A Message of Freedom at Christmas
A good City Harvest
friend replied my Christmas greeting reflecting that “Christmas is
nothing significant to him” so contrary to a time when he was so
fervent for God and Pastor Kong, and for the message of God’s
blessings and prosperity preached at City Harvest. The joy of
Christmas, the sound of people getting large bonuses and shopping,
the smiling crowds and children eagerly waiting for presents, makes
it particularly hard for those who are lonely, saddened by life’s
circumstances. The joy in the community is contrasted with the
sadness within of memories of what could have been. We begin
to reflect on the people we missed,
whose sound and memories comes back to us of past Christmases when
they were there. Our memories wander to the past, making our current
loneliness and despair more profound of hopes dashed and
disappointed longings.
Christmas is not only a Holiday or a rest day, nor is Christmas just
about love. It is about God coming to earth as a little baby, into
our broken world. He came at a very dark time of history for the
Jews, with Jerusalem occupied by the Romans. The Jews were looking
for a mighty God, their theological construction derived as best
they could from the bible, but Jesus came as a gentle and harmless
baby totally contradicting their theology. The creator of Universe
came into our World, the mystery, no longer a mystery. The God whom
Moses was only allowed to peek at the back, with no unique name
other than “I am”, came into mankind that we might know Him. We have
groped in the dark, worshipping various gods, and in a momentous
moment of history, the true God revealed Himself to us.
For many in the GLBT
community, they would have little to do with Christmas except a time
of seasonal greetings, shopping, holidays in Bangkok, and maybe the
time to visit friends from their former churches. Perhaps Christmas
reminds us of the time we have been fervent for God,
until our sexual orientation became
the issue and we left the church. Christmas became a reminder for us
of the church and ultimately our theological construction of the
Christ who had apparently rejected us.
Perhaps our theological
construction of Christ had been wrong, much like the Jews being
totally wrong of how they had perceived the Messiah to be. It is a
mistaken identity, the image of Christ based on a Christianity which
is not much different from the conservative Judaism that Jesus had
to contend with that was devoid of God’s love, grace and mercy.
During this season of Christmas, I
believe that God’s message is that He is for the Gay community and
not against it contrary to mainstream Christianity.
Jesus came as a baby, a
child, a human so that we can relate to Him, Him to us. He came down
to our level, so that we can have a relationship with Him. The GLBT
community has long been estranged from God, fearing that God might
treat them as sinners solely because they were gay. It is time, we
begin to accept that God loves us, loves us wholly including our
sexual orientation. We
have been rejecting ourselves for God does not reject us. God is our
friend today, up close and personal and not the God afar off at Mt
Sinai where the Jews stayed a distance away. Jesus made it personal
and today, He offers us a welcome Home individually.
We have believed in a
lie that homosexuality was a sin, a lie perpetuated by the
institutionalized church not that they cared but for their own
selfish purpose and theology to make sure that the bible makes sense
to them. Gays are the sacrificial lamb for their narrow religious
dogma. We have a freedom
of religion to worship God but not the freedom to cause harm in the
name of our religious rights. When they preached hate from the
pulpit disguised as love, they are only loving themselves fearing
that God’s mercy and grace to the GLBT community might open a flood
gate to heaven that they could not control!.
They wanted heaven for themselves and gays out just as they wanted
marriage just for themselves and gays be put into prisons. But Jesus
was different than those who today supposedly “represents” Him, but
knew not His heart of mercy. Christmas is filled with celebrations
and rejoicing tonight with Christmas carols sung at midnight to
welcome baby Jesus. Yet the voices of those who died who took their
lives faced with the strong condemnation from the Christian Right
will not be heard. They are not here tonight to sing the Christmas
Carols, their hearts long ago broken by the rejection of many simply
because they were gay.
Jesus tonight hears the cries and hearts of the GLBT community
longing for a hope and for acceptance, longing for their own
salvation in the Messiah. Tonight, Jesus the Messiah, welcomes us to
His birthday party in heaven. We like the wise men, the shepherds,
the gentle lambs, pay our homage to the birth of baby Jesus tonight,
and He welcomes us to His birthday party to His table of feasting.
What is our prayer tonight? What presents do we desire from Jesus?
The greatest present is God Himself making His presence known to
humanity, and tonight my heart call is for Jesus to make Himself
known to the GLBT community this coming year, as a God who loves and
accepts them. When God is for us, who can be against us? When God
loves us, we begin to love ourselves. When God calls us clean, we
are clean indeed.
It has been more than 11 years since I walked passed the safety of
the closed roller shutter doors at the Old Hollywood theatre in
Tanjung Pagar on Christmas Night. Whilst others were rejoicing, I
was saddened by the realization that I must move on, to find myself,
to find God in a midst of a hostile church against gays I moved away
from the bustling sound of Hillsongs worship on Sunday, to the quiet
desert of life where everything seems empty and dry yet the still
voice of God becomes clearer without the noise of life.
In the dryness of life
in the desert, God’s grace and mercy became the fresh waters of
life. The rare pools of water in the desert become a refreshing
sanctuary of praise where I met Jesus and sat at His feet, listening
and learning from God. In the journey through the hot searing sun,
our religious pride, self righteousness and theological construction
begins to be burned up
during the day. Our faces are hardened by the cruel harsh winds of
life, staring at adversity yet moving forward to find God and
meaning through the trials and tribulations.
Tonight, I am returning back Home. The mega church at the Old
Hollywood theatre has moved on to Jurong/Expo and soon to Suntec,
but the closet roller shutters of the heart have been rolled back to
love and be in communion with God. The doors of my heart and mind
are opening again, the times of exile in the desert soon over. I am
beginning to learn to love myself, as much as I love God, for surely
this is the real message of Christmas. We have the freedom to
worship Jesus when we are free to love ourselves.