The Sunday next before Lent

 

14th February 2010  9:00am & 11:45am

 

Preacher: The Dean

 

Readings: Exodus 34:29-end, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-36

 

 

The Arrival of Blessings

 

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, may I wish you a happy Chinese New Year. May the blessings of God come upon you and your families.

 

Many Chinese families would post the word “Blessings” on their doors, but what does it mean? How do we seek true blessedness? Most people have in mind what they deem to be a land of blessing, they think that merely by arriving at such a place, they will receive all the blessings.

 

About 3,000 years ago, Jews living in Egypt had a similar belief. Jews were hard working people and they had become a formidable force in Egypt. Their prosperity led to their ultimate demise, and they were subjugated under the tyrannical rule of the Pharaoh and the unfair treatment of fellow Egyptians. They had not initiated any quarrel, but they gradually slipped into slavery in a foreign land.

 

Being away from home and living in the shadows of oppressors, the life of slavery ruined their strength, while racial discrimination gnawed at their weakened spirit. Thus the ideal of a blessed land took root and occupied an important part of their psyche, urging the slaves onto their journey to seek this ideal.

 

The dream became a yearning, and tremendous strength was needed to act on an ideal. According to the Jews, this strength comes from the merciful Lord, Jehovah their redeemer. This Lord God had promised their forefather Abraham that he will become a free and wealthy nation. Relying on this promise, which none of them had any experience of, the slaves ventured forth upon their journey.

 

Departing from the land of slavery, they did not immediately arrive at the blessed land. Leaving Egypt behind, the Jews had to face the impending journey into a vast land of wilderness and hardships. The immediate problems of water and food, the discomfort of scorching days and freezing nights, the slaves were faced with the choice of braving all adversity to stay with a dream, or returning to immediate and petty comforts and remain slaves. Of course there were those who preferred to return to the compromised security of a life of suppression, but most were committed to continue with this journey to seek the land of God’s promise. They went through 40 years of homelessness, experienced indescribable harsh conditions, after an entire generation had passed away, the Jews of the new generation finally arrived at the promised land of milk and honey.

 

Entering the wilderness to seek the blessing of God is the very call of all Jews and Christians alike. We are faced with a similar choice today, to face the challenge of life and search for blessedness. For this, we need steely strength and sincerity, for the journey is indeed a long and tedious one, and there are prices to pay on the way. Unfortunately, many wish to obtain blessedness without asking too much from themselves. Just like many people would choose to go on a one or two hour seminar and expecting to learn everything there is to know about some professional skills; many demonstrators think that by shouting some slogans, our community will become utterly democratic; many wish for minimum revision and get fantastic exam results; many join leadership training course once or twice and expect to become a talented leader. What we call blessedness today, is actually the search for true faith, the journey itself becomes the blessedness from God. This blessedness isn’t about wealth and luxuries, even less about a quick spiritual fix or an admission pass into heaven; we are expected to be like the Jews of the Exodus, to rid ourselves of the shackles of slavery, to experience baptism of the wilderness in order to reach the God’s promised land of freedom. We need to bear in mind two things, firstly, blessedness has to be actively accepted and we must expect to pay a cost; secondly, true blessedness can only thrive and take root in the spirit of faithfulness.

 

Please let me expand. Many accomplished athletes can perform brilliantly with their speciality in track and field, diving platforms and apparatus, because they have gone through strenuous training, they have fallen and injured themselves, they have experienced disappointment and failure. The South African human rights leader Nelson Mandela said, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realized. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” His every word rings truth to us. He was not trying to sound grand, nor was it a mere fantasy on his part. Upon those words, he had struggled for 50 years, tirelessly striving to seek racial stability, equality, democracy and human rights. He was prepared to pay the high cost for this fight. If we ask what price we have to pay in order to receive blessedness, according to the life of Mandela, it was 50 years of struggle and 27 years of prison life.

 

My second point was “true blessedness can only thrive and take root in the spirit of faithfulness.” If we ask, how can the kite fly so high: the answer would be because there is a line steering its direction. If we ask: why do trees grow so tall: the answer would be because it has deep roots. We often see 3 or 4 year old children in the park, wanting to break away from their parents to run free, but we have also noticed that they always look back to establish contact with their parents, and once assured, they will continue to roam free, to even further distances. The line of the kite, the roots of a tree and the parents of the children, what do they represent? They embody a noble tolerance and the spirit which nurtures faith and ideals, which is the foundation blocks of a righteous character, and such foundation will lead to true blessedness in life.

 

The blessedness we speak of and search for today far surpasses the joys and pains we normally associate “good fortune” with. The blessedness God has prepared for us has come upon us by the Christ’s gospel. Many people can only savour life on the surface, but cannot grasp the inner value and positioning, weighing oneself solely according to temporal assessment. These people may appear to do well, but they cannot ignore their unsettled minds, the emptiness they sense and the feeling of being lost. We see these successful people, even when the stock and property markets are doing well, they worry about the Hang Seng index and the market performance. This way, no one feels safe, no one trusts each other, honesty becomes a rare quality in interpersonal relationships. These worries keep us from reaching true happiness, and sometimes we become slaves to life, to the Hang Seng index, to the property market and even to ourselves.

 

Let us follow the example of the Jews and dismantle our shackles to seek the Promised Land – a blessed land. We should realise that we have to pay a price. We may find ourselves preferring the false comforts of slavery, and resist that difficult journey to look for true blessedness. Following Christ’s way, we may encounter real difficulties, because our faith in Christ’s gospel points toward a very different direction than that of the material world. We may be laughed at, we may stumble and hurt ourselves, we may become discouraged and disheartened, and we may feel that we want to give up the fight and return to the life of slavery. However, if we are committed to paying that price, if we are steadfast in our belief to bear the cross and follow Christ, an inner light will shine upon the path we tread, leading to the true blessedness that Christ secured for us. Through today’s reading we are reminded of the transfiguration, which is the turning point in the life of Christ. In the account, Jesus’s clothes radiated light, his face changed. Disciples at the scene felt so elated that they wished to perpetuate this moment, but Jesus did not linger in the instant of his own blessedness, he wanted to pass on greater blessings to the people in the world. Fortified by this passion, he took upon even tougher mission journeys, until he was crucified, died, rose again and ascended into heaven.

 

Actually, his Disciples had not understood what blessings Jesus was bringing them, until they met Christ face to face after he was risen. Then they were able to consider Christ from their rooted faith, and made the choice of Exodus as their ancestors once did generations before them, and embarked upon the Via Dolorosa of the Saviour Jesus Christ their enlightened teacher, and reach the best blessings in the end.

 

God once promised the Israelites a land of milk and honey; today, He promised and gave to us the life of Christ. During this New Year, let us take to our hearts the fervour of the Jews during the Exodus, and journey towards the life of Christ. Seeking true blessedness from God adds meaning to our “huichun” (the red auspicious posters we hang at home during Chinese New Year), we will understand the love, righteousness and mercy of God, these blessings will come upon us and our families, and we shall be truly blessed.