A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang (February 14, 2010)

“When the East Meets the West: Meanings of Sunday, Chinese New Year, and Valentine’s Day”

*** The <Futurology, Soothsaying, Fortunetelling, and Biblical Prophecy> (10) will be postponed to next Sunday***

Today is Sunday, but it has three festivals coincidentally meet together: the Lord’s Day (Sunday), Chinese New Year, and Valentine’s Day. These three festivals consist of religious, cultural, and social meanings which mingle together. It is a great coincident but also describes when the eastern and the western cultures meet together, something meaningful happens. Let me share with you my thoughts:

The Lord’s Day – Sunday, it is a holy day that Christians regard and regularly go to churches to attend worship services. The concept of “7 days a week” is from the Christian teachings in the Bible; at the beginning the non-Christian world had no such kind of idea at all. It was brought to non-Christian world especially in Asia and Africa by Christian missionaries. It is interesting when missionaries introduced this concept of “week” to Chinese, they translated “Sunday” to be “The Worship Day”, “Monday” is “Worship Day One”, Tuesday is “Worship Day Two”, so on and so forth. Until 70 years ago, because of anti-Christianity movement was going on in China, then, the government changed “Sunday” to be “Star Period Day” and “Monday” to be “Star Period Day One”, so on and so forth. But, no matter what, the concept of “week” was introduced to the Asian world with a kind of good influence of Christian culture into Asian cultures.

Today also is the Chinese New Year’s Day, a year of tiger according to Chinese Zodiac Cycle. The Chinese New Year is also called: “Spring Festival.” Namely, after today, the spring is coming according to the lunar calendar. And since lunar calendar follows the movement of moon which provides pretty good and accurate seasonal weather changes for the farmers to follow, so that the Chinese lunar calendar is also very important for Chinese people’s life because the agriculture was the foundation of the Chinese people and culture and all the activities were based on the movement of the lunar calendar. Before missionaries introduced the concept of “week” to China, Chinese people only could take a break once a year – only after Chinese New Year for two weeks of vacation. One can see how well that we can appreciate the concept of “week”: It is not only biblical but also practically it provides the concept of rest one day a week for non-Christians.

Because of the past tradition which focused more on agriculture, Chinese people did not develop the enterprise of business in the ancient time and because of that the east cost of China was poorer than the inland. But nowadays, it is changed and reversed. The east cost cities of China are much richer than the inlanders. But no matter what, when the Chinese New Year comes, it is still a great national festival for people to celebrate and family members to be reunion – a great happy family gathering. In order to match the world movement, Chinese government announced after the last Dynasty’s fall that the lunar calendar is for the traditional use but the western calendar is the official one. That is the reason Chinese people still keep both calendars. But I believe that both calendars are made and followed the courses of God’s creation.

Today is also called Valentine’s Day, another meaningful festival to celebrate for lovers who are married or unmarried. According to the Christian tradition, Valentine was a very good Christian leader in the 3^rd Century. He led “Underground Church” in Roman City. He was arrested and executed on February 14, 270AD because of his Christian faith and actions, under the order of Emperor Claudius II. When Valentine was executed, before his death, he wrote a letter to his lover and signed his name, “From your Valentine” that becomes a signal format for lover to write love letters. According to the traditional Valentine’s Day in the Western world, lovers will write hand-writing love letters to each other to express their love. In Japan, when Valentine’s Day comes, lovers send “chocolate candies” to each other in order to show love and sweetness to each others. It is good and meaningful.

It is great that today we have such a kind of wonderful day to celebrate these three special festivals together. They remind us who we are:

Sunday, the Lord’s Day: It reminds us that we Christians belong to our Lord Jesus Christ; and that is why we worship Him on Sunday because it is His Resurrection Day.

The Chinese New year: It reminds the Chinese people and the descendents that God has a special love for Chinese. And because of that we need to love one another more. Also it is a good tradition for the families to have a good time gathering together.

The Valentine’s Day: A special day for lovers to express love to one another. The origin of Valentine’s Day comes from Christian tradition that reminds us to treasure what we have – love.

May the Lord bless and enrich us so that our life together will be plentiful in love and grace!