Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 23rd December 2007 by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Isaiah 40:25-31 and Luke 1:26-28.


To-day is the fourth Sunday in Advent. Advent is a season of preparation. We prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our preparation will not and must not be confined to putting up Christmas decorations and the arrangement of various kinds of celebrations in Church and at home. Rather we have to prepare in our thinking: to reorient our mindset. That is why in these four Sundays we read Isaiah chapter 40. That is why we have this particular series of Advent sermons.

In the first Sunday in Advent, we reflected on the fact that we must be born again, not from our mother’s womb, but from above. Simply put, we must reconnect with God. In our daily life, we often neglect our relationship with other people, our colleagues, our friends and our loved ones; especially we do not treasure our relationship with God. Our life is marked by broken relationships. Therefore, we must try to restore these broken relationships.

The second Sunday was Bible Sunday. The Bible is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. However, we must not just pick a few verses or select the passage we like and treat them as the whole message of the Bible. No, the whole Bible is about God’s order – how God works in history; as well as about human disorder. Finally, it is also about how God came to us through Jesus Christ. So we have to treat the Gospels seriously. But at the same time, we should not neglect the Old Testament as well as other writings in the New Testament. My faculty advisor at Yale University Divinity School, Professor B. Davie Napier, a world famous Biblical scholar, used to say that we must treat the Bible as a whole: The Old Testament has preaching value in the same way as the New Testament.

Last Sunday, the third Sunday was about John the Baptist. We remember particularly his humility. Oftentimes, in human history, humble service would bring about wonders. Only through his utter humility could John the Baptist be the genuine fore-runner of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without clearing his way by John, Jesus would have an even more hard time to start his ministry.

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday, the Advent candle is pink. It represents Mary, the Holy Mother of Jesus.

To the Roman Catholics, Mary has a very special place in their doctrine and liturgical life. Our daughter was a student at Maryknoll Convent School (MCS). During the school morning assemblies, students at MCS would have to say the Lord’s Prayer as well as the “Hail Mary”.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with you”.

According to the traditional Roman Catholics, Mary is not only the mother of Jesus, she was revered as the Mother of God!

Naturally conservative Christians find this very offensive. This is why up to this day many Baptists still think Roman Catholicism is heretical. That explains also why the Chinese authorities have long considered Roman Catholism and Protestantism as two different religions.

Forty years ago, Chung Chi College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, a Christian college, wanted to sponsor a religious week. So Chaplains Walton Tonge and Franklin Woo decided to have a series of sermons delivered in the college special morning assemblies during the week. A Roman Catholic priest, an Anglican priest, a Methodist minister, a Baptist pastor and myself, a minister from the Church of Christ in China were invited to lunch at the YMCA to discuss the details. After the introductions, the Baptist pastor asked Franklin if he could talk with him in private, outside the dining room. After a few minutes, only Franklin came back. He told us that the Baptist pastor could not appear with a Roman Catholic in the same function. How sad!

According to all the modern English Bible, Matthew 1:23 quoting Is. 7:14 reads,

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”

Though according to the Septuagint or the Greek Bible it says, “Jesus was born of a woman”.

From the Early Church on, for 2,000 years, the Church, both the Byzantine Church and the Latin Church insist that Jesus was born of Virgin Mary.

The Nicene Creed, the Creed which we recite during Communion Service says, “… and was Incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary...”. Or the Apostles’ Creed which we recite during ordinary services says, “… who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of Virgin Mary.”

Why is it so important that Jesus was born of a virgin?

The early Church believed that Jesus was God incarnate, that is, God became a human being in the person of Jesus. This was absolutely unique and special. In order to demonstrate this extra-ordinary event, Jesus was not born in the usual way like any human being does. Jesus was born in a way beyond any human understanding. The human understanding is that a woman cannot conceive unless a sperm of a man is fused with one of her eggs.

In the modern times, we have gotten used to see things only in scientific or technological, or cause and effect manner. Four years ago, the first Chinese astronaut, Yeung Lee Wai visited Hong Kong. He was received as a great hero. But a learned friend told me the real heroes were the Chinese scientists who laboured very hard for years to devise this highly complicated space venture. Then for three years. Mr. Yeung would practice every manouever repeatedly day after day. As long as he followed every minute move designed by the scientists and followed them to the dot, the danger of an accident in the space would be minimal.

Contemporary human beings have become very mechanical. Most of the white-collar workers in Hong Kong are accustomed to ride the faster MTR rather than the slower buses. For long I notice there is a marked difference. The passengers on the MTR are very wooden and show little emotions in their faces. The passengers on buses are usually more interested – they would look around and some even enjoy the scenes from outside the bus.

The birth of Jesus was outside any scientific law. It is beyond time and space and hence beyond human understanding. It is a matter of faith. Indeed the Christian faith is a living faith. As Matthew asserted God is the God of the living (Mt 22:32), implying that God is a living God and is beyond our human comprehension. This is what a famous Tallis Ordinal of the 17th Century says in the last verse:

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain,
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.”

Jesus came to us as the extra-ordinary. He was God became man. So he had to be born in the most unusual way, born of a virgin.

Jesus’ mother was also extra-ordinary. Originally, it was not her own will to bear a baby without first gotten married. It would be catastrophic in an extremely conservative society and a traditional culture some 2,000 years ago to bear a baby without a husband. Undoubtedly it would bring great shame to her and her finance Joseph. As a matter of fact without the intervention of an angel, Joseph would have annulled his engagement with Mary (Mt 1:19).

So when the angel came to Mary to pronounce that she would conceive in her womb and bear a son to be named Jesus (Lk 1:30-31), Mary’s first reaction was: “How can this be, since I have no husband”. (Lk 1:34a).

The angel then said to her,
“The Holy Spirit will come to you,
And the power of the Most High will over shadow you;
Therefore the child to be called Holy,
The Son of God.”
(Lk 1:34b-35)

Out of her faith in God – that “with God nothing is impossible”, so affirmed her cousin Elizabeth – the mother of John the Baptist, Mary finally succumbed to the will of God.

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be according to Your word.” (Lk 1:38 NRSV)

“Let is happen to me as you have said.” (Lk 1:38, NJB)

“I am the Lord’s servant; may it happen to me as you have said.” (Lk 1:38 TEV)

Because of Mary’s Absolute Obedience to God, God was able to carry out His plan.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus. I am sure Jesus learned from John about his zest to preach about the Kingdom of God; his audacity to confront the powers and principalities as represented by Herod as well as his utter humility. Likewise, Jesus was greatly influenced by his mother, particularly about her absolute obedience to God. This was Jesus final struggle in the garden of Gethsemane:

“Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (Mt 26:39// Mk 14:36// Lk 22:42).

Later, in a hymn of praise to Christ, it has this description,

“Jesus humbled himself
and became obedient unto death
even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:8)


Other than we remember that because of her absolute obedience to God, Mary became the Holy Mother, the mother of Jesus; we also remember her song of praise, or the Magnificat as found in Luke 1:47-56. Let me read part of this beautiful song to you,

“My soul proclaims the greatness of God…
He has routed the arrogant heart,
He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly.
He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty..”

As we look around in our world now, mishaps and tragic events happen by the second. Invariably, the poor and the powerless are the victims. Why? Is it because people, ourselves included, are prone to obey the will of the rich and the powerful? For the sake of protecting ourselves, or worse still, for the enhancement of our own benefits, oftentimes we decide to be responsible to the authorities, rather than to God. No, like Mary, we must turn around and decide to be responsible only to God and thus respond to the cries of the weak and the young whom God cares especially.

Let our soul magnify God and our mind refocus on God. Only in doing so, again like Mary, can we have compassion on the less fortunate.

Glory be to God the Creator, to our Lord and Souvior Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit our comforter; as it was in the beginning, is now and even shall be, world without end. Amen.