Taiwan Church News

3222 Edition

November 25 - December 1, 2013

Editorial

Editorial: Care and Practice In The Advent

When the gentle and touching hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, flowing from the church, people know The Advent is coming. As each December 1st, falling in between The Advent, is also designated as a "World AIDS Day", PCT decided to comply and establish the 1st Sunday of each December as a AIDS Care Sunday in order to promote the preventive measures and care about the human rights of AIDS patient.

In the meantime, as December 3rd is UN's "International Day of People With Disability", PCT also established this day as the "Care Day For People With Disability", expecting PCT members to practice the following actions: 1. invite the disabled and the public to take part in this event; 2. recognize and encourage the disabled to show their talents and expertise; 3. urge the public to pay attention to the issues of the disabled; 4. promote the human rights of the disabled.

Since The Advent is a religious festival of Christianity, yet WORLD AIDS Day and International Day of People With Disability are both UN designated day, what an amazing scenario that people found that these three important days could be converged on the first Sunday of annual December! Therefore, it is very appropriate to let us think about how Jesus treat the marginalized in the Advent.

Perhaps people would question why we modern people should wait the Advent, since Jesus had born 2000 years before? As a matter of fact, the Advent today means to wait for the kingdom of God. In other words, we are preparing for the second coming of Christ. In order to receive the light of life and witness the second coming of Christ, people in the Advent not only have to "wait" and "prepare", but also have to reflect and repent rejecting the darkness of life. Therefore, there are three major significance of the Advent: 1. The birth of Jesus is remembered, 2. Jesus lives in our heart at the present moment, 3. The Advent of Jesus is still expected.

The Advent of Jesus is not to join the powerful and the rich, but to proclaim the good news to the poor and the marginalized as he manifested in Luke 4:18-19: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor". This is also the reason, why Jesus always exhorted his disciples during his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, that "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 24:40).

Except wishing people to accept and trust him, the purpose of Jesus' sayings not only intends people to well treat those courageous evangelists but also deliver their care and action toward those poor and marginalized people.

On the first Sunday of December within the Advent, especially when we anticipate the advent of the messiah in our vigilant mind and prayer, let us follow what Jesus taught us and pay our care and action to respond "World AIDS Day" and "Care Day For People With Disability".