TREASURY OF SERMONS
1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
From Happiest Japanese Royal Birth to the Birth
of Our Saviour
By Rev (Dr) Timothy Tow
(Preached at Life Church Combined Christmas Service, Dec 23, 2001)
Do you know why the whole Japanese nation is
carried away with joy when a baby girl Princess Aiko is born to the
Crown Princess after a long wait of eight years?
Having studied Japanese history and culture
during the Japanese Occupation 1942-45 I can tell you why. My
Japanese tutor believed in the myth of the divinity of their
emperor. He was called Hirohito and he reigned long years after
WWII, a total of over sixty years. He outlived all the great leaders
of the allied nations, such as Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle
of France, General MacArthur of USA. His divinity is witnessed not
only by his longevity but also by his being the one hundredth and
so-and-so male descendant within one dynasty of Japanese emperors.
And succession to the royal dynasty is given only to the male
descendants.
When the present Crown Princess, of the third
generation from Hirohito did not conceive until eight years after,
and she was reaching two to three years under forty, there was great
anxiety about there being no successor to the throne after the
present crown prince. The claim that there has been over 100
emperors keeping to the one dynasty succession, which proves the
royal divinity, is severed.
According to the claim to divinity with the
birth of male successors, the present birth of Aiko, a girl, severs
it. At any rate, the Japanese of a new age have given up the myth of
divinity of the royal family, and though it is a girl this time, the
Japanese, as a nation, is willing to let a female successor sit on
the throne.
That the Crown Princess gives birth to a girl
this time, I believe, is decreed by God the Almighty in order to
break the myth of Japanese Imperial divinity. The Japanese emperors
throughout the ages were fallible human beings and not gods.
Thus the Japanese people are brought down to
recognise the birth of a girl. The whole nation is bubbling over
with joy as long as the royal birth has come, whether boy or girl.
And, all the anxious waiting was only eight years.
When our first parents fell into sin, and death
by sin, God announced the coming of a Saviour to redeem us while
they were still in the Garden (Gen 3:15). After a long wait of over
three thousand years God announced through Isaiah that a Virgin
shall conceive and bear a Son who will be called Immanuel, God with
us. Then after another seven hundred years, when Jesus Christ was
born in Bethlehem, God the Father was so delighted that He broke
through the blue by sending his angels to declare, "Glory to God in
the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men."
When a princess is born to the Japanese after
eight years of anxious waiting the whole nation rejoices. When the
Saviour of all mankind, God’s Son, is born through the Virgin, after
4,000 years, the world rejoices, "even to the whole heaven," in the
words of Chinese Christians.
Although Christmas has degenerated to mass
commercialisation, using the name of Christ to make money out of us,
we Christians do well to celebrate the divine birth by praising His
Name with the angels. We worship Him with the Wisemen with our gifts
and announce his salvation to the world with the shepherds.
One blessing God has bestowed upon His people is
the age-old Gospel carols that we sing. They bring comfort to our
hearts that Christ is the only hope of mankind.
Christmas is the Christian’s New Year. It is a
time of rejoicing. It is a golden opportunity of spreading the
Gospel to the ends of the earth.
On this joyous occasion encircling the globe we
welcome you, visitors to Life Church, to celebrate His Holy Birth.
Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, is God’s Son. Why did He come to
earth? To save His people from their sins. Because we have all
fallen into sin we need Him who alone can save us. He was crucified,
died and buried. After three days He rose again from the dead to die
no more. He breathed peace on His disciples, and this day, if you
will kneel before Him and receive Him as your Saviour, you will be
saved. Amen.
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