The Middle Kingdom and the Kingdom of God

Every Christmas season for the past twenty years I listen to a tape (now a CD) of voices that are long past remembering. Yet when I hear these voices I can't help remember vividly of spending Christmas in China aka the Middle Kingdom. Those voices are truly that of Christmas past but once heard again become very present in my mind and heart.

The voices are that of Chinese college students sharing Christmas "warm wishes" and making every attempt to sing the "Twelve Days of Christmas." They never quite got the idea of singing in turn but by the end you couldn't have a found a more robust chorus of Christmas cheer in song and words. It's hard to fathom that those same college students are now closer to forty years old and probably have families of their own.

What particularly struck me at that time and still does to this day is how Christmas in China couldn't have been more stark in its lack of the materialism that characterizes Christmas in the United States. There were no decorations, no lights, no trees, no sales and no songs on the radio. It was all very much nothing. But it was in those moments of quiet simplicity that I re-discovered my faith as a follower of Jesus Christ. I began to see that faith didn't depend on whether I prayed enough, went to church, or took communion.

In fact in China I had to make do with biscuits and grape flavored Kool-Aid to remember the body and blood of Christ. And church? It was essentially me and my teammate reading the Bible, praying and asking the Holy Spirit for insight. There was no worship band, no charismatic preacher or coffee in the vestibule. Instead, all there was is a faith that believed in the babe born of the Virgin Mary who ushered in the Kingdom of God and in all places in the Middle Kingdom.

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