In about a month we’ll enter Passion Week, the final week of Jesus before He was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day. Like a bull’s eye, Passion Week is the center of Christianity; it is the center the carries the whole weight of God’s work of salvation. In his book, The Strangest Way, Bishop Robert Barron stresses the fact that Jesus “did not simply pass away; He was killed, executed . . . .” It is one thing to die for the sins of the world, it is another thing to be killed for the sins of the world. But, as Barron highlights, “the death of Jesus is not the whole story. If it were, Christianity would be nothing more than a social movement and Jesus no more than a romantic and fondly remembered revolutionary.” Jesus rose again!
Many have tried to paint the sacrifices that Jesus made as sacrifices of a revolutionary and His message and act of love as merely a social movement. And many have tried to follow His steps to affect social changes. It is good but not good enough, but more importantly, it misses the mark; it misses the bull’s eye. Passion Week is not just a final battle of good versus evil; Passion Week is the ultimate face of love and obedience of the Son of God to the Holy Will of His Father.
Jesus did not come to bring about a political or social revolution, He came to bring about a spiritual transformation. He came to free us, who were imprisoned in our own cages of sin guarded by the devil. More than freedom, Jesus gave us a new way of life, a new purpose for living. His death gives us life; His resurrection gives us hope.
So, as we are walking closer to Passion Week, take time to reflect on the great love and sacrifice of Christ, and on the great victory of the cross over sin and the great victory of the resurrection over death. Take time to reflect on what God will do for us and will never do to us. If He did not withhold His Only Son, He would never withhold anything else from us. He gave it all and will give it all to us.
Pastor Paul
We have heard a saying that when God closes a door, He will open a window, which means God often directs our steps by either closing or opening a way. The fact that we have prayed for direction does not necessarily mean that we will get the greenlights all the way. No, there are times when God stop us or re-route our steps. Paul went through that, not once but twice, in one trip. Because he had been to the province of Asia, which is the modern-day Turkey, he planned to visit folks that he had won to Christ. A straightforward plan that proved to be more complicated than he had expected.
It was in Galatia that he first realized that the Holy Spirit might have a different plan for him. It’s there that the Holy Spirit forbade him to go to Asia. So, he decided to go to Bithynia, but as recorded by Dr. Luke in Acts 16, while he was in Mysia on his way to Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus stopped him. So, he turned and went to Troas; and it was there that Paul finally received a clear direction by means of a vision that he was to go to Macedonia, now in Greece. Philippi, a city in Macedonia, became the Gospel’s port of entry to Europe.
When I read this account, the question that popped in my head was, “Wouldn’t it be easier for Paul if God had given him a clear direction from the beginning?” The answer is, of course, yes; at least he did not have to go around and around, wasting his time and energy. But that is not the way God works, isn’t it? There are times He lets us grope in the dark, wondering what He is doing and where He is taking us. If we are in this situation today, we must feel restless.
At the end of the day, I’ve come to conclude that what is important is not getting there, but being here, with God. We focus on result while God focuses on process. Unbeknownst to us, process brings out results that God wants—patience, faithfulness, and strength.
Pastor Paul
I think most of us do not know who Merle Oberon was. Well, I did not, either, until I came across this article about her. She’s an actor who was nominated for an Oscar in 1935, for her movie, “The Dark Angel.” But what caught my attention was not this part of her life, but rather the part of her life that she kept a secret her entire life: that she was half Asian! She was born to a British father, a soldier, and an Indian mother, from what is now Sri Lanka, and her name was Estelle Merle Thompson. Her elder sister was her mother and the mother who raised them was actually her grandmother. What’s sad is that when people met her darker-skinned grandmother, she’d tell them that her grandmother was her maid. She’s simply afraid.
When I read this, I could not help but feel for her. She grew up poor and being a mixed race made it more difficult. To alter the course of her life, she, then, created another story—that her father was a British officer and that her parents lived in India before moving to Tasmania. None of it was true but to survive in Hollywood, she had to create this story and lived this one big lie till the day she died! I could only imagine how tough it was to live with the fear of being found out, but perhaps I am wrong. Maybe she did have a good life.
We’d like to think that feeling guilty is the worst feeling we can ever experience, but the truth is, no it’s not! There’s another feeling that is far worse: feeling ashamed of ourselves. You see, even though it’s difficult we can still talk about our guilt. What we cannot talk about is shame—what we did in the past or like Merle Oberon, where we came from, and who we were before we became who we are today. Guilt drives us to hide from others; shame drives us to hide from us. Here is the good news: God’s grace calls us to come out of hiding. We come to God not because we have no place to hide from Him, but because as Our Heavenly Father, He loves us, just as we are.
Pastor Paul
Tante Bertha did not attend our church; she belonged to the Body of Christ in a different location. However, her daughter, son in-law, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and their families along with her niece and nephew, attend our church. This week, Tante Bertha, the mother of Tante Siem and grandmother of Tommy and Louie, went home to be with the Lord. She was 100. Not too long ago the family celebrated her centennial birthday, and she was still able to attend the gathering in the nursing home where she resided, but since then she began to weaken as she journeyed home with Christ Our Savior.
Also, this week Santy and I were asked to minister to a family who just lost their mother last Sunday after battling cancer for 12 years. She was half the age of Tante Bertha. When God says, “It’s now the time,” we cannot say, “It’s not the time.” When God says, “Go,” we cannot say, “I don’t want to go.” Death reminds us that there is no such a thing as “our time” because time is categorically God’s time. He is the One who is holding the timer; we are merely runners, who are running to the finish line in this race called life.
Some are called to run a short-distance race; some, a long-distance race; and some, a marathon. We do not know which is our race but like Paul, at the end of the race, we’d like to be able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7).
On the day we were born, God pressed the start button, so we ran. “Some through the waters, some through the flood. Some through the fire but all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song. In the night season and all the day long.” Amen.
Pastor Paul
On Thursday, near midnight, Jesus Our Lord came to take Oom Tim home. He was several days short of 92. Oom Tim usually came to church with his son, John, and after the service, they did not stay for lunch. John normally took Oom Tim out to eat. Once a month I and several members of our church who live in Orange County gathered at his house for Bible Study. He was always happy to welcome us to his home for a time of fellowship. We will miss you, Oom Tim.
We are of course sad when a child of God dies, but we never despair because we know where he is now—in Heaven with Our Heavenly Father. There in His presence and surrounded by all the saints, we become the people we are meant to be. The imperfection of life that has tainted us is forever gone; as a result, we will be fully and authentically the persons God created us to be.
C. S. Lewis says, “We shall be true and everlasting and really divine persons only in Heaven . . . “ Just like “a color first reveals its quality when placed by an excellent artist in its pre-elected spot between certain others . . . so we shall then first be true persons when we have suffered ourselves to be fitted into our places. We are marble waiting to be shaped . . . “ C. S. Lewis further explains. The truth is God has begun shaping us now; each day we obediently respond to His Word, we become closer to the original design God has in mind.
Being a quiet man, Oom Tim hardly spoke in our time of fellowship. Once he shared his life’s experiences and gave thanks to God for guiding his life and blessing him beyond his imagination. When I heard his testimony, I could not help but see that God always had His eye on Oom Tim. From Central Java to West Java, to China, to Macao, to Los Angeles and Fullerton, God guided Oom Tim and his family. On Thursday, Oom Tim completed the last leg of his journey.
Pastor Paul
I have met people in ministry who plainly told me that they wanted to do great things for God. None has done great things for God, in fact, some’ve done great damage to the name and the work of God. I suspect the problem lies not in their desire to do great things for God, but in their desire to be great. They missed the whole point of serving God: to be the least, not to be great, much less the greatest.
In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster shares his observation that no one wanted to be considered the least. Even the disciples of Jesus, who lived with Him and watched Him live and do His work, did not want to be the least; they, in fact, fought to be the greatest. It’s therefore imperative that before He left them, He showed them the way of service: do the things that no one wanted to. In the last supper before His arrest, while everyone was looking around as to who would wash each other’s feet since there was no servant available to wash their feet, Jesus stood up, picked a towel and a basin, and started washing the disciples’ feet, one by one. There, in the words of Richard Foster, Jesus “redefined greatness.”
I am glad to say, and very thankful to God, that here among us, no one is seeking greatness. You all understand what greatness is, not lording over someone, but rather serving under someone. Quietly you try to be of service, in fact, you’d rather be “invisible” than be noticeable. You know that what matters is that the work gets done, it doesn't matter who gets the credit. As a result, a lot of things get done; God’s work continues and multiplies; His Name is glorified.
Foster concludes, “Therefore the spiritual authority of which Jesus spoke was an authority not found in a position or a title but in a towel.” Come to think about it, all ministries are the ministry of towel, isn’t it? We clean after someone else; we wash their feet.
Pastor Paul
I think we all have fighting instinct. Some have it under control, some struggle to control it, while some are under its control. We who are under the control of our fighting instinct are often not keen to feedback because we see it as an attack or a criticism. As a result, we receive less and less feedback because others do not want to tell us anything anymore. What’s the use of telling us something that we refuse to hear? In the end, we will live on our little island, alone.
When Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the archbishop of Cincinnati, he was confronted by a group of young priests who told him that he was not adequately focused in his spiritual life, and that he was not a man of prayer, as he was supposed to be. He didn’t naturally take it well; he felt insulted because at the time, he was the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and some of the young priests who delivered the feedback were ordained by him.
But thank God, he did not fight them, instead, he looked within and discovered the truth of this rebuke. Behind his packed ministerial duties lurked a lazy soul; he was becoming complacent, and had not spent much time with Our Blessed Lord. He took the rebuke as a wake-up call and started implementing changes to his schedule: No matter how busy he was, he would spend an hour each day praying.
Just imagine what would happen if he had refused to listen to them and fought back. He would have missed a great deal of spiritual blessings, not to mention the problems that he might have created due to his dried spiritual condition. So much to gain if we just stop.
In his book, The Strangest Way, Bishop Robert Barron defines pride as essentially “self-regard.” If I may add, pride is rigid and close-off self-regard, so rigid and close off that it can’t hear a different tune, much less make some changes. Pride can only fight, period!
Pastor Paul
By the grace of God, the fires are under control. We don’t know for how long but at least for now, we can take a deep breath. We, who have lived in this country long enough should by now have known that natural disasters are not an exception to the rule. They are the norms. We should by now have realized that our sense of security was indeed false. We, who thought that misfortune would befall on those who lived “way over there,” now wake up to the fact that it could happen “right over here.” It’s been a humbling experience.
However, there is something wonderful that has emerged out of all these devastations: human kindness. Everywhere we turn, we see love and care; we see many reaching out and helping others. There is beauty of a big and luxurious home, but there is another kind of beauty that far exceeds that of physical beauty: the beauty of the human spirit. When we give without expecting anything in return, we show the beautiful—or more accurately—the spiritual side of our human nature. This is the side that reflects our Loving Creator.
God has never promised us a rose garden; as a matter of fact, He’s never promised us a “garden.” We, who have lived on this earth long enough, know that life has its garden, but it is not a garden. Life is a vast landscape where we must tread carefully if we do not want to fall into a hole. But sometimes we do fall into a hole not by choice or negligence, but by circumstances beyond our control.
We, who lend a hand, show and share the beauty of human spirit; more accurately, the beauty of God. It’s no wonder God’s personal project through His Holy Spirit is not reformation of societal norms or eradication of poverty but rather the renewing of heart and mind to be like His Son, Christ Our Lord. You see, it is in His likeness that we, not life, become beautiful, even amid tragedy and devastation.
Pastor Paul
THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER
I don’t know if you have been following the news about the fire or not, but I have. Firstly, I’d like to thank God for holding the wind down last Tuesday and Wednesday. Instead of 40 to 50 miles/hour the wind blew at a much slower speed. Consequently, the attempts to contain the fire achieved considerable progress. But secondly, I cannot help but feel angry at those who seize this opportunity for their personal gains, be it by looting or price gouging. In times like this, we get to see what’s inside this skin: either beautiful or awful. Those who take advantage of the suffering of others show how ugly their spirits are, but those who sacrificially help those in need show how beautiful their spirits are. Tragedy reveals our true colors.
In his book, The Strangest Way, Robert Barron writes, “Christianity is a way, and we learn it by walking; it is a river, and we know it by swimming; it is a game, and we come to love it through playing.” So true, isn’t it? We cannot learn Christianity by sitting in a lecture hall but by following the examples Christ showed us and the Word, He taught us. We must walk the way, swim the river, and play in the game, so to speak. What we do when faced with tragedy—and opportunities to increase personal gain—reveals whether we have indeed learned the way of Christ or not. It is the way of love.
We can learn about love by reading a book or listening to a lecture or a message about love. But we cannot learn to love by reading a book or by listening to a lecture or a message about love. We can only learn to love by loving—by caring for somebody, by giving to somebody, by making a sacrifice for somebody. In other words, we learn to love by forgetting ourselves and remembering others. This is the Christian way, the way to the greatest happiness, because as Elton Trueblood correctly points out, “The greatest unhappiness . . . comes from focusing attention on ourselves.” From having no love!
Pastor Paul
Last Tuesday and Wednesday will be etched in our memory as the days Los Angeles burned. Thousands of homes have been burned to the ground and thousands of people are without shelters. In one day, their lives were upended; they were robbed of their belongings and left without certainty about the future. Even though we always knew that all that we had were temporal and could be taken away but when we were faced with that stark reality, we still cringe. What happened this week serves as a warning that it could be us. The massive devastation that we saw “there” could also happen “here.”
In the Bible we know of Job who lost not only all his belongings and his children but also his health. The truth is he also lost his wife who out of bitterness toward God asked him to “curse God and die.” And do not forget, he too lost his best friends who put the blame on him squarely for the calamity he suffered. Job had to face this massive adversity all alone. Even God had turned His back on him, at least that’s what he initially thought. But no, God never did; He was with Job all the way. He entertained Job’s anger and disappointment; He understood and welcomed Job’s bitterness. But at the end, He had to tell Job that no, he did not have everything figured out. He is a lot bigger than the calamity Job suffered; God asked Job to trust Him.
This is what God asks us to do in times like these: to trust Him. We do not have everything figured out both now and then. So, do not try to have everything figured out; live by faith not by sight; trust Him and acknowledge Him in all our ways, “and He shall direct our paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). If the little fire we see on the stove can turn into a massive blaze that engulfs the whole house, God can use every little thing to turn our lives around. As He was with Job, He’s now with us. As He was in the boat with the disciples during the storm, He’s with us in our boats facing the biggest storms of our life.
Pastor Paul