13/02/2019

This year, we decided to celebrate the Chinese New Year here in Singapore with no elaborate reunion dinner, no red dress wearing, no visitation to friends and relatives, and no eating of 鱼生 (yúshēng), which is the unique Singapore Chinese New Year tradition. The two days of the public holiday were brief and gone so quickly. I was at one of the local malls, yesterday, trying to pick up somethings. I saw with rejoicing in my heart the traditional Chinese Lion dance troop with the loud drumbeat to bring good luck to shops after shops inside the mall.

It’s not a superstition, It’s a nice feeling to be reminded that the spirit of celebration is still in the air, and is still in my heart. I have wondered what the Chinese New Year traditions that have been rooted here in Singapore are? Was it the belief that wearing red would drive the ferocious beast away? Or the tossing of the yúshēng would bring good fortune or the Lion dance and drumbeat would chase away the negative spirit? I was moved to rework my piece on people worshipping the Tian Gong God during the Chinses New Year, in Singapore.

The Tian Gong (天公 –Tiāngōng) God

30-01-12 edited

(8) Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord; no deeds can compare with yours.  (9) All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name.  (10) For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God.

Today is the first working Monday after the celebration of the Chinese New Year. I was expecting to see all of my regular patients to turn up but surprisingly noted that there were only seven of the familiar faces. And even the waiting hall downstairs was half empty not like the normal Monday I used to know. 

Later I found out that it was because today is the 8^th day of January, according to the lunar Chinese calendar. And it is the first day of worship especially for Chinese people who are with Buddhism and Taoism faith.  This is also the first ‘eighth day’ of the New Year that people have to set aside to worship the Tian Gong (天公) god.

Fruits, food and all the goodies would be placed on the altar table as sacrifices to show thanksgiving for the year that had passed and prayed to the TianGong god fora prosperous, healthy new year for the entire family. It has been said that the Chinese value system and many of the old traditions were comparable to the Christian faith during Old Testament times. But why the first of the 8^thday of the new year? 

Suddenly, the teachings from the book of Leviticus first came to my mind. In Leviticus chapter 12, a healthy woman would be considered ‘ritually unclean ’for seven (7) days after giving birth of boys.  It would seem why the boy must be circumcised on the eighth day after he was born according to the scriptures.

I was engrossed by the lessons in the areas of ceremonial cleansing. Take for example, if anyone who is to be cleansed of the leprous the priest shall pronounce him clean after he was waiting outside the tent for seven (7) days before he can come into the camp again (Leviticus 14:7-9). And it was only on the eighth day, the purified leper might bring sacrifice into the tabernacle (Lev. 14:10). The priest would have to wait at the door of the house for seven days as quarantine after he found out the home with mildew (Lev 14:38).

Just as a bull or a goat is born, the animal shall remain with its mother for seven days, before to be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord from the eighth day onward (Lev.22:27). I have to admit it honestly that I was puzzled by the scriptural reasoning of these ‘before the eighth or after the seventh days’  till Pastor Prince said, one day from the pulpit that the number Seven, which refers to the number of God, divine completeness or perfection. 

It is written that God on the Seventh-day rest after completing His creation (Genesis 2:2).  God’s word is pure, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified Seven times (Psalms 12:6). Noah also had had his shares of waiting for the seven days before the floodwater came into the earth (Genesis 7:4 7:10). After forty days, finally, the rainfall stopped. However, Noah still had to wait for a series of seven days before he came out from the Ark (Genesis 8-12).

Most intriguingly, I don’t think most Buddhist and Taoist would have any prior knowledge of what all the ceremonial ordinances that governed the Israelites mentioned in the Bible. But if nothing were accidental, why they would set aside the first eighth day of lunar January to worship their god?

Do they actually know the spiritual substance of their worship, sacrifices and proper rituals? Do they actually know who is this Tian Gong (天公) god and what attributes of this god whom they have religiously worshipped, year after year? Has anyone of them ponder the root meaning of the Chinese character of Tian Gong (天公)? The word of Tian 天 means heaven or sky. And Gong 公means a respect elderly person with the statue. 

Colossians 1:15-16

One of my patients told me that in addition to fruit and food, sugarcane is a must item, to be put on the altar table. It is because, during the Second World War, sugarcane plantation was the natural shelter and hiding place from their enemies.  The War has ended for more than 70-years. Would sugarcane probably be still the image of their invisible God who provides and protects?

As for me, where would it be my true hiding places from danger? And who is the true God who protects and provides? I was into the book of Colossians and astounded to note what I read what Apostle Paul wrote about the pre-eminence  of Christ in Colossians,

Psalms 32:7 ESV

You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. 

HE is the image of the invisible God the first born of all creation. For by HIM all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.. all things were created through Him and for Him.