Today’s Scripture Reading [January 22, 2012]
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. [Genesis: 1:11-12; 24-26. KJV]
Today is the Chinese Lunar New Year Eve. Just like all other years, Chinese families all over the world are gathering together for dinner in this most auspicious day in the Chinese Lunar calendar. We see in China, millions of people are rushing back home during this time of the year so that they can be together with their families. Many of these migrant workers who travelled to another province or overseas to work couldn’t wait to get home even though their traveling cost of their homeward trip could cost them a lot of money. Celebration like this is not unique to just Chinese. For example, in the U.S. we can see similar kind of celebration every year during November when family members would travel long distance so that they can be with their families for the Thanksgiving Day celebration.
It is very interesting but not surprising to note that whether it is a Chinese New Year, a Thanksgiving or any other festival holiday, inevitably there is a religious significance attached to the celebration. For example, we all know very well that the Chinese New Year has such a strong religious significance that at the stroke of midnight, thousands of Chinese vie to be the first to place joss sticks in an urn at the temple to mark an auspicious start to their year. In some temples, this is the busiest time of the year. Though the practicing of being the first to place joss sticks in an urn at the temple is peculiar to the Chinese, we can confidently say almost every race has some kind of festive tradition and practice that are performed to appease their gods. This is inherent in human nature, whether you are from an advanced country like the U.S. or whether you are just natives from a tribal group living in the jungle of the Amazon or Himalayas. No festival celebration can go without some kind of religious attachment. This, in fact, makes human totally different from animals, and totally unique because it is the very nature of human to seek some divine beings.
An important question that we may ask is: Why must human associate some divine beings with festival celebration? Are we a bunch of superstitious beings ourselves, and nothing else? The secret to this question is found in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. In this Book we are told only humans alone are "created in the image of God." Because of the image of God, we are endowed with several God-privileges and responsibilities that cannot be found in animals. These responsibilities are (a) our creativity ability that allows us to create sophisticated works of art; (b) personality that makes each individual unique; (c) our abstract-thinking ability that invokes phenomena, both observable and unobservable and variables to explain why certain things are happening or not happening; (d) our ability to make moral judgments upon which we could distinguish good from evil; (e) our complex learning ability that could allow invent complex devices. But what makes us truly unique is our complex communication and social skills that tell us that we need fellowship not just among ourselves but with our Creator. It is this privilege that makes us truly different from all other animals. It is this privilege that account for the reason why all festive celebrations have religious significance. It is this privilege that allows us to communicate with God's Spirit through Jesus Christ so that we can once again be in fellowship with our Holy God and to experience the relationship in the universe.
Sadly, many are made to believe that if you trace back far enough, you are just products of monkeys or apes and because of this deception, many have lost their God-given identity that we are created in His image. The religious significance that is so glued to almost every festival celebration is a face which no man can say he does not know God. It is a face upon which we are exercising our God-give privilege to wanting to commune with Him. It is a face to tell those ‘godless’ evolutionists that God creates everything, including they themselves however ‘godless’ they may be. Evolutionists themselves are divided on what we were, how we had come about and who we are now and because of their inability to identify our true identity that we are created in the image of God, many of us now ended up with very confused identity. Many are not sure or at least not absolutely sure who actually they are.
Let’s not abuse these privileges that God has so graciously endowed us with. The very first chapter of the first book of the Bible, the Genesis, has revealed God’s work of creation. It is now up to us to accept the privileges that He has endowed to us and just like all privileges, they come with responsibilities and our responsibilities, among others, is to be present our body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him (Romans 12:1); to be faithful to Him (1 Corinthians 4:2). We are now living that is marked by unfaithfulness. The mystery of lawlessness is already working (2 Thessalonians 2:7) and this condition of total disrespect for God's requirements will reach its climax at the end of this age (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8). We must acknowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Source of a faithful life and an obedient life. He is our life (Colossians 3:1-4) and He is our vine (John 15:1-7). Apart from Him we are totally unfaithful (John 15:5) but in Him we have all the resources that we need to fulfill our duties and keep His commandments (Philippians 4:13; 2:13; Hebrews 13:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 1 Corinthians 15:10; Colossians 1:29). It's His salvation, it's His life, it's His working, it's His power, it's His grace and He gets all the glory!
