五福临门 – Wǔfú línmén

23/02/2020

2 Corinthians 8:9 NIV

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

This year, we decided to celebrate the Chinese New Year , also known as the ‘Spring Festival ( 春节 Chunjie) in Taipei, Taiwan. I didn’t remember when the last time I was in Taipei for the festival, but I looked forward to the crisp cold air, the festival spirit, and to be able to be with our loved ones. On our second day in Taipei, the news headline all over the world was on the Coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China rendered us all speechless.

I knew that I can’t  afford to miss church service on Sunday, 19/01/2020, in the crisis like the virus outbreak. For Arthur’s better listening and comprehension, we planned to attend the English service, but I misread the worship schedule, so ended it up we were in the Chinese worship service. The weather was terrible, and it was pouring, and it was dry and warm as we walked into the church building. People were all masked up inside the sanctuary.

The announcement said that no handshaking and hugging in greeting with others. I glanced at the bulletins, the sermon title read as 五福临门 (Wǔfú línmén). Wow! Wow! the sermon was not only perfectly tailored for the occasion, I immediately thanked Jesus that it was also the topic for my next posting. Customary, when the Chinese New Year is forthcoming, most families would put up the red paper on the doorpost with the  calligraphy of 五福临门 on it.

Many Bible scholars have written books, Ministers have given out sermons trying to point people, more so for Christians to see the Hebrew God in the ancient China. As an ethnic Chinese, a Christian, I have always reckoned that the Chinese traditions and value systems are very familiar to the teachings of the Old Testament. For thousands of years, the word 福 (Fú) is always with people’s good tidings in mind. It’s a blessing with prayers wishes, and efforts.

Land, a parcel of land, represents the pictograph of its root meaning, whereas the ‘Five Blessings’ signifies the ideograph of its root. Little did people know that in 500 BC, in《尚书 – Shangshu》, which is China’s oldest compilation and collection of imperial essays already articulated the list of ‘Five Blessings.’ Intriguingly, its earliest book titled “Book”. The contents have centred around the rules of virtue, ancient codes of moral, graves and culture (1).

According to the Google translation, it says only as ‘Five Blessings, however, literally, it actually says that ‘Five Blessings are knocking at people’s  (your) door.’ The senior Pastor Wong (王) of the Taipei Grace Baptist Church, urged us to quieten our hearts and read scriptures from the Gospel, Luke 5:12-16 before listening to his message. The story is far too familiar, yet I puzzled how the passage would expound the ‘Five Blessings?’  

Luke 5:12-16 NIV

12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell face down and begged Him, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man.  “I am willing, He said “be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. 
14 “Do not tell anyone, “Jesus instructed him. “But go, show thyself to the priest, and present the offering Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them. 
15 But the news about Jesus spread all the more, and great crowds came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
16 Yet He frequently withdrew to the wilderness to pray.

The sermon was in Chinese, Pastor Wong drew a chart and also used simple, and understandable phrase as the homiletic to expound each of the five verses that directed us to ‘turn our eyes upon Jesus’ as Blessings

1. 陪伴 (Péibàn) that  means accompany, I thought of the scripture from Gospel of Luke 22:27 b – Jesus said ‘But I am among you as one who serves. And Jesus was in the crowd.
2. 有心 (Yǒuxīn) that means set one’s mind on something, or willfully. in the scriptures, Jesus was willing and ready to heal.
3. 有力 (Yǒulì) that indicates powerfulness. Not only Jesus was willing to heal all, HE had the divine power to heal.
4. 放手 (Fanshǒu) that implies to let go, it says that Jesus walked away from the scene and to go to the wilderness to pray.
5. 圣洁源头(Shèngjié Yuántóu) that denotes the source of the Holiness. Pastor Wong said that Jesus’ healing virtue enables us to be in touch (接触- Jiēchù) the source HIS Holiness.

Pastor Wong cited a few passages of scriptures to talk about the ceremonial cleansing and offerings from the book of Leviticus. And he also quoted 2 Corinthians 8:8-9 to expound the Redemptive Grace (代贖的恩典). It’s a spirit-led sermon, and it’s also an invitation for an in-depth Bible/cross cultural study. I wasn’t sure that Pastor Wong trying to relate the ancient Chinese Five Blessings (五福 ) with the redemptive grace in the Bible times?

A week of an eventful holiday finally come to an end. I have had a lesson of ‘let go‘ with me. There is a new Bible study on the book of Acts awaits for me to go back. Due to the virus situation, we had two more weeks of class break. Although I knew what I supposed to write, a little drudgery, a little daydreaming and too much on the Tube, I had a hard time to put my acts together.

In His mercy, a few Bible verses during my devotion have shaken me to turn to HIM in prayers. I have finally charged up, very happy to see my patients, although the number of them was down. I was slow with my new phone, and I know that I have to learn it by using it. The first time, we had to use Zoom meeting for group discussion via the internet, and it went well.

In HIM, there is no coincidence, the first few chapters of the book of Acts are all on Apostle Peter, John, the Church and the descending and baptising of the H

ly Spirit at Pentecost. And all Christians probably would know that the Greek ‘Pente‘ is  Five.’ HE is awesomely faithful whenever we are faithful! Numeral ‘Five‘ again.

1.《尚书》记载，五福乃指一曰寿(long life)，二曰富(rich)、三曰康宁(peace)，四曰攸好德 (good virtue)、五曰考终命(life with a good finish/an end)。后来因避讳(to avoid a taboo)的原因，“五福”有了些许变化。

东汉的哲学家桓谭在《新论·辨惑第十三》中把最后一福的“考终命”改为“多子孙”，因此“五福”是指：“寿 (Shòu–Long life)、富贵 (fùguì- Rich and Honor)、康宁 (kāngníng – Health and Peace)、好德 (hǎo dé – Good virtue)、子孙众多 (zǐsūn zhòngduō – Many offspring) ”。

The Five Blessings originally listed in 《尚书 – Shangshu》read as : 1. Long life, 2. Rich, 3. Peace, 4. Good virtue, and 5. Life with a good finish or with an good end). However, a few centuries later, in order to avoid a taboo, 桓谭( HanTan), philosopher substituted the last blessing with子孙众多 Zǐsūn zhòngduōNumerous offspring/Descendants/children

ps according to the lunar calendar, today is the last day of January 2020

26/01/2020

Yesterday, according to the Luna calendar was the first day of the Chinese New Year. Traditionally. this is the primary festival celebration of the year for all Chinese speaking people around the world, including also the Korean and Vietnamese.

The greetings of ‘Kung Cai Fai Chai‘ has found in the Western dictionary, and the most familiar written word for the occasion is the Chinese character of ‘福‘ that sounds ‘Fú,’ which means ‘blessing,”fortune,’ or ‘simply good luck.’ As a noun, it represents the Chinese ideograph and often pictographs.

The etymology of the word is fascinating, it includes two parts that are ‘礻,’ and ‘畐,’ And ‘礻‘ is the radical of the word in the Chinese dictionary. Each part has had its distinctive connotations that invoke other than its primary and literal meaning:

‘礻’ – pronounce ‘shi’ simply means ‘to show.’ and ‘畐’ has a Chinese numeric ‘one (一)，the Chinese word of mouth (口) and the character of land, field (田). And the ‘one mouth’ is not about potation, drink but it denotes ‘one parcel of land.’ It’s not hard to image, what a great blessing/fortune in the agricultural society if one who had a piece of land to show off in any farming community.

However, I had no intention to expound the root meaning of the word any longer and deeper, but wish to the spiritual significant of it in the Bible. Without being presumptuous or starting to pray for wisdom, one of the most heartwarming hymns ‘Count Your Blessings,’ immediately come to my mind. My heart’s desire was to find the perfect scripture in the Bible to validate the word of ‘land.’ And in HIS mercy, here below are what landed on me :

Deuteronomy 28:8 NIV

‘ The LORD will decree a blessing on your barns and everything to which you put your hand, the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land HE is giving you.’

Leviticus 26:4,5,10
‘Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit…

As the new year celebration continues that the same shall go to your blessings (福)。

Stayed Tune!

19/02/2019

I am in my first week of the study of “The People Of The Promised Land” in BSF ( https://www.bsfinternational.org). And the homework assignment of today (19/02/2019) is in the book of Joshua, Chapter 5:1-12. It’s about the Lord asked Joshua to proceed with the second circumcision (Joshua 5:2/Joshua 5:4) for Israelites as their prerequisite to celebrate the Passover (Exodus 12:13). Today is the traditional Chinese 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) also known as the Spring Lantern Festival.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, Today is the first 15th day; is the first full moon of the new year. Comparatively, the lunar Chinese full moon has always mathematically been set on the 15^th day of each month for thousands of years. In line with the Passover celebration that has embodied in the Bible, in (Exodus 12) and in the Book of Leviticus 23. As we looked at the  (Hebrew calendar), the 14^th day of Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year begins on the night of a full moon.

 Furthermore, it says in the book of the Numbers, in the Bible, Numbers 28:16-17 – Vv16 The fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD’s Passover. Vv17 On the fifteenth day of this month, there shall be a feast; and a Jewish day goes from evening to evening. Therefore, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to think that the Chinese 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) may have an association with the Passover, in the Old Testament days. It would require more citations for verification, which I am not confident to expound on it yet.

However, I would love to expand on the significance of 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) in light of the Chinese tradition. 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié), in fact,marks the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration but its the festival of the first Full Moon. The festivities have had its inception from ancient times. The tradition has evolved into the folk custom, children would carry around the red paper lantern on the streets. The designs were simple in ancient times and more elaborate and complex in modern times.

元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) has now become a tourist attraction in many major Asian cities. There are competitions for Lantern designs. It’s common to see the hanging paper lanterns at the door to be in the spirit of celebration. There are huge, more sustainable paper lanterns as part of the street furniture. The etymology of the word 元  (Yuán) means the ‘ first’ or the ‘origin.‘ 元  (Yuán) is also the homophone word of 圆 (Yuán), which means ‘round’ or ‘roundness,’ the shape of the Full Moon, and the word of 宵 (xiao) means ‘evening.’

So people wouldn’t confuse 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) with the mid-autumn Lantern Festival. In the old agricultural society, it was labor intensive. Most family members are expected to roll up their sleeves to work in the fields. They sweated and toiled throughout till harvest to enjoy their first physical break in mid-Autumn, The real break is, at the beginning of the year. It is when all family members to have times for a complete abstention from all kinds of works, not even house chores for housewives in reverence to their kitchen god. 

Meals were either prepared or preserved for days or even for months ahead of the holiday season so that no one shall worry about cooking. Superstitiously, people have thought that the kitchen god and even the kitchen stoves would need times to Rest. People also superstitiously believe that they should avoid seeing the doctors in January during the holiday otherwise they would end it up paying a frequent visit to the doctors for the rest of the year, and after all, doctors also need rest.

If any family member didn’t manage to be home for the New Year Eve reunion they would try to make it for the 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo). With a feast, all family members are in a round table, which signifies 团圆 (Tuányuán) a reunion to cheer and make up the lost times. Today, in many parts of China especially people in the remote areas, still put their world on hold for two weeks holiday. However, socially and economically it is impossible for this kind of the tradition to go on.

Today, most Chinese-speaking people around the world still keep the same tradition no matter where they are settled. And 元宵节-（Yuánxiāo jié) has become more symbolic than before. As the custom evolves, year by year, people gradually to embrace the belief that Full Moon Festivals were Buddhist origin but most people failed to realize that either Buddhism or Taoism didn’t come to China until the 5th or 6th centuries. What do you think of it?

Psalm 8:3

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. – ESV

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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.