Alex Tang
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Books Recommendation
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Medical Students /Paediatric notes
Advent 2013: Homecoming
As I write this, the sky outside is getting dark; ominous black clouds
gathering, the harbinger of a coming tropical monsoon storm. Parts of my country
Malaysia is submersed in the annual floods that plague this country in the
monsoon period. The darkness of the gathering storm reflects the darkness of my
soul. No, I did not have a bad year. In fact, 2013 will be considered by many to
be a very successful year for me. I have received accolades for my medical work
and medical teaching. I achieved the pinnacle in my academic development. I have
presented a theological paper in an international conference, taught well
received courses in theological seminaries, preached numerous sermons and led a
couple of retreats. And many have been blessed by these. Yet, I feel empty. I
feel a longing for something or someone. I feel homesick. C.S. Lewis has
expressed what I am feeling well when he described that feeling he had as if
hearing a familiar music from behind a door of a party you have not been invited
to. The music invoking a sense of longing, a sense of homesickness of a home you
have never seen before.
Advent, the season which leads to Christmas offers me this opportunity to
express my homesickness. Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of the
Christ, God incarnate who took on human flesh. The almighty that became
vulnerable as a newborn baby in Mary’s arms. The Messiah has come to take on the
sins of the world so that all may be reconcile to the Holy Father. The Christ
event has made possible my ticket home. This ticket was offered to me free by
God’s loving grace. Like a person with amnesia, I may not remember what this
home is like but I know that it will be a good place. This home will be where
there is space for me to be me; with no pretensions or deceptions. Where I am
loved for who I am, not what I do. Home is a space where I feel wanted and am
comfortable in. Not an alien resident or squatter in a foreign land. This space
is where I belong and am being part of. Coming to this home will be like I have
never left. While I am here in this world, this home is still in me and will
always be part of me.
Advent and Christmas promise new beginnings. Being at the end of December it is
the closing of the year and a new year beckons. Many new journeys begin from
home. We strike out from our safe comfortable homes on new quests of
discoveries. Advent is coming back to base, rest and equip for another year
ahead. Advent is homecoming. Christmas is home base. Then living forward to
another quest; another year ahead of discovering the transcendent and immanent
God in our daily lives.
Finally, Advent is coming home to another Christ event, that of His second
coming. The return of the king will bring to an end the tremendous suffering of
this groaning creation, and the billions of human souls on it. It will be an end
to pain, suffering, loneliness and loss. The shalom of the Garden of Eden, the
original perfect creation will be restored. And we will all come home, only to
discover as T.S Eliot notes, it is where we all have began from.
|6 December 2013|
