On Wednesday 17th April 1935, as Easter was about to begin, on Myodu hill, not far from home, Sun Myung Moon met Jesus, who explained how 2,000 years ago he had been unable to complete the mission for which he came to earth. In Sun Myung Moon‘s own words:
“When I was 15, I had an extraordinary experience. It was an Easter morning, and I was in deep prayer. I cried as I prayed. Then Jesus appeared. He revealed many things to me and explained that God‘s heart was full of sorrow and pain because of us humans. Jesus asked me to take on a special mission so that God‘s will could be completed here on earth. It is difficult to explain to you about this experience. In short, the spirit world suddenly opened before me, and I was able to communicate freely with holy and wise men in the spirit world. In the quiet hills of northern Korea, I spoke directly to Jesus many times. The revelations I received then constitute the very core of the Unification Principles.”
Jesus asked him to take upon himself the responsibility of completing the mission which Jesus himself had started 2,000 years earlier, but which, because of his premature death, he had not been able to complete. Sun Myung Moon thought at first that he could not promise such a thing, but Jesus urged him repeatedly, stressing that the young Korean was specially chosen by God and that there was no one else who could take on such a mission. Therefore, the 15 year old boy in the end said yes. But he hardly knew what he was getting himself into.
Here is how Sun Myung Moon describes his encounter with Jesus in his autobiography,
“It was the night before Easter the year I turned fifteen. That day also, as usual, I climbed up the Myodu hill behind our village and stayed up all night praying. As the tears flowed, I begged God for answers to my questions, ‘Why had He created a world full of so much sorrow and despair? Why did an all-knowing and all-powerful God leave this world to itself when it is in such sorrow and pain? What should I do for my poor fatherland?’
As the tears flowed, I asked this again and again.
I was up praying all night without sleeping at all. At dawn that Easter morning, Jesus manifested himself before me. Like a gust of wind, Jesus appeared and said, ‘Because of the sufferings of humankind, God has a broken heart. That is why he asks you to take on a special mission in God‘s work on earth.’
That day I saw the sorrowful face of Jesus clearly and heard his voice distinctly. Seeing Jesus manifest made my body tremble violently, like an aspen leaf. Then and there I was seized with an awe so great that I thought I was going to die, and at the same time carried away by emotions so strong that I thought I was going to explode. Right in front of me, Jesus clearly explained to me what I had to do. In an incredible way, he told me that I should save a humanity that was suffering and in pain, and bring joy to God.”
– From Sun Myung Moon‘s autobiography, chapter 2, section 1, translated from the Korean original.
