Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

I was in the living room singing and playing my guitar and my mother brought out from the kitchen

1. An orange

for the stone that was rolled away

She went back into the kitchen and came out 2 minutes later with

2. A bowl of hard boiled eggs

for the new life we have in Christ Jesus because he rose from the dead!

Finally on her last trip, she brought out

3. A bag of pears

for the fruit of the spirit that we have: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control

Christ is risen!

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Yu Sheng for Christians

Singaporeans eat a lot of Yu Sheng during Chinese New Year. Yu Sheng is a salad of shredded carrots, cucumber and various spices, crackers and plum sauce, topped with slivers of raw fish. I love the taste of Yu Sheng, but it is not for how it tastes that Chinese people eat it. It is because of what it symbolises.

If you go to a restaurant, the waitress will speak many auspicious words as she pours each ingredient on the plate. I'm always very bemused at how good and lucky everything sounds and how each auspicious word is matched with an appropriate ingredient. For example, when she pours in the sweet plum sauce, she says, “甜甜密密” (sweet and intimate); when you pours out the crispy crackers, she says, "财源滚滚" (wealth rolls down).

After every auspicious ingredient is on the plate, every one at the table takes his chopsticks and tosses the salad, the higher the better, symbolising better things to come. (步步高升: rising higher).

It is all very fun and interesting, except that some of the words will make a Christian uncomfortable. Stuff like 金银满屋 (gold that fills the house) or 满地黄金 (gold all over the floor), or even 大吉大利 （to be very auspicious) or 恭喜发财 (get rich). So I decided to try my hand at writing my own script for Yu Sheng, with (a lot of) help from my dad.

What to say while serving Yu Sheng
Place Yu Sheng on table: 主恩满溢 and 万事神意
Add limejuice: 年年蒙恩
Add raw fish: 福杯满溢 and 龙马精神
Add five-spice powder, peanuts: 主内平安 and 年年有余
Add crackers: 年年快乐 and 原主带领

Rough translations:
主恩满溢: Abundant grace
万事神意: Everything in God's will
年年蒙恩: Blessed by God yearly
福杯满溢 : Abundant blessings
龙马精神: Good health
主内平安: Peace in Christ
年年有余: Abundance
年年快乐 : Happiness
原主带领: God's guidance

Any suggestions for improvement?

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Alone in the Universe, by David Wilkinson

I have one thing to say: QUIRKY. This book covered everything from UFO sightings to crop circles to conspiracy theories to life on Mars to Star Trek. I don't think I was in Wilkinson's target demographic group because everything was just a little too quirky for me.

What does the Carpenter's song "Calling all interplanetary craft" have to do with anything? Wilkinson starts one of his early chapters with a quote from this guy: "I am convinced there is life out there. It is only a matter of when we find it." Which made me sit up, choke a bit on my beverage of choice, and look at the cover again to check the title of what I was reading.

Wilkinson ends the book on a more sober note. He says that for now, there is very little evidence that points to life apart from earth, but that our desire to find other types of life-forms is representative of our longing NOT to be alone, and that we are in fact not alone, because Jesus came 2000-odd years ago.

I know Wilkinson isn't implying this, but the thought of Jesus as an alien life form gives me the creeps.

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The Lord's Prayer in the Original Greek

Our Father in heaven
Let your name be hallowed )
Let your kingdom come___) On earth as it is in heaven
Let your will be done_____)

Nurture us for your kingdom work
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
Lead us not into testing
But deliver us from evil

The first word of this prayer puts us in relation with those around us, from the most distant aquaintence to our loved ones -- God is "our Father", and so we are "brothers and sisters", even if we are not all Christians.

When we pray "Let your name be hallowed; let your kingdom come; let your will be done -- on earth as it is in heaven", we are praying that we will be in that posture of life to make it happen. This means that every thing we do, every one we meet, every thought, every bit of us is for God and for the fulfilment of God's kingdom here on earth.

"Give us this day our daily bread" is really better translated "Nurture us for your kingdom work", because even as we pray the lines before, about wanting to be the vessel of God's work, we realise that we are woefully inadequate, so we ask God to nurture us every day.

"Forgive us as we forgive..." puts us in relation with the people in our lives as well.

The Lord's prayer ends with "Lead us not into testing," where testing refers to God testing the hearts of men, which we fail; and so we plead for God to keep us from the evil in our own hearts, the sin that is so close.

~ Adapted from Rev Dr Robert Mullholland's sermon

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Christ in my rising

If "Christ below me" makes me cringe, "Christ in my rising" makes me smile. Sung right after "Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting", "rising" refers to Christ being there when I wake up from my sleep. These three lines remind me that Christ watches over me all the time, whether I'm sleeping or sitting or waking up.

Christ beside me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, King of my heart;
Christ within me, Christ below me,
Christ above me, never to part.

Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand,
Christ all around me, shield in strife;
Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting,
Christ in my rising, light of my life.

But the word `rising' also alludes to the resurrection: the final rising from the dead. This is the wonderful news: the grave no longer has power over us! And it is because of Christ that we will be raised!

Frankly, I think it is easy not to believe in an afterlife. The reason most of us feel like an afterlife ought to exist is because we simply cannot imagine ourselves or our loved ones not existing. Yet, wasn't there a time when we were not? I was born in 1977. Where was I in 1940? Do I have any recollection of that time? Therefore, since I did not exist in 1940, it is just as easy for me to believe that I won't exist in 2077. Experience proves it.

But I don't know if I want to trust my experience in this case. I don't know if I really want to believe that this is all to life: a brief candle flame, signifying nothing. I don't know if I want to believe that the coffin is the be-all and end-all of everything; it just seems so pointless.

So I choose instead to have faith in the words of Jesus:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.

Sometimes the future is scary. I bought a savings plan that will mature in 25 years. In 25 years, I will be 53. Will my parents still be around then? That scares me. So much that I will probably find it hard to sleep tonight. But somehow I must find comfort in the promise that God will always be there, from cradle to grave to whatever is beyond.

Is this all just wishful thinking? I don't know. I suppose that is why they say that faith is evidence of things unseen.

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Christ below me

This is a prayer by St Patrick to the tune of "Morning has Broken".

Christ beside me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, King of my heart;
Christ within me, Christ below me,
Christ above me never to part.

Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left hand,
Christ all around me, shield in strife;
Christ in my sleeping, Christ in my sitting,
Christ in my rising, light of my life.

I don't know about you but every time I get to the line "Christ below me", I cringe. How can Christ be below me? It is as if I am the one trodding on the fumie, the image of Christ (See Silence, by Shusaku Endo). It feels disrespectful, and so I quieten my voice when I get to that line.

It bothered me for a few days and then I kept thinking about the phrase over and over again. And then it struck me: the phrase reminds me that the people under me at work, the people who serve me in restaurants, who clean my table, and remove my trash is Christ to me. Jesus says that when you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners, you are actually doing it for Christ!

If you have been given position and status in life, you have to serve. The image is of Christ on a donkey. That is like a CEO on one of those black ah-pek bicycles with cases of cardboard tied at the back. Not exactly glamorous transportation. It is not at all easy to be a servant -- in fact, Jesus says that it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (lots of camel references in the New Testament, you noticed?). But we've got to at least try.

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Wonderful Fool, by Shusaku Endo

The wonderful fool of this novel is an ungainly, horse-faced Frenchman called Gaston Boanparte who comes to Japan for the first time with a love and trust in people is as simple-minded and foolish as a child’s. The foreigner, as he is often referred to, sticks out like a sore thumb; physically, he constantly has to bend his head low to walk through tiny Japanese-sized corridors, squeeze through fences, and manoeuvre his longs legs to fit in Japanese-styled trains, sleeping and eating mats, as if his brand of large expansive love and trust just does not quite fit in shrewd and uptight Japan.

But he is determined to remain in Japan, and just as inexplicably, he changes the people around him, either aiding or thwarting the plans of those he comes into contact with. A pragmatic professional, an irresponsible care-free bachelor, a fortune teller, a prostitute and thief, a murderer, even a lame old dog — all these characters are somehow changed by coming into his wandering path.

He is dull-witted, barely grasping the nuances of what people say; he thinks himself a failure; he is ridiculously dressed; he does not command respect. In a way, he is practically the opposite of John Irving’s intelligent, dominating and opinionated Owen Meany, yet both Owen and Gaston have a spark of the divine.

The style of writing in this novel is more descriptive and rich compared with the bleak, stark writing in Silence. As in Silence, Shusaku Endo uses a lot of dialogue, but the dialogue in Wonderful Fool is wittier and more textured. It is a humorous novel and very enjoyable to read.

I am dying to compare this novel with Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, but I can’t remember The Idiot well enough, shucks. I’m going to have to read The Idiot again, but it is such a thick and difficult-to-read book!

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Lead us not into temptation

Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil.

It is very difficult to find a "Christian answer" in times of tribulation. In Nazi Germany, leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches remained largely silent as the atrocities against the Jews escalated. A few Christian leaders published papers defending the Jews, but even fewer had the courage to protest.

Prior to World War I, the church in the US advocated negotiation and arbitration rather than armed conflict. Yet, when 1917 rolled by and the US formally entered the war, the Methodists supported the war cause along with the other mainline churches and published this poster. Would you have been able to find a viable peaceful alternative?

In Japan, during one of the most successful extermination attempt in church history, Christians who agreed to step on the fumie--an icon of the Madonna and Child--were pronounced apostate and set free. Those who refused were hunted down and killed.

The future is scary. What if it came to a point where it is possible to cheat death and cure cancer if we used the DNA from a live embryo, thus destroying it? Would you do it? What if there was a famine and there isn't enough food to go around, can you love your neighbour then? What if there is a pandemic, will we be courageous and do the difficult, or succumb to fear?

Lead us not into times of war, pandemic, tribulation,
because we are weak.

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Links to Christian Classics

I'm simply outdoing myself with all this linking I'm doing. But still cannot compare to this guy who is the King of Links.

Today's link is a bit on the nerdy side (as in, you won't be interested in any of these links if you are not a. a Christian; b. an academic; c. a very curious non-Christian.) In any case, in case you turn out be both a and b, or b and c, or just plain c, here are the places where you can find free Christian classics online.

The Church Fathers
This is a list of works by the Church Fathers compiled by the Roman Catholics. But since we are talking about the first 500 years of Church History, the history of the Protestant church is one and the same as the Catholic church. Incidentally, Protestants have been going back more and more to these early church fathers to seek the tradition and depth that they find lacking in theirs. Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom in an excerpt from their book "Is the Reformation Over?" talks about this phenomenom in the section "Shared Historic Roots".

The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
This site has a much larger range of classics that have have become royalty-free because of time. You can find key Protestant texts such as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Milton's Paradise Lost, etc. You will also find works from the Early Fathers such as Augustine's City of God, and even John Donne's devotions if you are interested.

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The words of a song

Strangely irritated today. Not a good sign. So I'm going to post the words of a hymn that moved me this past weekend. `O Crucified Redeemer' is sung to a lilting Welsh tune and it draws a parrallel between Christ's anguish on the cross and our bloody wars and battlefields.

Frankly, I have never thought of it this way. Our wars, our blood, our epidemics, our hungry, dying, sick children, have always seemed to be our problem, not his. But this hymn seems to say that it is Christ himself who is crying out in anguish in the most horrible and shameful moments of history.

The author of the hymn, Timothy Rees (1874-1939), was a chaplain in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I and must have seen the worst of what human beings could do to each other. He received the distinguished Military Cross for his service, and became a bishop in 1931.

O crucified Redeemer, whose life-blood we have spilt,
to you we raise our guilty hands, and humbly own our guilt.
Today we see your passion spread open to our gaze;
the crowded street, the country road, its Calvary displays.

We hear your cry of anguish, see your life outpoured
where battlefields run red with blood, our neighbours' blood, O Lord;
and in that other battle, the fight for daily bread,
where might is right and self is king, we see your thorn-crowned head.

The groaning of creation wrung out by pain and care,
the anguish of a million hearts that break in dumb despair;
O crucified Redeemer, these are your cries of pain;
O may they break our selfish hearts, and love come in to reign.

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Faith of our Fathers

Faith of our fathers, living still,
in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
whene'er we hear that glorious word!

When I sing this hymn, I am reminded of the early martyrs for Christ -- Ignatius, Polycarp, Perpetua, etc. These men and women of incredible faith, whose blood became the seed for Christianity.

I was surprised to find out today that this hymn was actually referring specifically to the persecution of Roman Catholics by Protestants during Henry VIII's reign as he was in the process of establishing the Church of England! This is the third verse (often omitted).

Faith of our fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win England back unto Thee,
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall indeed be free.

Ironically, the writer of the hymn, Frederick Faber, was brought up and ordained as an Anglican priest in a strict Calvinist home. He later joined the Tractarian movement that promoted a return to ancient liturgies and traditions, and eventually became a Roman Catholic. It was as a Roman Catholic that he wrote "Faith of our Fathers".

Ironically, again, this hymn is now sung in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches all over the world. God does have a sense of humour.

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All things bright and beautiful

For the longest time I didn't understand how people could love a beautiful sunset without being awestruck by the goodness and beauty of God. To me, an awesome sunset is a testament to God's faithfulness, his creative whim at making things simply for the sake of them (why make a sunset? the sun can set just as well without the fanfare of colour), and just a indescribable sense of the goodness and beauty of all creation.

And then I realised that I only think this way because I interprete the world through a biblical worldview, Bible spectatcles, so to speak, and that it is because of the constant reading and re-reading of Psalms, where the "heavens declare the glory of God" and "day after day" pour forth speech; of Isaiah where the mountains and hills burst forth in to song, and the trees will clap their hands; of the Gospels where Jesus said that the rocks would cry out in praise if we were to keep silent; that subconsciously a worldview is formed about nature.

It is interesting that for others things, for example the sinfulness of mankind, the redemption by Christ, etc., I can take off these glasses and see as a non-deist does. I intrinsically understand what it is like to have a headonist worldview -- it makes sense to me. But I cannot take off these Bible spectacles concerning nature, and try as I might, I cannot understand nature apart from God. It is an interesting phenomenom...

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Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown

John Wesley ended his obituary tribute to his brother Charles at the Methodist Conference in 1788: "His least praise was, his talent for poetry: althogh Dr. [Isaac] Watts did not scruple to say that `that single poem, Wrestling Jacob, was worth all the verses he himself had written.'" A little over two weeks after his brother's death, John Wesley tried to teach the hymn at Bolton, but broke down when he came to the lines "my company before is gone, and I am left alone with thee." The poem was first published in the brothers' Hymns and Sacred Poems of 1742, expounding Genesis 32:24-32, influenced by Matthew Henry's exposition.

Come, O Thou Traveler unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee;
with thee all night I mean to stay
and wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell thee who I am,
my misery and sin declare;
thyself hast called me by my name,
look on thy hands and read it there.
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.

In vain thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold;
art thou the man that died for me?
The secret of thy love unfold;
wrestling, I will not let thee go
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell,
to know it now resolved I am;
wrestling, I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

'Tis all in vain to hold thy tongue
or touch the hollow of my tigh;
though every sinew be unstrung,
out of my arms shalt not fly;
wrestling I will not let thee go,
till I thy name, thy nature know.

What though my shrinking flesh complain
and murmur to contend so long?
I rise superior to my pain:
when I am weak then I am strong,
and when my all of strength shall fail
I shallith the God-man prevail.

My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
faint to revive, and fall to rise;
I fall, and yet by faith I stand;
I stand and will not let thee go
till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now - for I am weak
but confident in self-despair!
Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,
be conquered by my instant prayer:
speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
and tell me if thy name is Love.

'Tis Love! 'tis Love! thou diedst for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning break, the shadows flee,
pure Universal Love thou art:
to me, to all, thy mercies move-
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

My prayer hath power with God; the grace
unspeakable I now receive;
through faith I see thee face to face,
I see thee face to face, and live!
In vain I have not wept and strove-
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

I know thee, Saviour, who thou art,
Jesus the feeble sinner's friend;
nor wilt thou with the night depart,
but stay and love me to the end:
thy mercies never shall remove,
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

The Sun of Righteousness on me
hath risen with healing in his wings:
withered my nature's strength; from thee
my soul its life and succor brings;
my help is all laid up above;
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

Contented now upon my thigh
I halt, till life's short journey end;
all helplessness, all weakness I
on thee alone for strength depend;
nor have I power from thee to move:
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

Lame as I am, I take the prey,
hell, earth, and sin with ease overcome;
I leap for joy, pursue my way,
and as a bounding hart fly home,
through all eternity to prove
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

Charles Wesley, 1742

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Diversion from Article 1

It is interesting. Right after penning the previous entry and lingering on the first Article of Religion, this song came to my head on my way home:

Our God is far greater than words can make known
Exalted and holy, he reigns from his throne
In infinite splendour he rules over all
Yet he feeds the poor sparrow
And he knows when they fall.

His power is great and will ever endure
His wisdom is peaceable, gentle and pure
But greater than all of these glories I see
Is the glorious promise that he cares for me.

Our God is far greater than words or Articles of Religion can make known... The way we perceive and understand things around us is limited and restrained by the human instrument. (see Immanual Kant's refutation of the watchmaker argument for God.) For example, the ideas I can express to you now is limited by my command of the English language, and further by the words available in the language itself. In the same way, everything I think, understand and put to words is limited by the fives senses, the mind, the emotions, the memory, etc.

If how I perceive is three-dimensional, God must be four-dimensional. He is greater than what words can express, yet he exists perfectly in our dimension, and we can understand him fully, but there will always be mystery. It is like how a three-dimsension box has a point aspect (a corner), a one dimension aspect (a line), a two-dimension aspect (a surface), and also a three-dimension aspect (the whole box). In this way, our understanding of him is perfectly true, but at the same time not complete.

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Article 1

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

• God lives, meaning he is alive, meaning that God is not a concept or an idea.
• God is everlasting, meaning God is forever, meaning God does not die, decay or deteriorate.
• God is true, meaning that it is not a lie.
• God is without body or parts, meaning God cannot be split up, meaning that God is whole.
• God has infinite power, wisdom and goodness, meaning that God has the ability to do anything he wills, but this power is guided and restrained by wisdom and goodness.
• God is the maker and preserver of all things, meaning that God made everything both visible and invisible, meaning that this world cannot continue without God willing it to, meaning God has not left this world like an orphaned child, meaning all life is in his hands.
• God, in three persons, is of one substance, power, and unity, meaning the Holy Spirit cannot act apart from Christ, meaning that God can have conversations with himself, meaning God is very interesting and very powerful.
  
  

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LOTR vs Narnia; Catholics vs Protestants

I finished reading LOTR a few months back and am now starting on C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. I really enjoyed reading LOTR - was swept up in Tolkien's marvelous story telling. Narnia is taking a bit longer because of the intrusive narrator gets on my nerves, and the willful kids irritate me too, sad to say.

One of the differences between LOTR and Narnia is that Tolkien refused to allow any allusions to be made with the Bible (see his foreword), unlike C.S Lewis' work where you cannot miss the allusion of Aslan dying and then rising again even if you wanted to. I think the difference between LOTR and Narnia is similar to the difference between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics tell stories - they go through the stations of the cross, enjoy the sensation of the host on their tongue, and weep because Jesus died on a cross. Protestants are concerned with the meaning behind the stories - the atonement, the justification, the freedom from sin, the assurance of salvation - and tell the gospel in four bullet points.

Which is better? LOTR does not mention God a single time, yet speaks of the epic battle between good and evil, the leadership of men like Aragon who led by example and inspired their followers with courage to fight a battle they cannot even imagine, and the final triumph of good, hope against hope. C.S. Lewis pulls off a perfect allusion to the gospel in all its essential points in The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

Perhaps they are like two harmony lines to a single song?

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Watching the Sunset

One of my favourite songs of all time is "When God Ran" by Shaded Red. It is the story of the prodigal son -- how he squandered his father's money on his own pleasure, and how when he came down that dusty road in repentence, it was the first time God ran. It is a beautiful song to listen to, especially in a quiet office with a vibrant orange setting sun.

I don't feel like going home today. My friends said in jest today that you "never can tell" with me, and that I have many things that I don't tell anyone. I almost want to reply, "Yes it's true! I have layers and layers to get through." Shrek says he is an onion, not a cake or a parfait.

There is only pink left hanging in the sky. When the son returned to heaven, he said that he would not leave us orphans, but that he would leave us a comforter, the Holy Spirit. Dear Holy Spirit, where are you? Are you the wisps of pink left in the sky, about to disppear from my life?

Standing on the edge of quiet sadness.

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