Monthly Archives: March 2009

Jesus Who?

21 Saturday Mar 2009

Posted by in Jesus, Peter, Velázquez, Zurbarán

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Recently, the guardian.co.uk posted an article about one man who spent one year living with a pack of wolves.


It is a very interesting article to read for two reasons;
First, it gives new insight into the lives of wolves and their understanding of communal life.
In addition, it is also interesting to see the effects of a year spent away from civilization in the life of a man. From his experience, Shaun Ellis says that comming back to society after living a year as a “hermit” without any human contact was a complete “culture shock”.

I’d like to think that I could be happy living as a hermit…with a bunch of wolves and away from society. However, realistically speaking, even though I think I could do without lots of human interaction for extended periods of time (I am a consumated loner),  I couldn’t do without the day to day comforts of “civilized life” such as cable t.v., cooked food, and most of all Coca-Cola.

Talking about hermits and people who live away from civilization, here is a hypothetical situation for you;

Imagine one day you are just hanging out in a coffee shop right after church… you see someone come to you and say;

 “Excuse me, may I ask you something?” You nod, you probably expect that person to ask for directions or the time, but this person asks you something completely unusual which catches you by surprise…he/she says:

“I have been living in a cave as a hermit all my life. My mom and dad were hermits and were very stuck in their hermit lifestyle…I recently decided to quit my hermit ways (in spite of my mom’s dismay) and wish to live in what people would call “normal society”… I was wondering if you could help me understand something which is not very clear to me…I have been hearing about this very big movement called Christianity, and its leader, a character named Jesus. I can see you are Christian because you just came out of the Sunday meeting so I figured you would be the right person to ask….could you please tell me who Jesus is?

What would you tell this person, how would you describe Jesus?

Now imagine everyone you know was in the same situation as the ex-hermit…nobody knows who Jesus is…

This was the situation during the time when Jesus walked on earth; the people of Israel had no notion of who Jesus was…they knew Jesus from interacting with him on a daily basis, they knew he was the son of Mary and Joseph, brother of James and a carpenter by profession. People saw him grow up from child to adolescent to adult…As time went by, they came to see God in him, but the majority of people interpreted these signs (even the miracles and healings) as evidence of Christ being a prophet, a teacher and a healer…(there was a lot of skepticism) only a few understood the fact that Jesus was the Son of the Living God and God himself and the Messiah…one of those people was Peter. We will look at this passage in detail;
Peter’s Confession of Christ
Matthew 16: 13-20
13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15″But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter,[c] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[d] will not overcome it.[e] 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[f] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[g] loosed in heaven.” 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

This passage shows us, how important it is for people to have the right understanding of who Jesus is.

There are two questions that Jesus asks…
1. Who do people say the Son of Man is?
2. Who do YOU say I am?

Jesus was concerned with people’s understanding of him; of who he was and what his mission was in this planet. The previous passage shows that there were many ideas floating around regarding Jesus’ identity: People called him John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or another prophet. And that was not so bad…prophets were people with authority and leadership sent by God….but Jesus made it a point to differentiate himself from being a prophet…he wanted people to know that he was not only human, but that he was God himself, and that he had come to be a sacrifice for our sins…and this was and still is a significant fact for people to understand.

How significant? We can see how vital it is to have the right notion of who Jesus is by looking at Jesus’ response to Peter when he correctly identifies him as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus says to Peter “Blessed are you”…the Greek word for blessed is makarios which according to the dictionary “conveys the idea of being especially favored or privileged”…Jesus is saying that Peter’s realization about Jesus’ identity has made him (Peter) a favored man, or as we would colloquially say “a lucky man”….

Have you ever had a realization that instantly made your life better? I had to think of the following article:

                     

 Elementary, my dear gamers
 By Ben Silverman

Note to prospective tech thieves: if you’re going to steal something, you’d better steal all of it. Especially if Ryan Ketsenburg is on the case.
According to school newspaper The Standard, the Missouri State University student managed to track down his stolen Xbox 360 by cleverly using the console’s wireless controller, which the thief unwisely failed to snag.
Ketsenburg’s amateur detective work began when he awoke one morning to find his Xbox 360 had gone missing. Distraught, the sophomore turned on his wireless controller and found that it still connected to the stolen console. Since 360 controllers have a range of about 30 feet, he knew the system was nearby and proceeded to canvas his dorm building, using the controller’s green connectivity light as a guide. Eventually he was able to pinpoint the location of the box, and soon enough, the two were back together.
But the whole experience so irritated Ketsenburg that he doesn’t plan on letting the thief off with a measly warning.
“I’m going to try to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, because I had to follow all the rules, so let’s make sure it gets done right,” he told the Standard.

Source: http://spursreport.com/forums/death-news/67626-student-finds-stolen-xbox-using-wireless-controller.html

What do Peter and the Xbox owner have in common???

I stopped being into videogames since the Super Nintendo and the Sega went out of fashion…so I am not familiar with the Xbox…however, I know how important/vital and fundamental it is to have your console once you are into playing videogames…. people can get really attached not only to consoles, but also to computers, mp3 players and cell phones…I know I am…so I can sympathize with Ryan K. and I can totally imagine his heart sinking when he realized that one of his most valuable possessions was G-O-N-E.

Fortunately for Ryan, the story does not end there…he is able to make two realizations that change his fate:
1. The control is still there and is still connected to the Xbox.
2. The Xbox is still in the building.

I can imagine the hope and excitement involved in searching for the Xbox…I picture it like the thrill of hunting for something…and then catching it (not that I’ve ever hunted for anything other than bargains) anyway…these two realizations shaped the outcome of events in a favorable way for Ryan.

Similarly for Peter, and for the rest of us, when we come to the correct realization of who Jesus really is, we are blessed, for this knowledge changes the outcome of events in our life in a favorable way.

Who is Jesus?

Since it is vital for us to understand who Jesus is, let’s look at some passages which describe who Jesus is:

1. Matthew 1:23“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” which means, “God with us.”
-Jesus is God with us-2. Matthew 1:16-17“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’”
-Jesus is the Son of God-
3. John 1:14“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
-Jesus is the Word, Jesus became flesh (100% human and 100%God)-
4. John 1:29“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”
-Jesus is the Lamb of God-

Concluding ThoughtsThese descriptions of Jesus make me think of two paintings… “The Crucified Christ” of Velázquez (above) and the “Agnus Dei” (Lamb of God) by Zurbarán (below) …

These two paintings have a lot in common:
They both were painted by Spanish Artists between 1630-1640.
They both depict Jesus in the same way, as a willing sacrifice against a black background.
Yet they both differ significantly from each other…

These two painters depict Christ as the sacrifice for our sins; one single theme, yet the paintings are so different…reflecting each painter’s individual perspective and understanding of Jesus and his role on earth…

This highlights the crucial question that Jesus asked Peter in Matthew 16:15…”But what about you?…who do you say I am?”

This question clearly shows the personal nature of Jesus’ relationship to men. He is not concerned about “public perception”, he is concerned about personal relationship. God wants to give us an individual revelation of who Christ is. Societies today are not too different from the time when Jesus walked on earth…

There are still many misconceptions about who Jesus is…people doubt Jesus’ divinity, they doubt his existence, there is a lot of skepticism, some people still think Jesus is just a prophet, and they do not believe he was God…sounds very similar to the situation which is described in Matthew 16….

For people who live in societies where Christianity has been present for centuries, it is easy to assume things about Jesus, God and Christianity without seeking a personal encounter with Jesus…as Christians it is important for us to be mindful of these tendencies and to continually listen to God and seek to know Jesus more and more.

It is moving for me to read Jesus’ response to Peter’s affirmation of who he is… it is easy to see how happy, touched and excited he is about Peter’s answer. As I read this passage I see Jesus humanity and divinity mesh perfectly to express human enthusiasm and divine purpose in one expression “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah…”.

Jesus is longing for us to know him for who he is…God still wants to reveal Jesus to each person individually, he is a personal God.

To have the knowledge of Jesus is a crucial realization, which has the potential to change the outcome of our lives. A personal revelation of Jesus will bless us, it will give us a firm foundation to establish our lives and it will enable us to bless others.

Jesus says in Revelations 3:20 “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” This passage reflects the personal nature of a relationship to Christ, and once again, we see Jesus’ eagerness to have a one-on-one encounter with men. Jesus is talking to the Church…he’s talking to people who know about him, inviting them to know him personally. Jesus stands at our door, he’s waiting for us to open up to him…he asks “who do you say I am?”

Little Surprises

12 Thursday Mar 2009

Posted by in Dog, Mimi

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Last Wednesday I told my friend Josephine that I would meet her for dinner near my apartment in Wanchai…she knows that I like Burgers, so we went to this amazing place near the school of vocational education called “Wow Burger” and all I can say is wow!…The meat was really fresh, fries were great…it was just a fun time.

I hardly ever walk on that side of Wanchai, so I decided to explore a little bit, and to my surprise…I saw this tiny little puppy in the window of a pet shop…she was surrounded by cats that were three times as big as her, I was impressed by her being so small and in such a hostile environment (yes, I know I am embellishing.….) anyway, I set my heart to “rescue her” and I told my husband about her.

Friday of that week…I brought the little surprise puppy home…we named her “Mimi”. Until that point, my husband had never seen her and he was really surprised by how small she is…it was love at first sight. Tomorrow will be the first week Mimi’s been with us. In this short time, Mimi has filled our lives with funny episodes. I will be sharing some of those Mimi stories in this blog from time to time.

I was so grateful to hear from our veterinarian that Mimi is a healthy and good natured puppy…just a little small for her breed (a Yorkshire terrier)…which makes her a miniature. I told him that I intentionally sought a small puppy considering the size of my apartment… He was shocked….he basically told me “girl, I cannot imagine the size of the apartment you must live in if your dog is in proportion to it”….well yes….my apartment is miniature size too….

When I told my dad about our new “addition” he was really surprised. His first comment after hearing that Mimi was going to be an inside dog went like this; “at least she will not have any fleas”. I thought he was referring to the fact that she wouldn’t be in contact with other animals or other external sources where she could catch fleas…but then my dad clarified; “your apartment is so small…I cannot imagine the dog and the fleas both fitting in at the same time”…and he burst into a belly laugh…My siblings and I have resigned to hearing those jokes…we even have a name for these kind of jokes; dad jokes. To us they are funny, not because of the content…but because my dad enjoys them so much and thinks they are so hilarious…that we have to laugh too…I am sure every family has similar jokes…or at least I hope so.

Nevertheless, one of the most challenging tasks with Mimi has been potty training her. Most dog training guides say that you should try to catch the dog “in the act” and tell the dog a firm “no” if they are going potty at the wrong place….afterwards, you bring the dog to the right place (a.k.a. the doggy toilet) and if they manage to go; then you praise them and even give them a treat….(house dogs have it really good, don’t they?)

I thought to myself “I can do that!”…and proceeded enthusiastically to stalk my dog…(I didn’t realize that I was stalking her until I wrote this…but how else should I call it?) Anyway, catching my dog in fraganti has been a harder task than I thought it would be. Mimi is the fastest “bathroom goer” ever….ever! My husband and I have started calling her “pooper trooper” because she really is a prodigy in the field.

I realized that catching her while she’s at it was going to be almost impossible, so I went back to do some more research…I looked for information on how to correct the potty situation in cases when you find that your dog has already gone where he/she shouldn’t…and I couldn’t believe what I found…let me quote from the website http://www.barkbytes.com/training/house.htm:

“If you find a mess after the fact:
1. Do not punish the dog.
2. Accept the fact that you were not paying attention to the dog.
3. Do not show the dog that you are upset. Calmly put the dog on his leash and bring him to the location of the accident. With the dog at your side, firmly scold the potty. Do not scold the dog.
4. Blot up some urine, or pick up some stool with a piece of paper. Take the evidence and the dog to the latrine area. Place the paper on the ground and with the dog watching praise the potty for being in the “right” place. Temporarily leave the paper there. (Remove it when the dog isn’t watching)
5. Clean up the remaining mess in the house as outlined above.”

I could not believe this approach, but as I was (and still am) desperate; I decided to give it a try. I had to warn my husband in advance about my new “method” before he saw me talking to dog droppings and thought that I had gone totally insane.

As it turns out, I have had to do a lot of “poop talking”…this came to me as a total surprise. Having recently watched the movie “Marley & Me” (where I cried my eyes out)…I was looking forward to my and my husband’s first dog, and I knew it was not going to be a walk in the park…however, I never, ever pictured that my first week with our dog would include becoming the “poop whisperer“…and the most ironic thing is that so far my dog’s habits have not changed a bit…

After careful deliberation I have decided that I am going to quit the crap-talk and look for an alternative method of potty training Mimi…she keeps leaving little “surprises” for us in the apartment…but we still love her :).

Overshare!

03 Tuesday Mar 2009

Posted by in Gerry McGovern, God, Jesus, Nicodemus

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Overshare!

Recently, I was introduced to the Sarah Silverman show (yes, I know…I don’t get comedy central in HK). Anyway, I saw the short clip of the show titled “Kickball Day” and it is HILLARIOUS…you can see clips of the show on I-Tunes or at comedycentral.com… I heard not all of them are as good as the one I saw…but as far as the Kickball episode; I totally recommend it.

On that episode, Sarah & friends have a sleepover after the Kickball day…and Sarah gets introduced to the term “overshare”. Overshare basically means that someone is sharing too much information or getting too personal in whatever they are saying. So, in certain social situations, if people want to avoid hearing some story which is either too personal or inappropriate, they are compelled to scream “overshare” and end the conversation…

In the “Kickball” episode, we get to see Sarah use the “o” word with her friends. This is my favorite part of the whole clip; it would not be nearly as funny if I told the story in detail, so you should definitely watch it for a good laugh. This is the website where you can get the link to download the episodes in I-Tunes; (http://www.truveo.com/search.php?query=sarah+silverman+plays+Kickball)

The idea of interjecting “overshare” whenever someone is giving us more information that we wanted to hear has caught up in our youth group…and has become an inside joke.

TMI

The whole “overshare” topic reminded me of an article written by Gerry McGovern titled “Information Overload: Too Much Information, Too Little Time” (http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2002/nt_2002_07_29_overload.htm). In the article, McGovern states that one of the main problems in modern society is the fact that we have so many channels fueling us information (mobile phones, TV., computers, etc.), that our capacity to process the information is not enough to keep up. According to McGovern’s calculations our brains are in a race against technology, and unfortunately we are not on the winning side…“the law of the human brain dictates that every eighteen months the amount of information we are exposed to doubles while our attention span halves.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say “overshare” in these cases??? Take time to process and analyze things before having to deal with the next batch of information??? I remember one specific case; before our final exam last semester I was sitting in an Economics class and our professor gave a review of the whole semester…he concluded the class by asking if we had any questions…*dead silence* …nobody had questions. It wasn’t that we were all geniuses and understood everything…it was just that we hadn’t had time to process the information given to us…and we didn’t even know what questions to ask!!!! We had received more information than our brains were able to handle.

Jesus and Nicodemus

The bible narrates of a similar experience faced by a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee who lived during New Testament times on the earth…one night Nicodemus sneaked out of his house in order to talk to Jesus.

John 3 says;
1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
4″How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”
5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9″How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10″You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16″For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

All my life I had known the bible verse John 3:16. For evangelical Christians, this is the one bible verse that you memorize and know to locate in the bible. I also knew the story of Nicodemus by heart, but I must admit that it was only two years ago, when my husband Tim preached a sermon about this passage that I saw the context of Nicodemus’ Journey and the famous John 3:16 verse together for the first time.

During the time of Nicodemus, access to information was not as common as it is today; it was a rare commodity, reserved only for the elite. It is remarkable then that the first thing we hear Nicodemus say is “we know”… Nicodemus is no ignoramus (sorry I couldn’t resist ;P)… he was an intellectual of his time; a man trained to obtain information, to analyze it, process it and digest it. We can safely deduce that Nicodemus wouldn’t have been overwhelmed with the prospect of receiving large amounts of information (as much as it was available at the time), he was used to dealing with it.

Nicodemus expresses knowledge about Jesus, he comes to Jesus to make a statement about his stance, but Jesus responds to Nicodemus as if he had asked a question…why?

Just before starting this passage, the bible mentions that Jesus knows what goes on inside the hearts of people. The last verse of John 2 in the Amplified Version reads: “And He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man [needed no evidence from anyone about men], for He Himself knew what was in human nature. [He could read men’s hearts.]”

Jesus knew what was inside Nicodemus’ heart…he knew all the questions and uncertainties he was pondering about…In his sermon about this passage, Tim made a comment and said that if he went to a computer class, he would not know what questions to ask, because his knowledge of computers is so little that he would not even know how to ask the right questions. (He’s not that bad)….but I can totally relate; I felt the same way in the Economics class after the final exam review I was overwhelmed and couldn’t process the information enough to come up with a question… and maybe this was the case of Nicodemus, he came to Jesus, but he did not know what questions to ask, however Jesus who knew what was is in his heart answered the unexpressed questions…

God is like that… “for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” Mat 6:8.

In his answer, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again… the bible shows how Nicodemus was overwhelmed by this information…he asks “How can a man be born when he is old?” I guess this would’ve been the time where Sarah Silverman would’ve interjected “overshare”….

Going back to Nicodemus’ statement he said “we know”, he knew a lot of things…but he couldn’t process this one statement…why?

There is a difference between knowing and believing. Having knowledge is not the same as having a conviction of faith. The main message that Jesus is conveying to Nicodemus is that we need to be convicted, that conviction comes from seeking relationship with God and not rituals or rationalization. During Jesus’ time, most Pharisees were seeking God through rituals and reasoning the law…but now God was standing in the flesh before Nicodemus, offering him a way of finding God that he had never heard about before; through a relationship and a new birth.

Our Walk

As humans we tend to want to find formulas for everything, including God, and this was the case with Nicodemus. There are so many religions, and so many flavors of Christianity that some of us might be experiencing an information overload regarding God and faith…too much information…and I guess it would be nice if we could stop it by saying “overshare!”

The good news is that God is patient with us…he wants us to think things through…to process things. He loves us regardless of our doubts about him and is waiting for us…all the time…never tired, never angry, never bored, eager to help us process things through so that we can know him.

We are free to make up our mind, think about things and come back to him, with all of our questions, doubts and observations…he’s always there for us and knows our hearts…so never be afraid to come to him, even if you don’t quite know what to ask in his presence.

The bible tells later that Nicodemus returned home without making a clear transition from knowledge to conviction. However, later in the bible Nicodemus appears again next to Joseph from Arimatea, who was a follower of Christ. Nicodemus buys mhyrr for Jesus’ tomb…this is the task of a disciple, and Nicodemus undertakes this task. The amount of Mhyrr he buys is the amount fit for a King. So I think that through his actions Nicodemus is saying Jesus is my King, and I am his disciple…I hope for his sake.

I guess Nicodemus’ journey reflects every Christian’s faith journey; we go from knowledge to conviction, from facts to faith. The challenge is to remain flexible, because as we walk with God there is always this tendency to ritualize, and this impairs our spiritual growth. So this look at Nicodemus has not only value for those who encounter Jesus for the first time, but also for all of us, because we need to encounter Jesus afresh over and over again.