My Journey With Jesus
By Celine Stoco
This blog post is the first in a series exploring the essence of Jesus and how our understanding is evolving.
In a world filled with uncertainty and chaos, people find comfort in the timeless teachings and profound example set by Jesus Christ. As we recently celebrated Pentecost, which celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus , it should be seen as an opportunity to reflect on the enduring impact of his life and inspire ourselves to be and do better.
When I was younger, I found it difficult to connect with Jesus. For me, he was way above me. He seemed like a distant figure, almost unreal, and I struggled to understand how I could form a meaningful relationship with someone who I was only able to see in pictures. But as time passed by, I had the opportunity to listen to one of the best lectures of my life. I heard this person talking with so much passion, tears in his eyes as he explained Jesus's life course and how much God suffered as he saw his son being tortured and sacrificed. After this moving lecture, I decided I wanted to build such a relationship where I have tears in my eyes when talking about Jesus.
Firstly, I needed to understand the reason why God sent Jesus to earth. As a Unificationist, I concluded that he came not only as a teacher and a healer but as the embodiment of God's love and grace and that he was responsible for spreading God’s word. . Jesus came to restore what had been lost at the fall, which was God’s ideal for a family, with God as our Heavenly Parent and Adam and Eve as his children. . After thousands of years of preparation, God sent his son in hopes to reconnect us with our original nature, thus bringing us back into God’s parental embrace.
“Jesus came for the sake of God’s love.”
After understanding why Jesus came, I went and asked how he was supposed to accomplish such an enormous task. After reading Unificationist scripture, I discovered that he was supposed to grow and express the true nature of God, which is as a loving parent.
“O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
When the right time came, he as God’s Only Begotten Son was meant to find the Only Begotten Daughter, have the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and build a family under God’s true love, which was how it should have been since the beginning. This might all sound like a foreign concept, as there is no other religion that has thought to talk about God’s daughter in substance. We’ll explore the concept of the Only Begotten Daughter in a later post.
“It would be a serious matter for the only begotten son to live alone. There must be an only begotten woman. Therefore, he must search for the only begotten woman, and they must get married in a place they mutually prefer centering on God. They must get married, becoming the bridegroom and the bride who can rejoice as horizontal parents with God rejoicing as the vertical parent, and multiply children on earth.”
In his time for marriage preparation, Jesus taught humanity so much, and as I read some of his teachings I started to see how touching his relationship with God was. He is the reason a lot of people don’t see God as a ruler or a tyrant but as a Father, a loving, caring Father who is suffering unimaginable pain but is unable to intervene directly.
“You should know that Jesus’ view of God as the Father was that revolutionary. Jesus went a step higher and introduced God’s love. In the Old Testament Age, Moses introduced only the God of authority, God of power, and God of judgment, without being able to introduce the God of love. But, Jesus introduced love.”
Jesus also taught us how we should always treat others as we would like to be treated in Matthew 7:12. He showed us that if we want to build a better world, we need to unite and not fight, as said inMatthew 5:39.
“Through Jesus, God revealed His true loving form in which He loves His enemies and forgives a brother’s faults, not just seven times but even seventy times seven. How could a father not forgive his child’s faults? God is not someone you can see; in Jesus, the invisible God appeared as the visible God.”
After seeing how much Jesus changed the way people saw God, and how people acted, my heart was touched.
The next step was to understand how his death came to happen. The person who made me feel a small piece of the deep sadness God felt when Jesus was crucified was Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon. He explained that Jesus died not because he failed, but because people failed him. From the very start, due to the failure of others, Jesus had to work much harder. He was obligated to pull his disciples out of the ashes, and he did all of that with a thankful heart because the only thing he truly desired was to allow his father, God, to have his children back.
Unfortunately, Jesus was crucified at such a young age, and again not due to lack of effort, but because his disciples abonded him. Even after being tortured and on the verge of death, he taught us the power of forgiveness.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus was suffering and dying, but what worried him the most was that God’s efforts were not recognized by the people. Because of his persistence and goodness, and even though he was not able to complete his mission due to a lack of belief from the people, he was still able to open the doors of spiritual rebirth.
"Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." - Luke 23:43
After my journey of years of listening to lectures, speeches, and reading books, I can say that I now have a profound relationship with Jesus of love and gratitude, and my heart aches to think of how much suffering he had to endure for other people. Alongside the unimaginable pain God felt when witnessing his son being killed.
My journey to build my relationship with Jesus was profound and full of tears. It resulted in an even greater bond with God. During Easter time, I remember how I can always do something good, from selfless action, strong faith, or forgiving someone who has wronged me. I believe we can all feel closer to Jesus by following his example a little more each day.