Message:
A Christmas Card for Crystal Hope
Dear Immanuel, God-With-Us,
Endless Love,
Radiant Dawn,
I write this letter to you, as if, as Korean Christians often say, I shoot an arrow-prayer to you in Heaven.
I would like to draw the bowstring with a story a wise member among us shared with me when we met for a meeting on Zoom. It was early April, this year. The pandemic had just hit us; we hadn’t gone deep into its alienating reality yet. We were scared, anxious and frightened yet also curious. Not tired, not yet.
On a cold early morning, in the same month, my wise friend was walking along the river. She was alone. There was only the river and herself, no companion, no one else walking on the path. She was fully absorbed in her thoughts, contemplative. In that moment, she seemed to hear a sound. It was fresh, small and ignorable - she only heard it because she was completely alone in the quiet world of the early morning. “What - what was that?”
She turned back. She walked back to where she thought the sound came from. Initially, she wondered if it was a bird or a small animal. Soon, when she went close and opened her eyes wide and observed attentively, she became aware of the sound’s origin.
Can you guess what she heard, Immanuel?
It was the sound the river’s thin surface created, in the instant when the flowing water was crystallized to a form of ice stars when it reached freezing temperature. The day was getting cold again after a few warmer, springlike days which Winnipeg had anticipated all winter. In April, the spring was near, but not enough to incarnate fully on the earth. The crystal sound of the fresh ice on the running river flashed a new joy in my friend’s heart.
All of a sudden, her self-absorbed mind opened to the Creator’s gift of wonder, lighting up just like the ice shines gold when it reflects the light of the rising Sun.
(Show the picture of ice crystal photos in gold light colour)
Dear Immanuel, God-With-Us, Radiant Dawn, Endless Love,
it warms my heart when I reflect that Christmas, Christ’s birth, is like the instant when the ice is crystalized in beauty and in its perfect motion, especially after our long awaiting, after four weeks of Advent, after the lingering pandemic's procrastination at our doorstep.
The birth of a Child, Jesus being born in us, reveals the mystery of transformation:
Everything is possible, and the formation, Christ’s Incarnation, is always a wonder. Just like no snowflake, no ice crystal, has an identical shape and structure, each Incarnation, each year, in each one’s heart, is unique, evolving, changing, creating something delicate, dynamic and diverse.
Immanuel, God-With-Us, Radiant Dawn, Endless Love, who takes on flesh and dwells among us,
This year, 2020, we have learned what waiting is like: Waiting with all our heart and mind and strength for the end of something hurtful and wrong that refuses to end just yet.
(Show Ann’s photos of Easter decorations at Immanuel in the past years.)
We have also learned that, just as the ending of Advent does not mean we go back to November 28th, moving forward from the pandemic does not mean we go back to the pre-Covid world’s capitalistic rules and priorities. Truly waiting, anticipating in hope, means that we prepare ourselves for the new beginning of God’s future which a Child brings, fresh like the formation of new ice on the thin surface of a flowing stream.
God, Our Mother, before this pandemic, I thought Resurrection and Incarnation were two different, distinct events. One at the end of Jesus’ death, and the other on the day of his birth. However, through walking the journey of Advent towards Christmas, in this pandemic, with my, our, Immanuel congregation, I gained a new perspective, a new discovery!
I looked at the frozen river of Covid, just like our member looked at the spot where the sound of fresh ice came from,
and watched Mary laying Jesus in the manger, peacefully.
Then, I realized that Advent is the Lenten season for Christmas; Christmas becomes the Easter for Advent.
Immanuel, God-With-Us, Endless Love, Radiant Dawn,
Call us to shine like the crystal star.
Call us to shine with your Infinite-quality light.
Call us to rise again with your love, with your beauty, with your steadfastness,
like the yellow tulips showing their smiling faces
above the pile of broken and discarded concrete blocks.
This night, Jesus is born in us again. Christ incarnates and becomes the new formation of crystal hope in the heart of our love. Love twinkles in the reflection of the guiding star in Heaven.
Shooting this prayer arrow, with Immanuel United Church, to you,
From your child, Ha Na
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