New Spring, Everlasting Blessings?
By Alston Ng
Having grown up in Singapore, I am certain that there is an item that one would inexorably think of at the mention of ‘Chinese New Year’: the red packets, the hong baos, or the angpows.
Among many of my co-ethnics, the festivity of welcoming the Lunar New Year has been infiltrated by the annual angpow exchange.
I distinctly remember having grown up with my mother repeatedly reminding me of the virtues - and financial merits - of being polite during visits to my relatives’. According to my mother’s theory, ‘good and well-behaved children’ with ‘honeyed lips’ (嘴巴甜甜) receive bigger angpows, which will help recover a portion of my parents’ dent in their coffers in this annual tradition. As the youngest of three sons (while also being unmarried), all hopes were upon me to play the part of the modest, courteous Apollonian child.
To prepare for the part, I would be armed to the teeth with what I considered to be creative new year greetings. If ‘honeyed lips’ were the goal, I certainly wouldn’t settle for the uninspired 恭喜发财 (gongxi facai, a wish of financial blessings) or the run-of-the-mill 万事如意 (wanshi ruyi, meaning everything goes according to one’s wishes). My blessings, I made sure of it, would be less pedestrian. I went with 岁岁平安 (suisui pingan), 一本万利 (yiben wanli), 和气生财 (heqi shengcai), among others.
To the best of my knowledge, however, my blessings have not made the slightest dent in my relatives’ fortunes.
Thankfully so, I must now add. For if these poor, lisping lips of mine were worthy of uttering any blessings, I dread the thought that they should only assure others of earthly treasures and gratification.
For how could 财源滚滚 (caiyuan gungun, literally riches pouring in from all sides) or 吉星高照 (jixing gaozhao, a wish that your lucky stars shine) compare to the rolling streams of living water which quench our innermost thirst, or the consummate glory of the Creator, who embellishes the heavens by calling forth the starry hosts by name?
That we are called to not be of the world or to love it as our own prepares us for a thoroughgoing reflection on the meaning of the new year.
As the Lunar New Year comes around, we are reminded of the blessings we confer unto others and we wish upon ourselves, but let’s not forget to look upon each new year greeting as a point of departure for us to venture towards the true fount of blessings.
Not 心想事成 (xinxiang shicheng, may all your wishes come true), but that the Lord’s will be done.
Not 一本万利 (yiben wanli, an investment that yields a ten-thousandfold return), but that we may be faithful in the little.
Not 恭贺新禧 (gonghe xinxi, a generic phrase indicating good luck and fortune for the new year), but that we thank God always for having saved us from slavery to sin and made us a new creation in Christ.
May we let the new spring - its gaudy accoutrements, its boisterous festivities, its rampant commodification, its vacuous blessings - pass us by. For it is but a shadow to the everlasting spring of God’s new creation - a new creation where we dwell with God, and God with us.
Until then, we join the Spirit in wordless groans to seek His face and see all things made new.