Isaiah 6:1-8 / 1 Cor 15:1-11 / Luke 5:1-11
During this festive season, besides the usual visiting and eating and weight-gaining, there is also one unique thing that we would have done, and it happens only during this festive season.
It is claimed to be a local creation, and it is called “lou hei” (Yusheng), and translated into English it means Prosperity Toss.
It is a pre-meal dish, like a sort of appetizer, and it usually consists of strips of raw fish or abalone, mixed with shredded vegetables and other sauces and condiments, each with some kind of symbolic prosperity meaning.
The practice is that all at the table would dig their chopsticks into this dish and toss the ingredients as high as possible and wishing each other good luck, prosperity, good health and everything good.
And even if we ran out of well-wishes, we can just say “Fatt!” or “Huat!” meaning “prosper!” That is why it is called a Prosperity Toss. And the restaurants and those selling it are certainly prospering from it.
Certainly, as we begin the Lunar New Year, we want life to be well and good and to be prosperous.
We are prepared to work hard for it because we know that good things don’t come easy. We also know that if it is easy come, then it is also easy go.
But if we had worked hard and yet we gained nothing and have nothing to show for all our effort then how are we going to come to terms with it?
Is it that we are unlucky, or we just missed those opportunities, or that at the “lou hei” there is always someone tossing higher than us, or what?
Maybe that was what Simon Peter was thinking about as he washed his fishing nets. He had worked hard all night long and yet caught nothing.
It was all just so wasted, with nothing to show for all the time, the energy and the effort. Was there something wrong that even the fishes avoided him?
Then came along Jesus who told him to go out into the deep and pay the nets out for a catch. For a carpenter to tell a fisherman how to catch fish, it does not make much sense.
Maybe Peter was desperate or despondent, or that he just wanted to prove that Jesus was wrong. Nonetheless, he did as Jesus told him, and behold, an amazing catch of fish that it filled two boats to sinking point.
More than just an amazing catch, it was also an amazing revelation for Peter as he went down on his knees and exclaimed, “Leave me, Lord, I am a sinful man.”
So we can see that when God blesses us with a fortune, there is also an accompanying revelation. The problem is that we can get so engrossed with the fortune that we missed the revelation and what God wants to say to us.
Now, let’s say as you begin the new year, you win a prize!
And these are the details of the prize:
Each morning your bank will deposit $86,400.00 into your private account for your personal use.
However, this prize comes with rules just like any game has certain rules.
The first set of rules would be this:
1. The money that you do not spend at the end of each day would be taken away from you.
2. You cannot simply transfer the money into some other account.
3. Only you can spend it.
So each morning when you wake up, the bank opens your account with $86,400.00 for that day.
The second set of rules is this:
1. The bank can end the daily deposits without warning. At any time it can say, “It’s over, the deposits are over!”
2. It will close the account and you will not receive a new one.
So with $86,400 what would you want to do with it?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?
Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love and your friends as well, right?
Even for people you don’t know you would also want to spend it on them, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right?
You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?
Well actually the daily deposit is about life!
Each of us is in possession of such a “magical” bank account. Just that we don’t see it.
THE MAGICAL BANK IS TIME!
Each morning upon awakening, we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life for that day, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.
What we haven’t lived up to that day is forever lost.
Yesterday is forever gone. Last year is gone forever.
Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time ……. WITHOUT WARNING!
Well, what would you do with your 86,400 seconds?
Aren’t they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars? In fact they are worth much more.
So when Simon Peter looked at that huge catch of fish, he could have just been engrossed with it and think of how much money he could make from it.
But he caught the revelation of who Jesus is and who he is.
So as we continue with the Lunar New Year celebrations with the “lou hei” and toss up for prosperity, let us also listen to what God wants to tell us and see what He wants to show us.
Let us lift up our minds and hearts to Jesus to be His fishers of men and to be His workers in the harvest.
That will truly be our joy and happiness.