was the Messiah, ought to have carried out the mission of a priest who attended Jesus more loyally than anyone. And Joseph’s sons and daughters—that is, Jesus’ younger siblings—following their father Joseph, ought to have obeyed absolutely, more than anyone, the words of their elder brother Jesus.

They ought to have realized that Jesus’ words were words the whole Jewish people must uphold, words they must obey even if it meant disregarding entirely the doctrines and all the precepts centered on the Five Books of Moses. Had they done so, Jesus would not have lived a sorrowful family life but could have been welcomed individually and by the family.

Yet because Joseph’s family failed to welcome Jesus by the family, Jesus came to find neither a position in which he could be welcomed individually nor a position in which he could be welcomed by the family.

When Jesus came to this earth, he came through Joseph’s family, did he not?

Joseph was a descendant of David. He was a descendant equipped with the bloodline bond of forefathers who established the way of loyalty to realize God’s Will, a precious blood kin God had chosen.

Such a Joseph, from the very day he met the Messiah—more important than David, more important than Solomon, more important than any forefather of any generation—ought to have forsaken the whole erring past and lived a life centered on the Messiah.

Had Joseph lived such a life, Peter would have been unnecessary. Had Joseph made a sheltering nest of rest in the family environment, the meaning is that Jesus would not have needed to go outside.

Not the unlettered Peter, James, and John, but Jesus’ beloved younger siblings ought to have become Jesus’ disciples. So I understand it.

The Messiah, born of the consecrated blood kin that God established by toiling over thousands of years to establish the Israelite people, cannot forsake that blood kin and carry on the providence. Before Jesus was born, gazing upon the nation of Israel, he ought to have gazed upon Joseph, who loved Israel; Mary, who loved Israel; Joseph, who loved God; and Mary, who loved God.

From such a place, under God’s public recognition, he was to appear as the Messiah. They ought to have realized that, if Joseph and Mary became one with Jesus, they would become the central foundation that stood in the stead of the desire the whole people gazed toward and in the stead of God’s whole Will and desire. But Jesus could not take hold of Joseph’s hand and Mary’s hand and say, “This is my will and my desire.” This was the greatest wretchedness in the life of Jesus.

Jesus, born as the Messiah upon this earth, was born through the womb of Mary but did not receive a mother’s love. He was born through Mary’s flesh as any person of the world is, but seen by Jesus’ ideal and mission, Mary was not Jesus’ mother.

Jesus ought to have paved a foundation of rest on the base of the family, made that family a refuge and a place of solace, gathered his relatives and gathered his clan, made a foundation that would not collapse even if the people opposed it, and so set out on the course of his public ministry.

Then what did Jesus, who passed through a thirty-year course of preparation, gaze upon in that course of preparation?

Jesus loved his family even more than he loved the people.

The meaning is that he loved Joseph and Mary even more than he loved God’s Will. That love was not feigned. Through God’s heart, through a historical heart, through the heart of the age, and worrying even with a heart for the future, Jesus loved his parents.

The Messiah Jesus, who said,

“To me, born as a human being, she is my mother. Mary, who conceived and bore me by God’s command, is the mother of mothers,”

longed for a mother’s love. He longed for a father’s love.

Would it not be so?

Joseph was set up as Jesus’ stepfather, but he ought to have loved Jesus more than his sons and daughters. Jesus’ younger siblings knew what their elder brother Jesus, though he did not say it, was trying to become.

So when the Feast of Tabernacles drew near, those brothers said to Jesus,

“Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples too may see the works you do.”

At that time, Jesus did not show himself to his brothers but went up secretly.

Seeing this, with whom did the responsibility lie for not having set the younger siblings—who knew Jesus’ inner heart—in a position where they could uphold and serve their elder brother?

It lay with Joseph and Mary.

Who knew the han of Jesus, who came as the Messiah to this earth yet could not attend to his parents as parents; who knew the han of Jesus, who could not face his brothers as brothers; who knew the han of Jesus, who could not keep his relatives as relatives?

This was the wretchedness of Jesus. And that Christianity, not knowing such things, venerates Jesus as the Messiah is also exceedingly wretched. Had the relatives become a fence and surrounded and protected Jesus, John the Baptist too would have played the role of that fence. John the Baptist, too, was a relative of Jesus.

Today, countless people celebrate the Messiah who came and went—but what do they celebrate? Do they celebrate his being born?

Do they celebrate his having lived? Do they celebrate his having gone?

What is it they celebrate? He was born wretchedly. He lived forlornly too. And then he died wretchedly. So what is it, I say, that they celebrate? Is it that they celebrate his having been born wretchedly, lived forlornly, and died wretchedly?

From birth, living, until death, Jesus must have longed for an individual whom he could face, centered on his personhood and the Will grounded in his character—that is, his view of life, his view of the universe, his view of the providence—must have longed for a family, longed for a clan and a people, longed for a religious body, and longed for a nation. It is the birth of the Messiah, who stood in such a position that we must commemorate.

Jesus was hated even when he ate. Though there was endlessly much he wished to say to Mary, he could not say it. He was simply silent. Why?

Because the mother who knew that he had come bearing a messianic mission was failing in the responsibility she ought to have carried out—that is, the responsibility received from God, of being the Messiah’s mother—so that, as the Messiah, he could not speak of the whole of the human world.

Mary, though Jesus was her child, had to attend to him as the Messiah. Joseph, too, had to bow in worship every morning when he rose. Centered on the parents, the brothers, and relatives all had to do likewise. Could that be?

Jesus was the True Parent of humankind. Six thousand years ago, God made Adam and Eve and rejoiced, hoping for the day of realizing the ideal of creation.

Centered on Adam and Eve—that is, true son and daughter—He yearned for and rejoiced in a living foundation on which He could live happily. But because Adam and Eve broke apart, a historical wretchedness unfolded.

The meaning is that Adam and Eve died. That was the first wretched scene to unfold since heaven and earth came into being. The One who came to restore this was Jesus.

Before the fall, whose was the whole world of glory?

It was Adam’s. Before the fall, it was Adam’s. And who was God, the master of that world of glory? He was Adam’s. The meaning is that the whole world was Adam’s.

There was to be no obstacle to his moving, no obstacle to what he wished to do, and he was not to be restrained when he wished to act. The meaning is that all under heaven was to become his. Would it not be so?

He created Adam and Eve to realize such a desire, but because they broke apart, everything was entirely cut off. The purpose of sending Jesus was to recover the whole of what Adam and Eve had erred, to have them feel inwardly and live within their lives the whole ideal that was to have been given to the original Adam and Eve.

This is the life that ought to have begun from the very first day the Messiah was born. This is why the Messiah is one placed in a position of having to be all-capable, with nothing under heaven beyond his mastery.

But what was the environment of the Jewish nation?

Judea was a vassal of Rome. What was the Jewish religious body? It was caught in the framework of the Five Books of Moses. Was Joseph’s family so arranged? It was not.

The meaning is, consider how great was the inner distress of Jesus, who ought to have lived in a free, unrestrained environment, with the heavenly responsibility entrusted to him and a view of life and a view of the world and a view of the universe, but could not.

While Jesus felt such inner distress, how was it with Joseph and Mary?

In daily life, when Jesus underwent distress and felt sorrow, to take hold of him and comfort his inner sorrow, saying, “We are with you, so your desire will without fail be ‘accomplished’”—this was what the mother and father ought to have done and what the brothers ought to have done; yet they did not even know of such a fact. And so, in the some-thirty-year preparation period, even the expectation toward the mother and father all collapsed and broke apart.

It is not in the Bible, but the meaning is that Jesus’ expectation of his mother and father was broken time after time.

Who knew the earnest circumstances of Jesus, who could not apply the heavenly law to parents who, seen in worldly terms, were his parents?

So he showed indirectly to his mother and his younger siblings that his path was thus and that he had to live such and such a life. But because the family did not understand and did not welcome him, Jesus left home at the age of thirty. He left home. He set out on the course of his public ministry. Is the course of public ministry holy? No. Jesus’ course of public ministry was a sorrowful course. It was a sorrowful course.

When Jesus left home, did his younger siblings follow him about?

Did his mother follow him about?

He went about alone, with no one. When his mother and younger siblings came and sought Jesus, Jesus said,

“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” And to his mother he also said, “Woman, what have I to do with you?” The meaning is that it was understandable.

Where did the individual the Messiah sought? Where did the family the Messiah sought? Where did the clan go? Where did the religious body go? Where did the people go?

Who heard the cry of the Messiah, who could find nothing!

Even now, Christianity is sunk in deep sleep and does not know such facts. However much one reads the Bible, one does not know this content.

It is because this Unification Church has come forth that it speaks such words in particular, and it is not merely words.

We must shoulder the national responsibility of comforting the pitiable Jesus and becoming his shield, blocking the arrows that fly in from all directions.

We must become people who can be a shield for individual sorrow, a shield for family sorrow, a shield for clan sorrow, and a shield at the religious body and people levels.

To do so, only one who struggles, who laments that the historical forefathers failed in their responsibility before God, who takes hold of the life-sorrow of the Messiah who came and went in the past, and who knows how to appeal in the present to resolve that sorrow for him—only such a one will not be ashamed to greet the coming Messiah.

My friends, do you know how greatly Jesus, passing through the some-thirty-year preparation process, prayed in his heart for God’s sake?

When there was no individual partner, he prayed countless times, “O God! Thou hast sent me, so take me, as an individual, as the object of Thy hope! I remain, so look upon me and receive comfort!”

The Messiah came to meet the Israelite people. So, just as the sovereign of some nation must meet people from that position, Jesus, too, who came as the Savior to save the world, had to meet the people from the position of the Savior.

Accordingly, the Israelite people had to be equipped with a standard that could be a partner to the character standard of the Savior God had sent and so meet Jesus. That was the mission of the Israelite people, but what did the Israelite people do?

Did they even know how the Messiah would come?

The meaning is that, even while piling up sin appallingly, they thought that, if the Kingdom of Heaven were realized, they would get themselves a position there to feed on.

For Jesus, before finding a nation, a religious body was needed; before finding a religious body, a people was needed; before finding a people, a clan was needed; before finding a clan, a family was needed; and before finding a family, the individual was needed.

Who was that individual?

The representative of women was Mary, and the representative of men was Joseph. Seen worldly, they were mother and father, but seen centered on the Will, they were not. Jesus was the sinless True Parent. He came with the mission of the True Parent.

The human ancestors Adam and Eve, by falling, made a fallen blood lineage. They did not become the True Parents who, in the original ideal world God desires—the unfallen world—would become one with God, receive God’s direct blood lineage, and bear sons and daughters; rather, forming a bond with Satan, they bore dead children and became the chief of Satan.

So today, all humankind has met false parents. This is why one must deny the blood lineage of the false parents and become a true parent.

Jesus came as the sinless True Parent.

Then what are Joseph and Mary?

Seen in the world, they are Jesus’ father and mother, but seen by the Will, they are not parents before Jesus the True Parent. Because Jesus came with the ideal of seeking again what was lost, because he was the Messiah who came with the mission of the True Parent—sinless and able to be publicly recognized by God—however much they were the ones who bore him, before that Messiah, they are children. To put it again, the meaning is that Jesus is the ancestor. Is it believable? There is the expression “the opening of heaven and earth,” is there not?

What is the opening of heaven and earth (천지개벽)?

I think of it thus. I hold that a son becoming the father before his father and doing the work is the opening of heaven and earth. Could there be such a thing in the world?

This is why, before the Messiah, the filial son was to be Joseph, the filial daughter of filial daughters was to be Mary; before the Messiah, the loyal subject was to be Joseph, and before the Messiah, the loyal woman was to be Mary.

Even to die for Jesus, they ought to have died first. Had it been so, disciples would have been unnecessary.

Yet Jesus went without saying all he had to say. The father went without saying all he had to say to his child. The meaning is that Jesus, who shouldered a heavenly mission, went without telling even Joseph—who was worldly, his father, but inwardly in a position like a son—all of his secrets.

So how sorrowful must he have been?

Did he not say,

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:12–13).

When one sees such a passage, one is dumbfounded.

The Messiah who came upon this earth—sorrowful, sorrowful! (The words after this were not recorded.)Words after this were not recorded.)