Rev. Hwang's sermon at the early service at the Headquarters Church on March 18, 2001. In it he reflects on True Parents' speaking tour and Hyun-Jin Nim's 21-day workshop.

Good morning brothers and sisters. The new spring in the new millennium is here. Spring always reminds us of the miraculous aspects of life. Even a little bud coming out of a dried branch is a miracle. I have a little potted plant at home. I could never tell during winter whether or not it was alive. However, as soon as spring came, little green buds came out. Needless to say, beautiful flowers are good to look at and fruit is good to eat. But just watching little buds coming out of old trees really touches something in our hearts. Such a seemingly small event is one of the many wonders of life you can observe if you look around carefully.

I have told you this story before, but I will tell you again. I met the vice president of Sun Moon University at the graduation ceremony there. He told me that he had already been to the spirit world three times [during near-death experiences]. At one point in his life, he could not breathe well or swallow one sip of water. Now, gradually, he has recovered from that. He feels how precious and wonderful it is to be able to chew on every grain of steamed rice he eats each day. He used to have to take medicine as large as a rice ball, but now he can eat rice balls instead. He now knows how wonderful it is to breathe, to drink and to eat and he is grateful. It is a very moving testimony. I think we have to check how much we appreciate the miracles and wonders of everyday life, especially in spring when everything around us is blossoming.

The spring of 2001 is the culmination of the past 2000 years of Christianity and of Father's life and a new beginning. I can easily tell that True Parents' lives were deeply affected and renewed by the Coronation Ceremony of the Kingship of God held on January 13th. I could not directly take part in Father's speaking tour. I was able to talk with Father by phone during the tour, however. The first thing Father said was, "You must remember deep in your heart how precious it is for us to have been able to hold the coronation ceremony for God's kingship. It is indeed a turning point in history."

America represents the fruit of all of human history. Right after Adam and Eve's fall, God's salvation work started. The entire history of salvation is bearing fruit in the United States. True Parents are effecting the culmination of the Christian culture in America and opening a new chapter in the history of salvation. The first concrete expression of this is True Father's speaking tour, which is now taking place in America.

In the Father's speech collection entitled True Family and World Peace, you can read "View of the Principle of the Providential History of Salvation," in which he talks about Tamar and Mary and the background of Jesus' birth. He comments, "I know how much Christians dislike my talking about this kind of thing; but I must speak about it for the sake of the providence and because these words are true." Even though he has received so much persecution from Christians since the establishment of HSA-UWC, he has never stopped loving Christianity. It has been forty years since True Parents began their mission as True Parents. And they have spent thirty of those years of public ministry in the United States. It is not because of personal preference, but because they had to do so for the sake of the dispensation. How much wrong has Christianity and the United States done to True Parents? In spite of that, True Parents are taking responsibility for them simply because they are their Parents, too.

This year, Father has been speaking since February 25th, fifty places in about fifty days. Of course, True Parents will stop for the True Parents' Day celebration on March 25th. But since they will host that too, it will not be a break for them.

As Father said, he is literally risking his life. You all know his age. And America is different from here. One needs to go by plane from one place to another. Father will have to go back and forth across the entire continent several times.

Half of the venues Father is speaking in are well-known Christian churches and half are public places. It is amazing to see that so many people are gathering at the events. It has been remarkably successful.

What is more amazing is that one third of the participants are Christian ministers, and another third Christian laymen. Christian ministers prepare the events; they pray and sing in the choir before the speeches. Christians gather and support True Father at each event. It is indeed historic. We cannot imagine how intense he is when he speaks to these people. He invests everything of himself for the time he is with them.

He invests his entire life in his speeches. We might think that Father could speak at the beginning of the tour, then True Mother or one of the True Children or some leader could take over for Father. But Father has a different idea. He himself said, "I am doing this at the risk of my life." Fifty days, nonstop; putting his life on the line. This is not a casual matter.

In 1971, when True Parents went to America, it was like a bridegroom going to see his bride. He did a fifty-state tour at that time. Now, to finalize the last thirty years of his ministry in America, to fulfill his final responsibility as a parent for the second generation, he is speaking in all fifty states again. Moreover, he will begin a new providence.

Father is using two speeches: "The Path for America and Humanity in the New Millennium" and "In Search of the Origin of the Universe." What we should pay most attention to is what he says about true family values. What has God lost since He created humanity? God lost true love, true life and true lineage. The goal of a true family is to recover what God once lost.

Those American Christians surrendered to Father's teaching on the values of true love, true life, true lineage and true family. Their hearts were moved. What can move American society today? It is the most advanced nation in the world. It has one of the most developed social systems in the world. Externally, they already have a heavenly environment. However, they've lost the life out of it. That lost life is the ideal of a true family. Father's words are like injections to heal them.

At this point, we have to ask ourselves how fully we have realized the precious values True Parents have been teaching us over the years. The true family values they are teaching us are not just a concept, but a reality. Is there evidence for what they are teaching? What is that evidence? We are.

Not only True Parents but also all brothers and sisters should be the living proof of what True Parents have been teaching. So that is why we must ask ourselves if we have been good examples in front of True Parents who are investing their all to realize the true family ideal. When we are not good testimonies for True Parents' teaching, do we not make their teaching empty? When we become truly good examples of their teaching, are we not giving them so much more power and life? I think we all need to sincerely reflect on how legitimate and true we are.

Well, the MC has already told you about my family. Last week, we gained an additional family member. When a wife is pregnant, what normally happens is her husband visits her gynecologist with her at some point. I could never do that. I felt too awkward about being a new father at my age.... Of course, I went to the hospital when the baby was born. But I did not stay long. The other fathers were so young. So, I just quickly saw our new baby. When I took more time with them at home, my feelings were a lot different from those I had had about my children when I was in my twenties. I could appreciate it more now. I felt tremendous joy over the miracle of new life.

When we joined the church, didn't every word of Father's have such a miraculous power in our hearts? When we received the blessing, didn't we feel that creating our own family was precious and mysterious? The feeling can be compared to the feelings we might have when we see new buds coming out of the dried branches of an old tree. The excitement and gladness in our hearts, "You have been alive all along!" With that kind of appreciation of life's miracles, we started our family life. Now is the time of registered blessed families when, independent of True Parents, we have to bear our own fruit. So, we need to check to what degree our families have been fruitful, if at all. True Parents do not talk about how many of us have been blessed but how many of the blessed families have borne fruit and have made significant changes in history. This spring, we need to check how good a testimony to True Parents' teaching we have been. We need to start the new age with such a standard and with such an outlook on life.

True Parents are in the process of beginning a new dispensation right now in South America, which represents Catholicism. Father gathered all the national messiahs representing the whole world in the Pantanal, in Brazil. He is having them make strong conditions and is educating them.

Those who have been to the Pantanal know it is like the garden of Eden right after God created it. It is so pure. It is a little inconvenient to get to, but it has no contamination or pollution. Father chose a place close to nature to begin a new history and to advance his work in a new area.

He could have chosen a place in Seoul or anywhere in America where there are many educational facilities. But he chose the Pantanal since it is the closest to his heart for its original quality, and the freedom it represents. Father says that he feels most at home there. Externally, it is an inconvenient place to live. Toilet, transportation and communication facilities are very poor.

But Father is at home with such inconveniences, because he is an original man. In the same way that we can relax completely in our mother's embrace, Father longs for a simple lifestyle that resonates with his heart. Since he could not have all the national messiahs join in the speaking tour, he let them make good conditions for it in the Pantanal. Father was present personally when they began their condition. When he began the tour, he told them not to eat anything and not to do anything else for three days, but just to read Father's speeches to make good conditions for the new dispensation.

That way, it was as if he was investing all of history in the tour and the national messiahs were conditionally participating.

True Parents are educating us. Do they teach us about technology or the latest trends? What are they supposed to be educating us about? They should be teaching us about original nature, how to be people of original nature. They are the only ones whose lives are completely one with their original nature. They are the only ones who can teach us how to be our original selves.

Last spring, True Father was here in Korea. At that time, he spoke in twenty-one different venues all over the country, from the middle of January to the end of March. He taught solely about how to live the original way of life.

There must have been a little potted plant in the rest room at the Hannam-dong residence-now the house is being repaired. As spring came last year, little buds started to grow out. So whenever Father went to the restroom, he must have checked those new buds. They were just about 1mm tall in the beginning of the spring and later they grew up to be about 5mm as spring reached its peak. Father was so moved and touched by life's wonders in the seemingly insignificant changes in a small plant. He asked us if we grew as much everyday through studying his words. That is Father's main concern.

When we were on Cheju Island, one fine day, we all went to some botanical gardens. Father looked around the whole place and pointed at some lotus flowers. He said, "Look at the lotus flowers. Look at them blossoming in the muddy water. We cannot see the branches or roots. But they have taken root somewhere in the right place in the middle of that muddy water so we can see the flowers. Our life is exactly the same. We must take root in the original world to be able to blossom and flower in this evil and suffering world."

Every aspect of Father's life teaches us something about the value of the original way of life. Father is educating the national messiahs in one of the most humble environments, close to nature, to teach the original way of life.

As we observe the way True Parents live, let's think about how we should be living. We need to get in touch with our original nature. How much have we actually realized the ideal of true family in our daily lives? True Parents have acknowledged and entrusted us as independent and self-supporting blessed families who have registered in heaven, in the beginning of the new age. We must check to see if we are worthy of their trust.

It is hot in the Pantanal. It is spring in the United States, but the snow had not yet melted at the Canadian workshop site. Spring has not reached there yet. Young people, aged forty and below, from all over the world came to make a new beginning under Hyun-Jin Nim, in Quebec. The theme of the workshop is "A New Paradigm of Leadership for the Settlement Age." In the new settlement age, second-generation brothers and sisters are being trained to take responsibility in a place where it was sometimes 30 below zero [Celsius]. I was there for a week tumbling around in the snow.

True Parents assigned Hyun-Jin Nim to be the vice president of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, as the president of World CARP and as the president of the Youth Federation For World Peace. They put him in the central position of the new age.

Hyun-Jin Nim told the second generation three things. The first was a confession of how he had struggled with his faith. As he was born into the True Family and grew up as a True Child, he had to agonize over so many things. Mostly, he agonized over what he ought to live for-what sort of future he ought to have as a direct child of True Parents with whom he has an unbreakable tie. He knew that he could create a nice, well-to-do family without having to be indebted to anyone. But he felt that he was destined not to live as a private man. This was not because True Parents told him so. He felt strongly in his heart that, for God, he ought to take up a responsibility. It was for him a tearful decision to step into a public life. He confessed this about his faith.

He is now only thirty-two this year, but I see in him a very mature leader. I felt naturally able to surrender to him. When we think of the second generation, we think that they were born into this religion and that they simply inherited their parents' faith. We easily think that the second generation do not have to go through what we had to go through to choose this path: agonizing over and over until we made our final decision to choose True Parents above everything else.

But I could learn from Hyun-Jin Nim's testimony. He also had to go through a lot and agonized long and hard before determining to put himself at the center of the movement as he is now. I was so grateful to Heavenly Father and him for his being what he is. I felt and still do feel so proud of him.

The second thing he talked about was how he struggled after he had made a decision to walk a public course. After he analyzed the reality of our movement from a socio-scientific viewpoint, he simply was at a loss. There seemed no way out.

He asked what the most important thing was in our lives. He said that nothing was more important than love. Don't you agree? Even if you have everything in the world, all the money, all the power and everything you want, if there is no love, everything feels like death. This is the way God created us.

It was not because Hyun-Jin Nim resented the first generation or those who are in the Cain position, but, rather, to make a completely new beginning, he concluded that we had to start everything new.

Hyun-Jin Nim emphasized that we should all go back to the point at which we first fell in love with Father's words. He said that our external accomplishments are not truly what we essentially are. He emphasized we must go back to where we all began our faith. He asked, "Isn't our essence true love, true life and a true lineage? Isn't our essence the true family ideal?" With tears in his eyes he appealed to the participating second generation brothers and sisters to start the new settlement age centering on that essential teaching.

I was moved by Hyun-Jin Nim and deeply repented in many ways. What can we offer to True Parents, our brothers and sisters in the Abel position and the second generation following our footsteps? This is the reality we must face. Father is putting things in order for American Christianity, the fruit of all his work in the America at the risk of his life. In South America, Father called the national messiahs representing the world and history to educate them on our true essence and to have them make conditions. In the frozen land of North America, centering on Hyun-Jin Nim, new life is beginning with the education of the second generation about our true essence.

As Father has said, how miserable our spirits are going to be if we never experienced spring in our lives here! What kind of spring does he talk about? Eternal spring. Without experiencing eternal spring, we end up becoming miserable spirits wandering around.

The spring we are welcoming now is the eternal spring. In the prayer I read to you today [one of Father's prayers from 1970], he said how sad it was for him not to have welcomed a new spring. Now is the time of the eternal spring he longed to meet back then.

This spring, True Father is risking his life in America and the new history is emerging in one part of North America centering on Hyun-Jin Nim. We must ask ourselves precisely what we are doing here in Korea, the central nation of the providence.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus had to go to the spirit world without completing his mission on earth. Three days after his death he resurrected, and stayed on earth for forty days before going to the spirit world for good. For forty days, he built the foundation of spiritual salvation, rather than the intended one of complete salvation, and then ascended to heaven. As he left the earth he said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

True Parents are asking us to do exactly the same. As Jesus asked his disciples to make disciples of all nations, True Parents also have asked us to make children of our nations. As Jesus asked his disciples to baptize their disciples, True Parents have asked us to bless our spiritual children. Just like Jesus, True Parents have asked us to teach our spiritual children.

So we must go and make spiritual children of all nations, blessing them in the name of True Parents and teaching them to follow everything True Parents have commanded us. Father told us that our country is where we will all settle and that we will regain this land for eternity.

So we must prepare for that. In this eternal spring, we must determine to go to our tribes and bless them. We must generate in ourselves a new heart to be the central figures of the eternal heavenly spring, and to greet True Parents on their return with true joy in our hearts.

[Originally published in Today's World, March 2001]

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