Happy Chinese New Year of the Horse!
The New Year is supposed to bring Spring with it, but it's still very much Winter in Hong Kong:
Many consecutive days of gray rain and temperatures of 45F outside means winter coats are needed inside, in our unheated seminary classrooms.
And yet, students smile and "firecracker flowers" brighten the dull landscape. Good things are abloom, even in the midst of a gray Hong Kong winter!
Meanwhile, check out the excerpts (below) from a recent sermon by yours truly, on Biblical horse imagery for the New Year of the Horse. And remember:
Some trust in chariots
and some in horses,
but we trust in
the name of the Lord our God.
-- Psalm 20:7
Excerpts from a
Sermon: Eight
Horses from the Bible
Rev. Christa von Zychlin
Lunar New Year of the Horse
Season of Epiphany
2014
In honor of
Chinese New Year of the Horse,
here are eight
horses of the Bible who still speak to us today:
HORSE #1
“Do
you give the horse its strength
or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
20 Do
you make it leap like a locust,
striking terror with its proud
snorting?
21 It
paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
and charges into the fray.
22 It
laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; -- Job 30
In these verses,
God himself is speaking to Job. Job, who has suffered beyond what any human being should
suffer. And it is a strange comfort to Job, but it is a comfort. Sometimes, there
is no answer to pain, sorrow or suffering. But God says, look at my Creation,
and don’t doubt me. Just look at the horse, its muscles its power its strength,
its joy, its beauty. God says, I am the God of that horse.
And I am God of you, Job, even in all of
your incomprehensible suffering
HORSE #2
31 The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
but
victory rests with the Lord. -- Proverbs 21:31.
The battle horse
reminds us it is good to prepare for things. We will have battles in life and
we’d better get ready to fight them. So let’s get our spiritual armor in place,
but make sure we’re fighting as Christ did – not with violence and hate, but
with the armor of God, the weapons of the Spirit.
and still, even
with the best preparations, success
is not in our hands, but is with God… and that’s more than ok, it is good!
HORSE
#3
9 I
liken you, my darling, to a mare
among Pharaoh’s chariot horses. --Song of
Solomon 1:9
Valentines’ Day is coming up and
some of you men may want to use this line for the ladies…
or maybe not!!
The Song of Solomon is a love song
celebrating the sexual love between a man and a woman, -- and that’s a good
thing.
But it’s also always been
understood as an allegory – the allegory of love between God and
our soul, our deepest self.
God sees each one of us,
individually, with eyes of love. Like a bridegroom for his one & only bride,
like a bride for her one & only husband.
Among
all the horses, the horseman sees this one special mare.
Among
all the people God has created, God also sees you, in your most inward and
personal self, and you are uniquely
beautiful to him.
HORSE #4
And
yet and yet - It is because we are so precious and beautiful in God’s sight
that He gets so enraged at the hurt we inflict on other people and on all of
creation.
”None of them repent of
their wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues their own course
like a horse charging into battle.” -- Jeremiah 8:6
In
the preceding chapter (7) the prophet Jeremiah makes a list of sins that really
matter to God:
--
the sin of oppressing the alien:
who are the “aliens” (strangers, weirdo’s, uninvited ones)
in your neighborhood?
--
the sin of neglecting the fatherless and widowed:
what are we doing for
the fatherless and the
orphaned, throughout China and Southeast Asia? How are vulnerable single women – today’s “widows” young and
old – being treated, exploited, or sold all over in today’s economies?
--
the sin of following other gods:
where do you
and I pour out our offerings, what does our credit card or our bank statement or
our business practices say about who the gods are in our lives?
In
which way are you and I like horse number 4, “Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle”
Horse
# 4 is the horse that leads to spiritual death, each of us fighting our own
battles, dashing about like horse without a rider. We call ourselves Christians, but in so many ways live as
if we have no Saviour to lead us.
Horse
#4 calls us to repentance.
HORSE
#5, 6, 7, 8
2 I looked, and behold,
a white horse… a red horse… a black horse… a pale horse…”
-- Revelation 6:1-8
What destination does living
apart from God bring us to?
Sin has already (I believe) unleashed
the parabolic horses of Revelation 6 into our world, the four horses of the
apocalypse:
the white horse -- bent on conquest, represents the sin of power-grabbing.
the red horse, the color of blood, represents war. God revealed in Christ hates war
and violence between humans; for Christians, there is no such thing as a
righteous human war.
the black horse is the horse of famine and scarcity, but also represents unfair trade
practices, so prices for ordinary food is high, so people at the bottom of the
economic pyramids have to work all day just in order to eat, so as go back to
work another day. Meanwhile, the rich get richer.
The last horse is the pale horse of death.
Those are the eight horses
of the Bible:
Ah, but there is one more
horse. Surprise! There is a 9th horse to consider.
(This is the last time a
horse is mentioned in the Bible)
HORSE
#9
The old visionary John continues speaking
of what he once saw in a vision:
“I saw heaven
standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.
His eyes like
blazing fire, on his head crowns, dressed in a robe dipped in blood” – Revelation
19:11
Whose blood is He wearing? It is his own blood – unlike any other
conqueror, this One wears his own blood.
Written on his robe he has this name:
(Do you know His name?)
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS…
The final horse of the Bible, the ninth
horse, is the horse on which the Son of Man is seated. He comes as the one who wins
all battles, who brings all justice, who leads his people forward into the New
Heaven and the New Earth where peace reigns, where justice lives, where love of
neighbor is practiced with imagination and strength.
Horses of the Bible. We have much to live and learn and to
DO as Christians, living in this New Year of the Horse.
As a website about the Chinese
understanding of the horse put it:
Horses can give people a ride to their
destination. Therefore, the horse is not only a symbol of traveling, but also a
sign of speedy success.”
May God give us good travels, a great
destination and the right kind of success in this New Year of the Horse.
Amen.
