St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

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Are we victims of our environment? Sometimes I wonder. Do we have no choice but to be shaped and determined by the environment we’re in? Do we have the freedom to be different, in spite of our environment? Or are we just a product of our own environment? We know that our environments play a very big role in our lives. The kind of family you’re born into, in a way, you’re very much shaped by the family you’re born into or your parents, the parents that you have. They taught you, they have instilled certain values within you so depending on the kind of parents that you have, your life is shaped and formed in some ways. Also, the friends that we associate with, certain friends, they have influenced you to be the person that you are now. And also our financial situations, if you’re ill or sick. That also influences you tremendously. And our geopolitical situations around us. All these things have had profound and long-lasting effects, and have shaped who I am. They colour the way we think, they put a lens on the way we see the world, and they shape the kind of value we live with. So I see a lot of people that are just a product of their environment. So I wonder whether we have a certain freedom to be on our own. Is there a possibility that we think independently? Are we becoming victims of our own environment? For example, if your parents had such a bad lifestyle and that affected you so much that you have kind of built a certain kind of lifestyle or attitude in life? Those kinds of experiences we have made the people we are.

If you were deceived in a big way, you will have a hard time trusting people because he had a bad experience. In your life, if you have experienced tremendous failure, you will probably hesitate very much to take risks and take on challenges in life because you’re too scared of the failures that you had. And people who had really, really bad relationships in their lives will be scared of having intimate and meaningful relationships with other people because they are affected by the relationship that they had. People who have financial problems, they will be focused on survival. I see that more in KSM, Korean speaking congregation. Their financial situations are not necessarily very good, so they constantly think about their survival in society. One person that I know has a store, but it’s not going very well. Every day only a few customers come and, they’re constantly worrying about what’s going to happen. Their rent goes out every month and “How am I going to survive? Can I survive? Immigrants have a particular mindset because of their harsh immigrant life. I’m sure many of you experienced your parents. They had a harsh life, it’s almost a dehumanized life. When you look at the Korean immigrant history here in Toronto, when they first came, there was a law in Korea. You could only take out $200. What can you do with $200? When I arrived here, uh, I only had $400. I bought a desk and a bed, I had nothing left. A lot of people were like that so they couldn’t even start a store. What they did was a menial labour job in a factory. They saved money as much as possible, they didn’t spend any money and then finally they opened a store. When they opened the store, they were a little better financially, but look at their lifestyle. From 7, 8 in the morning until 11 at night. No break. No vacation. How can anybody survive from seven in the morning until 11:00 every day for 365 days? That’s how they survived. The immigrant lifestyle is harsh, so their mentality is set in a certain way because of their immigrant situation.

Are we simply the product of our environment? Are we predetermined in that way? Do we have free will? Free thinking? Free choice? Or is it just an illusion, or just wishful thinking? Maybe. In fact, that’s what we see in many people around us. I often see only the product of environment, not independent thinkers, not people who have overcome their environments, but they are just a part of their environment. It may be wishful thinking. I hope that it’s not wishful thinking. I mean, that’s what I see, but I want to. I don’t want to take what I see as a, as a truth. I want to see the scripture has a truth. I do believe the scriptures that I want to hold onto the scripture rather than a what I see. I don’t think St Paul would have agreed that we are simply the victims of our environment. He was the person who overcame his own harsh environment to be the disciple of Jesus Christ, but he himself was once the victim of the environment. He was completely blinded and completely controlled, a shaped by the environment that he was in the environment to set certain values and standards. And this is what is good, and in St Paul believed that that was what is good and that will chip it, the value that I have to pursue. So all his life, he pursued that dream goal and vision and that is set by the environment rather than it came from within himself. He was set by the environment. People said that that was a good thing to do. So he was at the top of it. He really did excel. He did really well, but when he got to the top, what he realized was that was not the law. Finally, I have arrived here. You sort of seeing that she saw that I was simply the victim of my own environment. That’s what he saw. I was simply the product of the environment. And then he realized that that’s garbage. That’s rubbish. Refuse. He decided not to be the victim of the environment. He studied the new choice. He studied new life. This time, not by what people say, said this time by what he chose, by what he believed.

So I can see that St Paul was a victim of his environment. In today’s passage, this is sad, let us look at this passage. We are treated as impostors and yet are true as unknown and yet are well known as dying and see you alive as punished and yet not killed as sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor, yet making many rich as having nothing and yet possessing everything. I divided this scripture into two and this what I came with, a posters, true unknown, well known, tying live punished, not killed, sorrowful, rejoicing, poor, making many rich, having nothing, possessing everything left side and right side, totally opposite, left, left side was the environment, right side was this life. Just looking at that realize that he was not the product and victim of his own environment. I do believe that Christian teaching is that we can overcome our own environment and become the best person we can be. What kind of person do you want to be? The person that everybody admires or the person that is faithful and truthful to yourself. This is what Jesus said in the world. You may have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

That was what Jesus believed and Jesus actually lived out his life day by day, overcoming his circumstances. About a month or two ago, a lady in our congregation came up to me and said to me, inky, all my friends, if I follow their path, I can easily make a half million a year, but she said, I have not. I have decided not to follow that. I’ve decided to live my own life because by doing that I lose my life. I sack her. I have to sacrifice everything. So she decided to take her own choice. I think that’s courage. It was refreshing to hear that. That is Tessa, gays being the victim of the environment, just following everybody else. That is like a salmon going against the stream. I think that’s cool. She’s sitting right here today. How did? How did that in the world? You may have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world. How did he do that? Prayer. Prayer was this powerful weapon. He never let himself down by just taking all the garbage from the world. He got a lot of garbage from the world. He saw the world, he’s observed the kinds of things they do, the kind of things they say, observed, like an existential philosopher. They all saw that is observed. The word that we’re living is observed, and the Jesus saw the, uh, the world was observed too. So he took a lot of garbage every day from the world. He knew that. No, that’s not right. No, that’s not it. No, that’s not true. That’s not the way you live. He knew that but took off kind of garbage is. He received all kinds of garbage, just garbage from the world. People criticized him. People challenged him. Pupils spread all kinds of false rumours about him. They tried to trap him and even try to kill them and she just never let that garbage sink into the soul and be poisoned by this garbage.

He went to God in prayer. His damaged spirit was restored in his prayer. His own self-was healed and refreshed by the renewing power of the spirit, his quiet time and in his prayer or his weapons to find balance in life again. Every now and said, every time she just went to prayer. What did he hear? He said he must. He might have or must have heard this. You are my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased. I think that’s what Jesus heard every time when he went to pray, not shaped by the way people treated him, people might have treated him as an imposter spot. He was true.

Our environment can be harsh. He may receive much garbage in life, endless. This pressure of life, the guilt we cannot shake off or isn’t an and anxieties that paralyze us and just feeling of powerlessness and the overall feeling of being overwhelmed. These things can take away the strength to go on. Don’t let these things influence you. Otherwise, you will become victims of your own environment. Fight it, protest against it, require time and prayer, fine yourselves. The joy of life will be restored. The new strength will arise from within and you hope will brighten our perspective and you’ll be able to overcome the world. I just past my birthday and realize that time is short. I gotta live my life. I cannot entertain other people anymore. I got to live my life. I had known him many years left on the 50 years maybe we got our live our life. Don’t just follow what people do. Don’t just follow the pattern of this world. Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds and let us really live our lives that makes us happy, joyful, and meaningful.

Let us say together.

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{Sermon}

We all want to live a very good and happy life. That's what God wants for us too. Our God is not a God who’s jealous about us having a good time. Our God is not a God who only sees our negative side and makes us feel guilty when we are happy. God is happy. God doesn’t want his children to be miserable. Like parents don’t want their children to be miserable. You know, we’re not jealous when our children are doing very well. In the same way, our God is very happy when his children, we are doing very well, but surprisingly many people have a distorted image of God. I wonder how that got into our consciousness, but we have so many people living with this distorted image. You know, depending on what image you have about yourself, your life will be very different and your life perspective will be different. The distorted image is the image of God who’s always angry, fearful and ready to punish us. Somehow we have this nagging thought about God, that God is always not pleased with you, not happy with you and always ready to do some negative things to you. See, I have this distorted image of God. We can never become close to God. How can you become close to a person who’s always fearful, critical and negative? You don’t want to be around them. You don’t want to approach them. In the same way  when you have that distorted image about God, you don’t want to come close to God. You want to have a safe distance. So you live your life maintaining the safe distance from God. Okay? God, I’ll pay my respect, but I don’t want to get too much involved either. So instead of loving God, we fear God. A lot of people, their faith is about fearing god rather than a loving God.

We keep up our kind of religious life, but not really life of faith. We have tremendous guilt within us and that guilt assess certain distorted images about God. Then where does this distorted image come from? I was wondering maybe from Sunday school? When you’re young with your sensitive ears, your teacher really scares you. If you don’t act well or do well, you’ll go to hell and hell is like a big fire, then you will forever suffer there. I don't know maybe you got that from Sunday school or from your fearful parents. If your parents are disciplinary kind of parents, we sometimes get the image of God through our parents because we cannot see God. So they create a certain image of God and everybody creates a certain image of God and then they create the image of God through the image of their parents. Maybe sometimes from the Bible. I mean there are some scary passages in the Bible, so whatever it is, I don’t know where that distorted image came to us and ingrained in us. My suspects, my suspicion is that we have created our own distorted image. It’s not from a Sunday school teacher, it's not from the Bible, It’s not from a parents. We have imposed this distorted image upon ourselves. We are the culprits. We are not 100 percent satisfied with ourselves and we ourselves are the greatest critics and maybe the worst enemy to ourselves. Sometimes we do not live up to our own expectations of ourselves, so when we experienced failures and disappointment about ourselves, the failures confirm that we are not as good as we want to be. Guilt becomes piled up in us.

I don’t know why we live with such a negative image of ourselves. I don’t know why we live with such a deep seeded guilt and this distorted image about ourselves is easily and readily translated into God's attitude towards ourselves. when I cannot accept myself, how can we expect that God will accept me, when I am not pleased with myself? How can we say that God will be pleased with me? God knows me more than I know myself. God knows my deepest secrets and all the dark sides that I don’t even know sometimes. We hide as much as possible. Nobody knows, but God will see that and how can God love me? How can it be? This is why you’re scared of God? We fear God because he knows what you do when you’re alone or in your thoughts sometimes, you think I don’t want anybody to know, I don’t want God to know , but God knows. We know that God knows everything about us. We don’t think God has such a great image about us and God is not 100 percent pleased with us. We have firm belief in this negative thinking about ourselves and about God. We can never hear the good news that God loves us. This theory, God loves me. That sounds good, but I cannot believe that. Believing in Jesus Christ means that you believe that God loves you. God sent Jesus Christ to us because he loves us, but we’d never can truly accept that without a doubt. Believing in Christ, it’s not really abstract images, You just believe. Believing in Christ means that, Oh, God loves me that much, that he sent Jesus Christ to us . That’s what believing in Christ means.

Zacchaeus, all his life lived with this distorted image. He was a tax collector, during that time tax collectors were the lowest of the lowest, the worst in society. Not because they are poor, they are rich. Actually, the scripture says that he was rich, but morally and ethically, they were the lowest of lowest. You don’t want to deal with them. Everyone says, “oh, you're a tax collector really?”, you don’t want to associate with them. Think about what that does to the self image of Zacchaeus. He lived all his life with that distorted image about himself. He didn’t want to live with that guilt and that image all the time. So he wanted to be healed somehow. He didn’t have a fiscal disease, he didn’t have any other problems. He was rich. He didn’t have financial problems, he was okay with this right? But he had a problem with this distorted image. So he wanted to be free from that and came to Jesus, not because he has an illness, but because of this bothering thought within himself. He was so short and went up to the tree to see Jesus and you know what? among all those people, Jesus chose Zacchaeus. He noticed Zacchaeus. Nobody really paid attention to this man, but Jesus noticed this man and called him. Choose him, I’ll stay at your house . Among all those people, God chose Zacchaeus to make him a special portion for Jesus to stay at his house. Jesus did not choose him because he was great. Jesus choose him precisely because he thinks that he is not great. Zacchaeus then all of a sudden, realized that I’m a special person. I’m not this or that, I'm a special person, I’m a precious person. When we are free from distorted image, we change. When you feel guilty, you don’t change. Zacchaeus changed completely. He restored his image. So what did he do? he said, “half of my position, I’ll give to the poor”. So he gave half of his position to the poor and if he ripped off anyone, he would pay them back four times. He has changed completely. When we are free from distorted image, we can become free and we can become generous and from self sufficient people we can became generous people.

Why can't we forgive other people? because of distorted image. See, if you’re confident about your image and somebody criticizes you, whatever, it doesn’t bother you that much, but when you have distorted image and then somebody tells you that, then you get really angry, and can never forgive that person. when we are free from the distorted image, then we can be truly free from our selfishness, greed and narcissism. Jesus said two things to follow Jesus Christ. One, deny yourself and the other, take up the cross. Selfless sacrifice. He is talking about Zacchaeus who was able to practice that, not just in theory. In real life he was able to practice that. We are the victims of greed, selfishness and narcissism. I want all of us to be free from that. Faith is not about your feelings. Faith is very concrete. Zacchaeus concretely, was able to give out for the poor. That’s salvation. That is evolution, evolution is not just going to Heaven after you die. Salvation is total freedom. To be able to be the self giving people.

That is the power of healing. I hope that we may be free from this distorted image. My friends, you are created in God’s image. You’re not created in that ugly image that you have. You are created in God’s image. I hope that we can all believe, that’s a fundamental belief that we have to have about ourselves. Then we can build our life upon it. This year you may be free from that distorted image and then actually press on to know God. As long as we have that distorted image, you would run away from God. You will hide from God continuously and you’ll catch yourself doing that. People do that in a very sophisticated way, but instead of hiding away, come close to God and get to know God in an intimate way.

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Hosea 6:1-3

Today’s scripture reading is taken from Hosea 6:1-3.

Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.

This is the word of the Lord.

The theme for this year is “Press on to Know the Lord”. Knowing the Lord is kind of difficult. Knowing mathematics, knowing about cars or knowing about what’s going on in my life, those are easier to know but, knowing God is very difficult because it’s not tangible. Especially in modern society, we’re filled with a technological and scientific mindset, so with that mindset it is very difficult to know the Lord. The prophet Hosea said, “let us press on to know the Lord and then he will come forth surely”, so he seems to have some kind of confidence about knowing God and understanding God. In modern days, that doesn’t seem right. We don’t speak surely about the things that we cannot touch and see, so it is harder to know God.

I think we should have a different attitude about knowing God but, I believe that as we know God, wonderful things can happen. As we try to get to know God, some areas that we have never understood before will be opened up for us, and in modern days we are completely ignoring that part of it. This year we have set our theme as “Press on to Know the Lord”

The person who knew Jesus Christ most intimately and deeply was St. Paul. This is our theme for this year but for Paul, this was his life theme. Everyone has a life theme. Some people think I want to be successful, or I want to write books, or I want to be good at this or that. They have their own life theme. St. Paul’s life theme was press on to know the Lord. He said that knowing Christ is the most valuable thing. Compared to that, everything else is lost, rubbish. Knowing God to St. Paul was a lifetime goal. I think knowing God is difficult so it has to be a lifetime goal. We just started this year, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to finish pressing on to know the Lord, we’re going to continue. Last year was a “Journey to Fullness” and that doesn’t just end in 2015, we continue, so these themes, we’re just beginning to start it.

Through St. Paul actually, we have learned a lot of good wisdom about Christ. Without St. Paul, Christianity was not possible. Jesus Christ gave the message, but it was St. Paul who started Christianity, some people say, and that is so true. It was St. Paul’s understanding of Christ. Based on that, we built Christianity, and more than half of the New Testament was written by St. Paul. But he never met Christ. He never saw Christ, but he knew Christ so intimately and deeply. How is this possible? That’s what I wonder, that’s a mystery. He never met Christ, but he knew Christ best.

Knowing God and knowing Christ is not really an academic exercise. Knowing God is very much your lifetime experience. When you read St. Paul’s letters, as he knew God, he extracted insight about life, insight about people, insight about himself. As you know God, you can extract those insights about life, about yourself, and about people. You don’t go into the heavenly realm and then know God. God is very much in touch with our own reality. As you know God you understand life a little better. St. Paul set that as his life theme. Why? Because he saw some wisdom in your effort to know God. As you strive to know God, that striving itself gives you access to certain things in life that you will never get without it. As you strive to know God, you may not fully know God, but that itself will open up your life in some way.

For example, I know guitar, but that knowledge doesn’t change me at all. I just know guitar. I know this, I know that, that’s worldly knowledge, but when I say I know God, that changes me. The moment you know God, you change.

So if you want to change, don’t try to change yourself. Try to know God, and God will change you. Sometimes when we try to make changes in our lives, we are forcing it, and then sometimes it doesn’t work very well. But as you get to know God, somehow things fall into place and then your life turns out alright. Even in that effort to know God. Every day you think about wanting to know God, and that itself will change us and make us become a person that we never imagined before. You become happier, you become freer, you become more confident, you become strong. It’s not raw strength, but very gentle strength, you gain confidence.

When you try to build your life on your own, on your own morality, on your own righteousness, sometimes you become harsh, you become very narrow minded, you build false religiosity. Sometimes you become very judgmental. All kinds of negative things are built up, but as you strive to know God, you change. The person changes and people say, wow, you’re different. Why are you so happy? Why are you so confident? Because, as you strive to know God, you change. This is what happens. You strive to know God, and then you change. Because you change, the next time, you know God more deeply, and knowing God more deeply also changes more on a deeper level. After that, with that change, you can understand God much better, and more deeply. That is the spiritual cycle. That is the wisdom of life.

Psalm 1 is not just an orientation of Psalm, but Psalm 1 is an orientation of life. In Psalm 1, the writer said, blessed is the man or woman who meditates on the words of God. Meditate on knowing God. Blessed is the person who presses on to know God. Their life will be like a tree planted by streams of water, and in every season, they will bear fruit. These people understand the wisdom of life. You strive to know God and you become like a tree planted by streams of water and your life becomes fruitful, abundant.

Of course knowing God is not like reading a manual and understanding how to operate, but as you strive to know the Lord, asking things like “I want to know you. Who are you? I cannot see you, but who are you? I want to know you. I want to know how you’re working in my life.” As you strive towards that, change slowly starts to happen within you. You become a happier person. Otherwise, life is depressing. It can be quite gloomy. Sometimes you feel that you have lots of worries and anxieties and fear and these things attack you. You don’t know what to do. But as you strive to know God, deep inside, you will have the strength to fight off these negative thoughts, dark forces, and gloomy thoughts. In that way, you become a much more fruitful person. In your job, in your relationship with others, in your church work, in your faith. I believe that doing God will help us tremendously.

But we cannot take a casual attitude to knowing God. Once a week you come to church and you listen to the sermon, that’s now how you get to know God. Knowing something is very, very difficult. I love photography, I tried to learn about a camera. That itself takes so much time so I cannot do much, but just knowing something is very difficult to do. Knowing God is much, much more difficult to do. You cannot just casually take this attitude you have to press on. You have to give your full effort to a know God. Either come to bible study or study on your own, meditate about how God works in your life, and you’ll get to understand about God little by little and about your life little by little.

It is a holy effort that we have. Jesus said ask, search, and knock. These are all pressing on. Ask, search, and knock. He said ask, and it will be given to you. Search and you’ll find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Prayer is knocking at the impossibility. Praying people are strong. When they face impossibility they don’t give up. They knock at the impossibility. That’s what praying people do. I shared that on December 31st. Praying people never give up. When they see impossibility, they face it and challenge it and they knock it. In your life, you’ll find some impossibility, seemingly impossible situations in your life. Don’t give up. Press on. Knock at the impossibility and you’ll be able to overcome it. God will reveal himself to you.

When you search for God, God will reveal himself to you. When you’re too proud, God will hide himself. God becomes hidden. A lot of old saints experience the absence of God, and then when they experience the absence of God, they become humble and broken again, so they search again and then slowly God appears, and then they experience God.

In your life, I hope that God becomes a little bit more real this year. I hope that God does not become just a theory. I hope that God becomes real. Ask. Search. Knock. See whether God becomes real in your life. We should always have a humble attitude, then we’ll be able to see God little by little, and your life will change little by little.

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Luke 2:41-52

Today’s story is a very interesting story. It is the story of Jesus when he was 12 years old. Only the Gospel of Luke contains this particular story. And today’s story is the only story about Jesus, who was in his youth, in the whole Bible. Imagine that. Here and there, different gospels contain stories of Jesus, like the birth narrative, him as an adult, public life and all that. But only the Gospel of Luke has Jesus in his youth. We may wonder why the author of Luke put this particular story, the only story of Jesus being a youth in this place. You must be curious, right? I am too. Before we explore further about this, we should investigate the passage more and clarify a few things first. First of all, today’s passage begins with the statement that: Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem every year.

Back then, if you are a Jewish man, you are summoned to go up to Jerusalem three times a year, and present yourself before God. Those are three festivals: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the third one is the Festival of Booths. By keeping these festivals, the Israel people commemorate how faithful God has been to them. They remember and realize how God has been faithful to them. If you happen to live far away from Jerusalem, you are allowed to take the pilgrimage only for Passover, not all three but only once. Just like today’s passage, it talks about pilgrimage on Passover. It was Jesus’ first time to go on this pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his family. When Jesus was a baby, he did go to Jerusalem with his parents. But this time it’s like he’s an independent person.

He claimed that he presented himself to God. Even today, if you’re practicing Judaism, every 13 years old boy or girl becomes a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah through a ceremony. Bar means son, bat means girl, and mitzvah means commandment or law. So once you become bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, you are given full membership of a synagogue and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life. So it is like a coming of age ceremony. Jesus went up to Jerusalem when he was 12, and it means he must have had the ceremony of bar mitzvah. According to the documents I read, Orthodox Judaism practiced bar mitzvah when a boy reaches 12 years old, not 13 like the reformed Judaism practices nowadays. So it means Jesus was born to Judaism, and he was raised properly receiving all the rights, rituals and education, according to Orthodox Judaism.

From today’s text, the second item I want you to look at is this: Jesus’ parents did not know Jesus was missing until almost one full day of trip was made. How could that happen? We may ask, right? How could that happen? The children’s aid society will visit you in integrity. I know who’s laughing right now, eh. But there’s a sufficient reason behind this. When they go on a pilgrimage, they gather up a caravan with their relatives and friends who live close by. So it is not just Jesus’ direct family members, much larger than that. And it was a custom that mothers and small children would go ahead of the team, and the men would follow with the bigger boys carrying stuff, animals, things like that. So Mary and Joseph may each have thought that Jesus was with the other. Only when they wanted to settle down for the night did they realize that, “Oops, Jesus is missing.” The third and last point that I want to explore with you is this: verse 52. Let me read it for you. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and years and in divine and human favour.” Because of this particular verse, the early fathers had serious controversies over Jesus’ divinity. You know what I’m saying? How could a son of God, the logos, the eternal wisdom, have to increase his wisdom. In other words, Arius, one of the key figures of this controversy, who used this verse and argued, “How could Jesus be the son of God, and at the same time so human, as to require to learn things such as increasing in wisdom.” In other words, Arius denied the divinity of Jesus.

However, Athanasius, the counterpart, took up the argument for the Orthodox position and set things straight. Because of Athanasius, the Christian churches were able to uphold the Trinitarian understanding of Christology at Nicaea Council in 325AD. This will just go over your head, right? But it is so important. And thank God, I thank up personally, for Athanasius. He fought against that controversy and he said this important statement. He said, “Jesus took kenosis, which means emptying himself.” We learned this from Philippians, right? Chapter 2, verses 5-11. Jesus took kenosis, which means voluntarily emptying himself, and constraining upon his deity. And because of that, Jesus had to grow in wisdom like a human. If Jesus did not empty himself, the incarnation could not have occurred. And there would not have been salvation for humanity.

So my friends, Jesus had to increase in wisdom, not because he was inferior or lacking anything, but because he emptied himself to become like us. John Calvin, one of the leaders of reformation, talked about Jesus’ kenosis in this way, “Growing up gradually as part of what the Lord took on himself in condescending to our human condition. Jesus, the son of God, became an infant, frail and weak. And he grew up to manhood and acquired wisdom in such ways the same as we humans learn.” I wonder how happy and grateful Jesus must have been when he actually entered the courtyard of the temple. This is my father’s house. He must have leaped with joy. This is my father’s house. He was able to ask questions to the rabbis of the temple, and to listen to what they had to say. All the learning he had from his younger days in Nazareth was finally coming to maturity. Jesus was in a totally different time zone while studying the word of God, and discerning God’s will for him in that temple. Giotto, a 14th century painter, drew this painting on the walls of a chapel in Italy. Look at Jesus. For Giotto, Jesus was young, but he’s assuming the role of a teacher, teaching the other teachers of the law. And as you can see, Mary and Joseph were at the outer circle. It looks like Mary’s asking a question expecting the answer from Jesus.

But the answer from Jesus is all the more intriguing and he makes us ponder. What did he say? He said in verse 49, “Why were you searching for him? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?” Why did Jesus say this, and what did he mean? Jesus said, “I must be in my father’s house.” Right? But when I look at this phrase in the original language, I found that it should have been translated differently like, “I must be in my father’s business or father’s affairs.” Jesus was in his father’s house and that is not the wrong interpretation. But what was going on in Jesus’ heart was that Jesus was searching for the heavenly father’s concern, his will. And that is very important to Jesus. We can see how much Jesus desired to know his father’s will. And now we understand why Jesus answered in such a way to Mary, and why Jesus had to be in that situation. For Jesus, knowing God’s will became his priority.

When I look back at this year, and when I ponder upon the theme of this year, ‘Journey to Fullness,’ I realized that we have tried so many things that we have never done before. And those programs and activities were designed to lead us into the spiritual journey where the study of the word of God becomes our priority. For example, the New Year’s Prayer Retreat in January, we had about 40+ adults attending this prayer retreat. Over 40 adults came to learn how to pray from ESM history. We learned what prayer is all about, and we prayed together.

And right after that, we began for our first time ever, Friday Gatherings. That was a historic moment also. Do you remember that the first night we had more than 80 people, including the children and youth gather up. KSM Paul group served us dinner for a few weeks, and we are grateful for their service. We walked the journey together from the beginning of this year, and that journey is just a beginning. It must continue in the coming years. My friends, it is so important to know the word of God. So make time to pray and study the word of God. That is the priority in life. I have witnessed so many cases and so many people who just wasted away their life, their time. Our Lord Jesus showed the spiritual principle today in learning the word of God. Because of his humility, Jesus all the more searched for God’s will and studied the word of God. Yes, humility will give us passion for God’s words and God’s will. Without humility, we cannot draw ourselves to God, God’s presence, the Word of God. If we do not have passion for God’s words, let us ask ourselves and pray to God, “Oh God, help us. Give us this humility to know you more and have the passion to search for you.”

What is the reason people do not search for God’s words? People may say that, “I’m so busy with my life,” or, “I just don’t have time.” But the true reason behind this is that we are not humble. We are not humble in a sense that we think we can live this life without knowing the word of God. The humility I’m talking about is not the humility before people, among people, but the humility before God. Our Lord Jesus emptied himself and became like one of us. And because of his emptying grace, he had to go through this process and it gives us hope and direction for our spiritual life. My friends, do not be deceived by the culture of this world. The world is driving us away from the word of God. What we do is work and play, work and play, just like the Romans 2000 years ago. Their concerns were bread and the circus games; the same pattern continues, work and play. You know to have enough bread, we work so hard. And as soon as we have enough money, we indulge ourselves to the category of play. But without knowing God’s will and God’s words, I’m not sure how we can survive a day. To me, it’s a miracle, and to me, it’s God’s grace that we can survive a day. To me, it’s like a person without their driver’s license, driving a car on the street. From humility we will have passion for God’s words. What sustains you, my friends? What sustains your soul?

When we have passion for God’s words, we’ll become more aware of the things, events, and people around us. We’ll have a clearer understanding of what’s going on around us. We’ll have a greater, genuine desire and appreciation for the things we have, towards the people around us. The truth will set us free and make us see things clearly. If your life becomes still and mundane, please understand it is not because you do not make enough money or it is not because you can’t afford to go on all-inclusive vacations. It is because of our heart’s condition. Again, the state of not being humble before God, not needing God’s grace and truth. A couple of days ago, I happened to listen to the Pope Francis’ Christmas message. He said that we become more and more narcissistic, loving only oneself. He asked the world to let go of our possessiveness.

And that is the same message from Rev. Kim on Christmas Day service. He talked about our life as a journey to give and share. My friends, we have walked the journey to fullness this year, and we know that the journey to fullness can only be achieved when we take the journey to emptiness. When we study the word of God with humility, God will make us grow and our lives will be filled with truth and grace. Right after today’s text, Jesus, the adult Jesus, was able to begin his public life, the called life, to do God’s will. Let us devote ourselves to the study of the word of God, so that God may use us for God’s will for this world. Just like Jesus, who gave the world the light and the warmth, let us carry out the ministry of Jesus for this world. What are you searching for this life? And what sustains you and upholds you? May your hearts be filled with that fat passion for the word of God, and may God make you humble so that we can be used by God and for God’s glory.

Let us pray that he will give us passion, true passion, to know more about the word of God. Oh God, make us humble, as we repent before you. Only through that way, will we receive passion from you Lord. With that passion, help us to grow every moment, grow to you Lord, and be filled with your truth and grace, so that we can be used by you for your glory. We want to follow Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who emptied himself to become like us. Oh God, give us strength and understanding to empty ourselves every moment so that you can be our God, and your presence will be with us in our emptying. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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Luke 1:39-55

Luke 1:39-55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

And Mary said,

My soul magnifies the Lord,

Whenever I see the pantomime, as John said, it brings a tear to my eyes. And what an important message that a pantomime carries that we’re living in a very broken world where we finger point at each other. We can destroy the spirit of other people and God has come to bring peace and reconciliation, but we human being continuously do that. So thank you again. And, I think it was written and the choreographed by Deb, you have a talent there and a good spirituality too. So maybe, you may think of doing it every month, make a kind of pantomime group, so every month and prepare a message and write it, and share with us.

Yesterday, I really enjoyed the Christmas concert, especially Hi-C. Wow. You guys are cool. I was so proud of you. You, you’ve done a really, really good job. Thank you very much. You know, Christmas time, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. You know, childbirth is one of the most fascinating and miraculous things you can ever witness and experience in our lives. It is life’s mystery. The life is born in a person’s, in a womb, like a woman, you are blessed people that you can experience that we are witnessing to that mystery of life. I mean, the mysteries are around us. We can never take for granted the childbirth because whenever we see the birth of children, we experienced the mystery of God and the mystery of life. And today we’ll baptize Emily and Yoona. And what we are doing is we are celebrating as the community for this wonderful mystery of God. I mean, these children were born with potential. These children were born for a specific reason, and God has blessed them. Otherwise, they will not have been born. God has blessed them, so they are a given birth in this world. So, we are celebrating his community, the mystery of life, mystery of God and the mystery of this community.

Today’s scripture passage, we see two women also celebrating the birth of two babies. And these two babies are very, very spiritual babies. They will change the course of history in the way that we could never imagine in a radical way. They’re both had impact, such a profound impact on humanity, on the history of this world, in the way that we can never imagine, you know. I wonder, without their messages, what will be like, this world? What would this world be like without their messages? People, I mean, this humanity will run into totally wrong direction.

And the message that these people, these two babies, proclaimed to us, continuously held, held in tension so that humanity doesn’t go in the wrong direction all the way. Without these messages that the powerful always will exploit the weak and that they will take that for granted. But this message always held them in tension. And I’m really thankful for the message that these two babies to us, the birth of Jesus Christ is a birth of God’s desire. Birth of Jesus Christ, his birth from God’s message. That’s what birth of Jesus Christ means. It was a very difficult reality for Mary, a teenager, being pregnant without marriage at that time. That was a difficult reality. What happened to Mary was what no ordinary woman would have experienced. She was an ordinary woman who experienced the extraordinary experience that no one experienced before, but it was hard to understand and hard to accept and hard to digest. But Mary saw the work of God behind this hard reality. In other words, Mary saw the mystery of God.

The mystery of life is this. Behind our harsh reality, there is a work of God. There is a reality of God in your harsh reality. If you see only harsher reality, you become harsh people, but behind this harsh reality, we see the work of God and that, I think that, is the mystery of life. I hope that we all experienced the mystery of life. Life may be difficult. Life is not easy. Life may be difficult, but behind this difficult life, there is work of God. That’s why life is a mystery. How did Mary know? I don’t know. That’s another mystery.

You know, when we see God working, we know who God is working. That is the mystery. Sometimes don’t you experience that? Certain experience really a causes “Wow. God is working”. Knowing that it’s a mystery. We don’t know how to explain that. There was no proof that we can provide, but we know that God is working. That itself is a mystery. That’s why Mary came to Elizabeth, with her relative, who also experienced that mystery of life. So she wanted to share that mystery with her relative Elizabeth. The community is people who have experienced mystery. We come together here and we share our mystery with each other. And so Mary went to see Elizabeth. As soon as Elizabeth saw

Mary, she knew that something wonderful was happening because the baby in Elizabeth womb leapt for joy. That is a mystery. When you have children, that children give a message. You know, when my wife was pregnant, she was crazy about steaks. Every night she wanted steak. And Joshua loved steak. And the second baby, all of a sudden, Grace loves lobster and she was looking for lobster everywhere!

It’s a mystery! Whatever child in that womb recognized that John, in Elizabeth womb, recognized the work of God and recognize Jesus. So Elizabeth, blessed Mary, for she was the carrier of God’s mystery. This is what she said. Blessed are you among women. And blessed is the fruit of your womb. How wonderful it is to bless each other in all blessings, blessing each other means recognizing God’s work being done in the person we bless. That’s what blessing is. Blessing each other means recognizing God’s work being done in the person you bless. For example, I bless you. Then I recognize that God is working in you. That’s what we do. I think we should bless each other all the time. We should recognize that God is working wonderful things in your life. We should do that more often. Why don’t you turn around and say the blessing? Just turn around and say the blessing. Yeah, let’s see. Let’s see.

We should do that more often. You know? Instead of cursing each other, we bless each other, right? We should recognize God’s wonderful work being done in each and every person’s life. Then Mary magnified the Lord. Mary, somehow, something inspired her. It was not what she saw in reality. What she saw, in reality, was not really what she confessed right now, but she magnified the Lord. In other words, the message that was impregnated in her kind of came out of her mouth and that was God’s message and this was what she said. God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things. God has sent the rich away empty.

This is a message Mary saw when she had baby Jesus. This was what Jesus was supposed to do. It was not the reality she saw around her. Soon she would experience hundreds, thousands of innocent children being massacred. That was her reality. It’s not what she saw, but that was a message, God’s message. That’s what God would do in any situation. God will bring down the powerful, send away the rich empty, but God will lift up the lowly and will fill the hungry with good things. What wonderful news. It is wonderful news, but not to everyone, as John said. People who continuously exploit and punish and persecuted the innocent, to them, this message is not a wonderful message. This message is a scary message. A threatening message.

In the 1980’s, the government of Guatemala, they prohibited Mary’s Magnificat to be recited in public. By law, they prohibited that you should not recite Mary’s Magnificat because it was too subversive to them. The message was too dangerous for them, but to us, this is good news, a wonderful message. It is a declaration that the power-hungry world is not the world that God has in mind. The power-hungry world is not the world that God wants to design. God wants to design the world where we bless each other, we encourage each other, and we build up each other. As the pantomime clearly articulated, going finger point at each other, even Hi-C among you. There are some popular people. That’s a power.

Don’t exploit the unpopular people in your group. Lift them up, rather than just admiring the popular people. People who are not that popular, people who may not be that talented, lift them up. That is a message of Jesus Christ. We continuously have to lift them up, even around us, among us. There are weak and vulnerable people around us. We take care of them. And that is the message of Christmas. That is the message of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this time, let us celebrate the birth of these two infants and let us baptize them. That is our way of celebrating the birth of these children.

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Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.  All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

which means, God is with us.  When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

If God is with us, what will it be like? God is with us. There will be peace. If God is with us, there will be security and protection. If God is with us, a lot of good things will happen. That is our common thinking and that is a nice theory, but that is not always true. Also, the scripture doesn’t say that. Jacob’s life wasn’t like that even though God was with him. How about Moses’ last 40 years? He wanted to live in green pasture peacefully with family, but because God was with him, he had to go to the wilderness, and for 40 years he suffered much. Jesus and the disciples would have lived a very normal, happy life, but because God was with them, they left their fishing net, home, security, protection, and most of them, became martyrs at the end. It is the same with St.Paul. Their lives that are full of crisis, danger, and hardship because God was with them. Even though God is with us, we experience crisis, trouble, vulnerability, and danger.

Well, whenever people experience hardships in life, the first question they raise is whether God is with me. When things become difficult, the question people ask is, “is God there? Is, God with me?” When bad things happen to them, they sometimes even conclude that God doesn’t exist, or at least he was not with me. It is hard to accept that God leads us into crisis, into trouble, and into danger. Mary’s pregnancy; That was the visible sign of God being with her. Son of God was in her body. “Emmanuel”. That was the visible sign of God being with Mary. However, this presence of God would lead Mary and Joseph into great trouble, crisis, and even danger. If God wasn’t with them, their lives might have been better off. Joseph would have married Mary and lived happily ever after and at least they could live a normal life like everybody else. A virgin getting pregnant. It was not just a scandal. Maybe in these days, maybe its just scandal, but in that time it was not just a scandal. It was a crime punishable by death, capital punishment.

We must realize how hard it is to impregnate God’s presence. Impregnating God’s presence is not an easy thing. You don’t just close your eyes and “Hmmmm”. God’s presence does not come to you. Being pregnant with God’s presence is a very difficult and scary thing. Sometimes even God threw Joseph into the situation where there was no way out. Joseph thought, but he had no way out so all he could do was “Okay, I’m going to just break off this relationship.” That’s all he could think about it. There was no way out. God brought Joseph and Mary into great fear. “Emmanuel”, God is with us because of “Emmanuel”. Joseph and Mary fell into a deep dilemma. “Emmanuel” was the scandal. “Emmanuel” was the problem. You know we have certain thoughts about God, and according to our thoughts, we have certain expectations about God and we expect God to behave in the way we imagine, that’s what we do with God. We want God to serve us rather than us serving God. God, I want you to behave this way because this is my idea about you, so if you don’t behave in the way that I can imagine that maybe you are not God. So we continuously create idols rather than God. The idols that I can handle, the idols that I like, the idols that I’m comfortable with, to God is not limited to all our limited imagination.

You want to hear what Isaiah said. This is what Isaiah said, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God leads us beyond our imagination and so whenever God is with you, God always surprises you. But the funny thing is, whatever idea that we have about God, is still the same, some people still have ideas of elementary lessons that they learn about God and they continue until they die. God doesn’t change. But God continuously opens you up so that your understanding of God becomes deeper. But we would choose idols rather than God because idols don’t change, doesn’t challenge us. It is a pseudo-god, an ideal god. But when real God is present with us, we are challenged, we are shocked, we are surprised every time. Sometimes don’t you wonder, oh my goodness how can you work in that way? I could never imagine the way you worked in my life. Sometimes I get awed by the way God worked through my life. God leads us beyond our imagination. We don’t want to go where God wants to take us many times because it doesn’t guarantee security and safety, so we don’t want to go there. What is most important to me is security and safety, and if God cannot provide that, that is not God. That’s the most important thing. That is my god, security, and safety. That’s my god. Nothing and nobody else can take this away from me.

Mary would have never have chosen to take the life in the way that happened to her. Mary could not even imagine how God could do that in my body. You want me to be pregnant with the son of God. That was beyond her imagination and she would’ve never have chosen that way willingly on her own. My friends, we never choose the hard way, we always choose the easy and comfortable way. Sometimes hard and difficult situations are just dropped before us, without my choice. It’s not that I’ve chosen that way, but it just comes. It just gets dropped in front of me on my doorstep. Sometimes because of “Emmanuel”, life becomes hard and difficult because of “Emmanuel”. There are Asian shame and crisis in our lives. Sometimes without “Emmanuel”, my life, my might’ve been better off. So when difficulties come because of “Emanuel”, don’t be too discouraged. Don’t lose hope. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t blame yourself and others. As Simon announced, that group of refugees came into Canada. 25,000 people will come, and Justin Trudeau even went out to greet them. I was very proud of my own prime minister of my country. He chose the hard way, not the safe way. When everybody talks about security and safety, he chose humanity. God always challenges us. What are you going to choose in your life? Let us wait and see how “Emmanuel” turns our crisis into a new birth and new life. Into new opportunity to experience what we never experienced before.

I’m not going to be a slave to security and safety. One life I live I don’t want to do that. I want to experience something wonderful, what life can offer to all of us? You’re still young. What are you afraid of? Fear. Fear should never be a guiding principle. We should never feel other people to choose something. When you choose something, choose it out of love, not out of fear, do not fear for God is with us. For the new life to be born. There will always be chaos and destruction. The old has to go for the new to come. Right now in this world, we experienced tremendous chaos and crisis and people live with fear. We choose not to live with fear. Let us pray that God may give birth to a new order in this world through this chaos and confusion, and that is something that we need to reflect on during this Christmas season. Jesus was born, but how? I hope that she just becomes born in your heart. When God is with you and Jesus is born in your heart, then you will see something that you didn’t see before. That’s the message of Christmas.

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Isaiah 40:27-31

{Transcript}

“Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God ? Have you not known? Have you not heard?The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Christian faith is about waiting. When you look at a Christian stories, a lot of stories about waiting, and Christmas is also about waiting. Children are waiting for their gifts. I like to reflect on waiting today. There are some people also around us, waiting for their healing, waiting for a better financial future. So we all wait for different things. We don’t like waiting that much. People don’t like waiting. We think waiting is a waste of time. We think that by waiting, there is nothing good comes out of waiting. It’s just pure waste. Waiting is very much part of our reality. We always have to wait, it’s part of our life, especially in the modern world. Every morning, we have to wait. We get stuck in traffic, then we have to wait. At the grocery we have to wait in line.

Waiting is a part of our reality, it is an unavoidable reality. So don’t get stressed out when you have to wait. Otherwise you’ll be consumed with impatience and frustration. To survive the modern world we have to learn to how to wait, how to live with waiting. But you know what, we are living in a very fast paced society. We have created technology so that we don’t have to wait. We even created a drone to deliver pizza, and then everything that you order from Amazon will get to you maybe next day or within two hours. We have created technology so that we can kill waiting. Before it took a few days to receive mail. Now it takes a few seconds to receive mail from people we know. In Jesus’ time, for Jesus to get to Jerusalem, it took one whole week, 120 kilometer. That is kind of distance that we walked for Camino this spring. It was 120 kilometer and it took exactly one week. But now, if you drive fast, maybe one hour we can get to a Niagara. So we have reduced waiting time tremendously, but we have become more impatient. So not that we got better about our attitude towards waiting. We got worse with our attitude towards waiting.

So I was thinking, maybe a solution is not just to deal with waiting time or reduce waiting time. Maybe the solution is to change our attitude towards waiting. Waiting is not something we have to kill at all cost. Maybe there is something good in waiting. When I look at the people in the Bible. They all waited. It is a story about waiting. For example, Jesus, he always said “My hour has not yet come.” What does that mean? He was waiting for his time. He didn’t just do anything. How about Abraham? God promised, Abraham you will be the father of great nation. He didn’t even have a son and he had to wait for the son to be a born. Also Joseph, God gave him the dream that you be so great that a lot of people will bow to you, even including your parents.

But his life was miserable. His brothers were jealous and then they tried to kill him. Then at the end they sold him to Egypt in slavery. Then he was imprisoned in Egypt and he had to wait until his skill of dream was actually fulfilled and recognized. How about the Israelites? Israelites became Israelites through 40 years of waiting in the wilderness. The Israel was not born just like that. They had to wait 40 years to become truly the Israel. Waiting was part of their spiritual lives. So I was wondering why God led all of them to wait, instead of instantly giving them the answer or curing them. Why do they have to wait so long to be who they are? I think there’s something special about waiting. God uses waiting to discern who the true people of God are and also God uses waiting to build these people up.

And only waiting can do that. Nothing else can do that. Only waiting can build you up. There is a secret power in waiting. Waiting builds character in us and God needed that character to do his work. God cannot use just anybody, God cannot use just talented people. God uses people who are waiting, who know how to wait. That’s why God installed that waiting in part of God’s plan. Only those who are waiting for the Lord will be able to carry on the work of God. Will waiting build special muscle within us to persevere when the storms of life come? People who go through difficult times through the period of painful waiting time, they will be able to survive when they meet difficult times. They are strong. Waiting is the best way to become strong. My friends, people who easily give up can never be strong.

No matter how strong they may be in the beginning, no matter how talented they are, no matter how intelligent they may be. The people who give up easily can never be strong. The only people who know how to wait, they can be strong. God will use those who know how to wait. Only those who struggle and wait will be able to stand strong in times of trial. Also God will give these people who are waiting the strength. God will give them the strength, God’s strength. This is what Isaiah said, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, not just anybody. The people who wait for the Lord God will give them the strength and their strength will be renewed. Then they shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. In our waiting, God gives us the strength. Why are we waiting? Is it because we have no choice but wait? Is it because we don’t have solution right away? Is it because situations can not be resolved right away? That’s why we wait because we cannot do anything about it. That’s why we wait. Don’t wait in fear.

Don’t wait passively wasting away your time. Wait for the Lord, wait with hope, wait with prayer and God will give you strength and you’ll become strong in the process of waiting. As I said last week, almost every week we hear tragic news. Two weeks before in Paris, terrible thing happen, and last week this man, when in the clinic and it killed three people. Just this week couple went into this place, they take care of physically challenged people. They killed 14 people and wounded many. Crazy world. I feel like people just don’t know what to do with their anger and frustration. They just let it out. I don’t like you so I kill. I don’t like feminist, then they go and killed them off. We are living in such a difficult world and we think sounds so feeble and people may ask, why wait? Useless. we have to fight. Waiting sounds so weak and useless. Jesus also lived in a very violent world and as a result of that violence, Jesus was killed but he never submitted to the power of darkness. He waited for God to reign, even on the cross. While he was dying, he was waiting for God’s reign to come upon us for the Kingdom of God.

We still wait for God to reign in this world. Let us not become victims of despair. Let us wait with hope, let us wait for Gospel. We are not going to give up our dream for the world, where there is peace, justice, love and harmony. While waiting, we will continuously promote our love for humanity and wait for God to work. I’m not going to be selfish, we are not going to be selfish. We are going to continuously promote love for humanity. Last week in the midst of dark and gloomy news, I was very encouraged by the good news. Light in the darkness. Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook and his wife Priscilla Chan. On Tuesday, they declare that they will donate 99 percent of their worth for the worthy cause. You know that asset is $45,000,000,000, not just tithing, 10 percent, not just 90 percent, 99 percent of their asset, they’ll use it for the great cause. They are not even believer’s. We Christians should never lose our hope, our love for humanity. We can do that. Not everybody is selfish. Not everybody is a murderer and killers. Not everybody is a terrorist. There are people who love the humanity. As christians, we have to stand up. Living selfishly, just for ourselves, we have to promote our love for humanity and we’ll wait with hope.

Christmas is time of waiting with hope and that waiting gives us joy. In our waiting let us impregnate, hope and dream for the better world. Where people care for each other, truly care for each other, and I think we can do that. Let us impregnate that care in our waiting.

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Philippians 4:6-10

{Transcript}

Scripture reading is from Corinthians for chapter four, six, “don’t worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, what is commendable? If there is any excellence, if there is anything where you think about these things, keep on doing the things that you have learned and see her and seen in me at peace will be with you.”

Last Thursday was American thanksgiving, I prepared a message not because it was American thanksgiving, it’s because last week I really reflected on the world that we live in. Full of chaos, difficulties and hardships, and these somehow speak the message of thanksgiving, and I tell myself why in this kind of situation, I had to speak about thanksgiving. The world we live in is quite gloomy, almost every week, something terrible happens. You don’t know what’s happening. There’s no safe place in the world. When you go to a concert, it’s dangerous when your in a train it’s dangerous, even when you go to hospital, it is dangerous. There’s no safe place. We don’t know what’s happening. That Paris tragedy that happened yesterday I just found out that one of our and members was in Paris when the attack happened. This world is getting more and more crazy. Gratitude is difficult because our senses are not very good. Uh, this kind of situation, we can get down very easily. He can be easily swept by the dark mood of our environment, but we don’t want to be sad all the time. You don’t want to fear all the time. You don’t want to feel down all the time. And many people are really tired, tired of being affected by circumstances which fluctuate all the time, always be an up and down. And also we realized that we can never make circumstances that can make us happy. Circumstance that just happened. That’s the reality. That’s an isolated regardless of wishes, circumstances just happened. Sometimes good things happen.

A lot of times bad things happening in our lives, as we reflected on Canadian thanksgiving, Gratitude is not in response to all of our circumstances. Because something good happen I’m thankful, that’s only beginning of the gratitude. Gratitude is not our response or reaction to our situations, but rather I’d like to see gratitude as the attitude or perspective with which we see our reality. I think this is the currently correct way of looking at gratitude. Gratitude is not a response, It is our attitude it’s our perspective with which we see more of reality, especially when difficult situations attack us. We should not lose our perspective of gratitude, that’s when we need gratitude. When life becomes hard, when it becomes so difficult, that’s when we need gratitude. We should not lose that attitude. We should not lose that perspective. American Journal of social psychology, they studied these people after the 9/11 in 2012 and they discovered that people with positive attitude, including the gratitude were able to cope with the tragedy much better after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2000, he found that gratitude gave the people the resilience, the power to persevere, to fight against depression.

I think there is power of a simple thank you, when we are able to say thank you. There is power behind this short phrase. Saint Paul said into this passage “do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Let your request be known to God”. In other words, in all circumstances, pray for thanksgiving. He didn’t say this when his situations were terrific and great and good. Where did he write Philippians? He wrote this letter in prison. While he was in prison, he said “Give your request with Thanksgiving.” So to Paul, Thanksgiving was not a response. Well, it’s not a reaction to his situation. It was his perspective. It was his attitude with which he sees the reality. I hope that all of us have the wisdom, all of us have that perspective and attitude towards life, and our life will become better then living with constant complaint. When we live with this perspective, what happens to us? When we live with thanksgiving what happens within us and your internal world, What will happen inside us? I asked a KSM member this question, and then all they said was positive energy, just really loud voice.

Saint Paul said “here the end is very important.” He first said, “give your request with Thanksgiving, and that peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” That’s what will happen within us. When we live our lives with Thanksgiving, and peace of God that surpasses all understanding will start flowing within all parts. And that creates a positive energy.  The peace of God will give us the resilience, resilient power to resist against the dark power of this world. We lit up the first candle today, first advent. As this candle lights up the dark room. Our Thanksgiving becomes that light to fight off the dark power of this world. may we respond to our life with Thanksgiving especially when life becomes very difficult. Peace of God will be available, and God will give you the peace of God. When life is difficult, let us not complain, I think that’s a stupid thing to do. It’s a natural thing to do, but it is a stupid thing to do, an equally difficult time been spent complaining, that’s a weakness. The strength is really respond to it at Thanksgiving. Strong people do it. Weak people will complain, and as soon as you start complaining, you see yourself falling into the world of negative thoughts and negative feelings. Present your request with Thanksgiving to God and Gospels. God's peace will guard your Hearts, thoughts and minds. That is the power of simple thanksgiving.

I realized that that is a secret of happy people. All the happy people that I’ve seen, the homeless had this pamphlet actually that tells us if that you look deep inside there is a gratitude operating in the lives, but when we see unhappy people, I hardly hear “Thank you.”. I don’t see much of thankful attitude. So I realized that, this is where happy people and unhappy people are separated. That is thankfulness. The goal of spiritual maturity is in order to be a thankful person, has a mystical experience, in all circumstances how can you be thankful? That’s a mystical experience, that’s some mysterious power. Meister Eckhart, which a spiritual giant kills so many books on spirituality and Meister Eckhart said this, if the only prayer he said, “Thank you” That will be enough. It’s a profound statement.

Only prayer they can say is, thank you. That’s good enough. In other words, ultimate level of your prayer, is prayer with Thanksgiving. I think thank you, is the nicest thing to say both to God and to other people. I asked KSM members, Say Thank you, Teach your children to say thank you mom. For the smallest thing we have to teach them. Thank you is a nice thing to say to God and to other people. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the health of others.

The reasons we are here, It’s not because I have worked so hard and I have achieved so much or I, I have so much talents and gifts. The reason we are here at this age, it’s because there had been many people who help us deal with our problems, difficulties. There were so many people who helped us. There are more people who helped us. But sometimes we forget that and we complain, instead of the thankful, we live our lives indebted to God and indebted to other people. I think that’s a basic humanity. Recognizing it, recognizing that and realizing that, our basic humanity lives in to God and indebted to the people around us. So living with gratitude, it’s just such a rapid response, appropriate response. This most appropriate response also liberates us from pride, greed, worries, negative thoughts and negative feedback, and were supposed to live with gratitude but that lifestyle liberates us from all of these negative things. In a university study, two groups of students, one group students write a Thanksgiving Journal and then the other students write anything. After 18 months they started these guys were much, much happier with their lives. Write a general thanksgiving, anything, write down five to seven reasons why we’re thankful, very easy. Write in detail rather than I’m just thankful for life, I’m thankful for so and so. So for me, I’m thankful for the praise team and I’m thankful for this and thankful for that, This can easily fill us with happiness. As you just started doing that, you start focusing on the beauty of life rather than the ugliness of life.

And now I realize why God wanted me to say the message of Thanksgiving in this dark and gloomy world, our thanksgiving is a protest, our Thanksgiving is our fight and will not let us down. We’ll live with thanksgiving, and we will fight against whom tries to destroy our soul.

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Mark 7:24-30

Listen to today’s sermon on Women’s Sunday.

So I hope you all liked the worship dance that was presented by women’s group. They prepared for weeks for this worship dance. It’s a short song, but for them to all move like that, it takes a lot of practice. Some of them wake up every morning and start the day with this worship dance, not just to practice, but as their way of worshiping and lifting praise to God. And some of them had dreams and some had nightmares about it. But God was good, and God is good, and it was beautifully done. What a reminder, a blessing to us, that there’s so many ways that we can offer worship to God; not just with our voice or every movement of our hands or bodies.

There’s so many ways that we can offer and lift up our praise and gratitude to God. So, I’m just very grateful to our women’s group. Today we have before us a story about a woman, a Gentile woman, who knelt before Jesus asking for him to heal her sick daughter. And you hear this desperate plea of a mother who would do anything, perhaps everything if it meant her daughter would be healed. And then you hear the response of Jesus saying, “Let the children be fed first for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” And I don’t know about you, but it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable, very bad. And you wonder, is that Jesus saying this? Did he actually say these words? And there are all kinds of interpretation as to what he meant and why he said that.

There are some who say it kind of aligns with the gospel Mark. He’s all about portraying human vulnerabilities. He was so tired, but he entered the house and he just wanted his time. But this woman somehow finds him and corners him and asked to be healed with her persistent request. Then there’s another interpretation that that’s how much he was set on his mission to reach out to the Jews first; they were the people that he was after primarily. Or perhaps, he’s just simply voicing out the words of the disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew, it says that they urged him to send her away. They were annoyed. The passage just prior to this story shines some light of understanding. Jesus had just told the disciples that it’s not the food that enters our body that defiles us. It is what comes out of us, out of our heart, that defiles us.

I disagreed. Our selfishness, our fear, our pride, our jealousy; those are the things that come out of us at defiles us. It’s not the food, it’s not what you eat. Don’t judge people by what they eat or what they look like on the outside, by their outer appearance. And interestingly just after that, immediately after that, I focused on the food. Like crumbs, you know, how could she ask for crumbs? And be okay with it. If I had asked someone for food and they gave me crumbs, I’d be offended, right? Crumbs. Crumbs are insignificant, crumbs are a nuisance. The disciples, immediately after that teaching, looked at her and saw that she was a Gentile. She’s not one of us. So she doesn’t even need to be healed. We can’t afford to spend time with this woman. Send her away. But this woman, there was something about her, something that made Jesus turn around and look at her again. And he even says, “Great is your faith. For what you just said I will heal your daughter.” Initially, I wondered: Was it her persistency? Was it her desperately plea, that she won’t give up? Is that what he says when he says, “Great is your faith?” Is that what faith is all about? And I’m like no, there must be something more, something more to her and about her. When Jesus brushed her away by saying, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She’s saying, “Lord, it’s okay. Even the crumbs are enough; even the crumbs, they’re more than enough for me if I could just have that.” Somehow this woman knew that there was no size to God’s love and God’s grace. She knew that if even if it’s crumbs, if it’s God’s grace, it’s bountiful. It’s abundant.

It’s not the grace and love of God that is small and skimpy, that we don’t experience it. It is because we’re not able to see it and recognize that it is God’s grace. And she kind of helps me understand what love is, the characteristics love. First, it seems that love casts away fear. To this woman, love for her sick child was so great that she did not even feel. She did not even take or receive the insults and the rejections of the disciples and what seems like Jesus. To her, it was incomparably small because there’s so much love inside of her for her child that swallowed it up. And we think “how could she tolerate the rejection?” You know, what seems like almost injustice, words of Jesus. But there’s so much love in this woman that there was no space for hatred. There’s no space for fear. It seems like love and fear cannot coexist. When there’s love inside of you, it casts away fear; it casts away anger and hatred. And another thing I see is when you have love, you forget about yourself. We’re so self absorbed. Self protection. It’s all about us. It’s so innate in us. But when there’s love, we can easily forget about ourself. What can empty ourselves. That’s what love does to us.

In celebration of Woman Sunday, I see that in our mothers, that they can empty themselves. The things that they would do, the extent that they will go for their children and their family, it’s amazing. How could you do that? But they don’t think twice. If it was for themselves, I think they would think again. There are some things that they wouldn’t do. But for their family, if it’s for their children, their husbands, they go all the way.And sometimes I realize that they don’t even feel their pain or they forget about their pain. They don’t even realize that it’s pain, because they’re so focused on their loved ones. In KSM, when we have early morning prayer, I see mothers praying. Those mothers, the women who are praying, they’re crying as they pray. I know they’re praying for their children, and then their husbands. But primarily I know it’s for their children, it’s for different reasons that they pray. This is love I see in this woman gives her courage. She’s not afraid to be vulnerable, she’s not afraid to open herself up, and she’s not stuck in shame or guilt. There’s no time for that. Not with the mentality of a victim, but with the strength that refuses to remain in the darkness. She’s going to go at it. She’s going to fight. She’s going to face this.

Recently, I saw a movie called Room. It’s based on a true story unfortunately. And it’s about a story of a woman, a young woman, who’s locked up with her five year old son for the past seven years. And they haven’t been seeing the world. That little room is the world to them. But then one day she said, “We can’t go on like this anymore,” and to save her son’s life, she takes risks and they escape that prison. And I find that it’s the love the mother has for her son that gave her the courage to step out, to do something. I’ll not just remain. I will not be paralyzed. I will not just stay here like this and die. For my son, I’m going to fight. We’re going to go out. He gave her the reason and he gave her the courage to face her problem and tackle it. And once they got out, the love between the mother and the son, it helped them to heal and restore the terrible pain and scars. They eventually healed. And it was a story that tells us, yes there’s evil out there, tremendous evil. But, love is much stronger and love can overcome that evil.

We have to remember that this love starts first with God. It starts first in God. It’s the love that we see on the cross. We saw on the cross, that it was love that was victorious. It was love that defeated death, hatred, anger, and fear. We wonder how could Jesus tolerate that abandonment, that rejection, that pain, and that absolute separation from God. How could he even stand that?

I realize that he can, and he did that, because love for all of us is much greater than the evil, and the hatred, and the pain that he had to face. And when we experience this, and get a taste of this unconditional, unlimited love of God, and we know that we’re truly loved, that we are beloved childs of God, you start to discover the beauty, the beloved inside of you. He started to just cherish that and you see, and you marvel that. And another thing I realized is that you, without even an intention, you reflect that love because that love can’t help itself but be reflected and flow from you. Another thing I realized is that when you see the belovedness in you, you are able to discover the belovedness in other people. It may be family, it may be a complete stranger, but you can see and discover the belovedness in them.

And that love creates within us the space to embrace sometimes the rejection that comes along. And we’re not too bothered if that love does not get returned. It’s okay. We are already anchored in something more stronger and stable inside of us. But we go back to scripture, the disciples, they haven’t got it quite yet. Rather than love, it was fear that was triggered inside of them. They saw and considered the woman as the other; not part of us. And that fear held them back, and it holds us back from offering love and offering ourself to other people. This past week, there has been numerous disturbing incidents, as you are all aware, because people are reacting in fear. In the wake of what has happened in Paris, and everywhere around the world, because of the fear in us, we judge people immediately. We consider them as the other, if they’re different. And then we put up walls within us and around us, and we become defensive and protective.

There was an interview that went viral about a father who took his preschooler to the site in Paris. As they were giving flowers and candles, this reporter comes to the little boy and asked, “Little boy, do you know what happened?” And the boy replies, “Yes. The bad guys, they did very mean things, and now we might have to move.” And the father says, “No, we’re not moving. France is our home.” But he says, “But daddy, those guys are really mean, and they have guns.” But the father replies, “That’s okay. You know, they might have guns but we have flowers.” And the boy was reassured. I think the father ultimately wanted to tell the boy that love, flowers, are much more powerful; much more powerful than hatred and any kind of violence.

We see that in today’s passage, love is much more powerful than fear. And when you have love, it drives out fear; it casts away hatred. And you can see this woman was much bigger, much more courageous and wiser than the disciples. Again, it’s something that Jesus has taught us on the cross. Love is much greater than hatred and even death. Like the disciples however, it probably will not come easy for us. Henry Nouwen said in his book, The Prodigal Son, “This giving of self is a discipline because it’s something that does not come spontaneously. There’s children of the darkness that rules through fear. Self-interest, greed, and power are great motivators of survival and self preservation. But as children of the light, who know that perfect love casts out all fear, it becomes possible to give away all that we have for others. Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know that I’m moving from fear to love.

It will not come naturally to us. It’s something we need to practice. But first we need to recognize that God’s love is what makes that possible. That love does not come from us. It’s, God’s love that casts away all fear. It breaks down the walls of hostility within me and around me. I pray that we draw ourselves closer to this love so that this love is reflected in our lives in all that we do, so that whoever you see, it might be a stranger, that we are able to discover and call up their beauty in every day that we live.

God, give us the eyes to see the abundance of your love and grace. It’s not just crumbs. In every little thing around us, there’s beauty and there’s your grace. Help us to see that and help us to realize that we have your love that casts out fear from us. Lord grant us your grace so that the walls of hostility and fear are broken down within us and around us. Grant us your perfect love so that it overflows in our being to the people around us, to the strangers that we meet, throughout the day. In the world, the hearts that are wounded and in fear are still filled with disbelief of what has happened and what is happening. In the places around the world, in the hearts of your people, please grant your presence and your peace and mercy. Help all of us to discover that flowers, your love and compassion are much more powerful than any guns or hatred of any kind.

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Mark 10:35-45

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.  36 And he said to them, What is it you want me to do for you?  37 And they said to him, Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.  38 But Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?  39 They replied, We are able. Then Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

The world was shocked on Friday by the attacks in Paris killing 129 innocent people and many injured. They’re going about their regular life, enjoying the concert, watching the soccer game and having dinner and drinks in restaurants and bars. They were totally unprepared for this kind of a violent act. Paris is a beautiful city. It is a beautiful city, but it is a really destroyed. Human spirit was destroyed. We were just there, 12 of us last year, in Paris. Same thing could happen to all of us. As Obama said, the attack was not just on people in Paris, but on humanity. Once again, we are forced to doubt whether there is any goodness left in humanity. Many of us lost faith in humanity. Now people will be more in fear. I read a New York Times and this guy went to see Aladdin show in the afternoon and he heard a sound and all of a sudden he was alarmed. We cannot even enjoy the show, safely, freely, we’ll be always surrounded by the possibility of tragedy. Fear. Now people will be more self protective. Borders are being closed down.

Is life all about self-serving? I wonder. Has humanity become so downgraded that the only thing that we care about is self serving and self protection? To serve ourselves, we don’t care about others. As a matter of fact, we don’t care about anything else, but ourselves? I realize that this is not something new. Many of us care only about ourselves. Was it like during Jesus’ time. No. You look at today’s scripture, we also see the self serving attitude of the disciples. Just before this passage, Jesus talked about how he will be delivered into the hands of leaders and he’ll be persecuted and then he’ll die in Jerusalem, but the disciples did not hear. All they cared about was themselves so they couldn’t really hear Jesus. When you’re so surrounded with yourself, you can’t hear anything. James and John came to Jesus and said to him, teacher we want you to do for us, whatever we ask of you, look at this passage, very careful to reflect on it. We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.. The request itself is already self serving. How many people have this attitude towards God? God, I want you to do for me, whatever I asked you.

God become simply someone I can use to get what I want. How different that is from Jesus’ attitude, Jesus said, this is what I want. What do you want? That’s what you. That’s what Jesus prayed in the ceremony. He didn’t say, God, just give what I want. ISIS calls this terrible act as what Allah wants. Not only in Paris, on Thursday, 30, some people died. Same Group, same massacre. Whatever happened in Lebanon or in Paris is act of God. Religious fanaticism. There is no room in Christian belief. We don’t believe in this kind of religious fanaticism. Any kind of fanaticism, we reject. People are so self serving that they will use anything to do whatever they want. If it is necessary, they’ll even use God. James and John asked Jesus grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. That was what they ultimately wanted. The seat of glory. Another self serving attitude. I wonder these days, is there anybody who goes beyond self serving attitude? I mean, there are only two seats in glory on Jesus right in and left hand. If two brothers, if one family takes them, all of them, whatever other disciples. Where do they sit?

So the other disciples. What did they say? This is what they said. When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. I read from Facebook, Barbara put up a beautiful poem by Ernest Hemingway and there was a reply and this guy said “Fear brings anger. Anger brings hatred. Hatred brings suffering. How true. Self serving attitude will bring hatred, and anger, and suffering.

Do we have no choice but to be self serving? Our culture has become like that? Do we have no choice but to be self serving? I don’t believe in that. I don’t think life is all about our agendas being served, even at the cost of sacrificing others. I don’t believe in that. I still believe in humanity. I still believe that there are people who serve others. Jesus taught us real ideology, not crooked ideology of self serving. We are not going to bow down to their fear tactics.

This is what Jesus taught us. The son of man came not to be served, but to serve. Jesus, the son of man did not come to be self serving, but to serve others and he said to give his life as a ransom for many. Even though it meant sacrifice for himself, he will serve. I hope that we don’t bow down to their threat. Jesus’ teachings are totally the opposite of self serving attitude. That is Christian attitude. Self serving attitude will bring about division, conflict, hatred and violence. Two disciple’s self-serving attitude brought anger in ten other disciples St Paul saw the secret about peace and harmony and St Paul said, self serving attitude would never bring about peace and harmony. I guarantee your self serving attitude will never bring about peace and harmony, whether it’s at home, or with friends, as a group, church, community or society or globally. Self serving attitude will not bring about peace and harmony. This is what Saint Paul said: For he is our peace, Jesus Christ is our peace in his flesh. He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall. That is the hostility between us. Paul saw that it was possible only through self sacrificing cross and then in 15, he said. I paraphrased it, a part of it. Through the cross, he reconciled both groups to God by putting to death, that hostility, through the cross.

As long as the humanity repeats the self serving history, there will be no peace and harmony in this world. They will never be able to find John Lennon’s imagination. Imagine all the people living life in peace. This is what Jesus taught us. You know that, among the gentiles, those whom they recognize, that their rulers lorded over them and their great ones are tyrants over then, but it is not among you. Everybody else may live like that but not you! It is not among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Jesus taught us that self serving attitude is not what the human should live with. That is sin. That is pathetic sin. We are to serve one another, not just Christians, the human humanity, all human beings should serve one another. That is our life. That is how to save the humanity. That is how to save all of us. That is the secret of living in peace and harmony. Cross and towel are two powerful symbols of Christianity. The Cross represents self sacrifice, and the towel represents not self serving, but serving other people. At the last supper, after eating the meal, Jesus wanted to wash the feet of the disciples and after that he dried them with the towel.

By doing that, Jesus showed the true discipleship. I hope that and I pray that and I have confidence that St Timothy will bring about serving people. St Timothy will fight against self serving attitude, and we’ll be the servants of God. From small things, we need to practice that. I guarantee that your life will be much, much happier. When you remain as self serving attitude, your life will become more and more and more miserable. But when you start adopting serving others, then you’ll life will become happier and happier and happier. I guarantee that. This is a song, a beautiful song, and I hope that we can all sing together. I don’t know, this may be a new song for you, but it’s a very simple song, but the words are so beautiful.

A moment of prayer for the innocent lives taken away in Paris and in Lebanon, the family, friends. Let us really ask God to heal their broken hearts, and let us pray that we may not lose our courage. We may not bow down to the fear. Let us pray.

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