Taiwan Church News
3435 Edition
25 – 31 December, 2017
General Assembly News
Scriptures Recited In Plural-Linguistic Christmas Service To Celebrate Incarnation Of Jesus
Reported by Lin Yi-yin
On December 22, a service in plural languages was held at PCT General Assembly Office(GAO) to celebrate the arrival of Christmas. Rev Lyim Hong-tiong, PCT General Secretary, preached his sermon entitled “Incarnation” to remind the audience that the history of Taiwan cultivating diverse languages and cultures is very similar to that of a colonized Israel bringing in different peoples and cultures yet dominated by an empire.
And this is the reason why, since 1970s, PCT continuously engaged in Taiwan’s social and democratic movements for decades and expected to change the colonial destiny of Taiwan just like the light of Jesus Christ would shed hope into the dark, Rev Lyim said.
“Human rights are the universal gifts generously given to men by God, not a special good exclusively owned by the ruling class only”, Rev Lyim remarked, adding that the fate of PCT’s calling for a new and independent country in her Declaration of Human Rights(1977) was just like the story of Joseph betrayed by his own brothers.
As a matter of fact, not only the government of Taiwan did not treat PCT fair, but also launched many brutal attacks, black mails and even the former PCT General Secretary Rev Kao Jun-ming was illegally trialed and sentenced a 7 years’ jail to silence the voice of PCT. Therefore, to fight for Taiwan society’s human rights, democracy and dignity, we need to learn the spirit of incarnation of Jesus, Rev Lyim said, meaning that willing to suffer and sacrifice for what we believe.
During this Christmas service, the spirit of cultural incarnation in Taiwan society was also realized via the General Assembly Office staffs’ reciting the scriptures through many native and aboriginal mother tongues, including the languages of Amis, Tayal, Drukai, Taiwanese, Mandarin, Hakka and etc.
Except commemorating the incarnation story of our Lord Jesus in this beautiful Christmas season, Rev Lyim encouraged the GAO staffs to be a good disciple to follow Jesus and invite more people to experience the good news of Jesus Christ in order to make Taiwan a kingdom of God.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
