Title: Life given as a gift
life as a gift
[John 16: 20-24
Brother Park Jung-myung
Without fear, I set out to do the <Testimony of the Word> and spent several weeks feeling dazed and confused. There were so few stories I could dare to tell, and I didn't know any Bible verses, so I was fiddling with only one Lu Xun phrase about hope that was running through my mind. I have nothing to do after graduating from school, but these days, I tend to live impulsively by piling up the things I need to prepare and the things I want to do. If you look around, there are many things to learn while having fun. I wake up around ten in the morning, turn on my computer and hum a song to pass my morning hours. The body is lazy, and in the head, only unorganized things, greed and emotions are entangled, and only a sense of helplessness accumulates.
It was a day when time passed literally ‘miserably’. I couldn't keep my promises with my friends because of my insincerity and dishonesty, and it caused trouble, but I came across a situation where I was the only one to blame. Along with the feeling that I had done something wrong, I hated myself for living negligently and helplessly, and I was restless with the feeling that a stone had been shoved into my chest. I wanted to avoid that feeling, so I fell on my face and repeated the same prayers, like, I'm sure you won't hear me, I was wrong, but please forgive me. Then, thinking, "I don't know, let's do one thing first," I opened the Bible to the next week to read the Gospel of John, which was to be read at the youth group. Of course, there were also many Bible verses to read.
As I read the words, my heart suddenly left my worries and floated above the clouds. This is because I thought that our life, which struggles with all kinds of joy and despair and struggles, is essentially “given as a gift.” I could feel strongly that all God wants of us is that we love one another and live happily ever after. I was convinced that Jesus loved the weakness of human beings who could not believe and waver. And as I thought that if I could somehow walk in the midst of my weakness, I could get closer to God and closer to happiness.
There is a movie that I saw with so much emotion that my heart bursts. It is a movie called “Wonderful Life” directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu. It's a film with some fantasy elements, but I think it's a great insight into what life is and how we should accept it.
Medieval Christianity's 'purgatory' is understood as an intermediate space where those who can be forgiven receive punishment in return for their sins and arrange their lives. The background of Wonderful Life is also purgatory as a space to organize life. In this movie, the concept of purgatory is different from that of medieval Christianity. For a week, the dead choose only one memory from their life that they want to remember forever. If you choose a memory, the dead will film their memories directly, organize their lives, and go to the world of rest.
Being able to choose only one memory is a bit disappointing, and I feel sorry for those who are forgotten, and it seems sad. But the fact that everyone can organize their lives into their happiest moments apart from appraisal of guilt and merit suggests that life is essentially a ‘gift given’. I thought our lives in this movie were very equal in that they are evaluated according to how much we love and give meaning to our own lives. I think the two words of the commandment Jesus gave, “love” and the promise Jesus made, “I will give you what you ask for” are included in this movie's view of life.
Among the words that I read with the deepest feeling, the thing that shook me the most was the words of 16:20-24. This verse is about “the moment when despair turns into hope.” Of course, the depth of despair I felt is not yet very deep. But I have a vague sense of how intensely the energy of life burns so intensely in moments of despair, and that when hope is found in despair, people will shudder strongly with life and happiness. Perhaps in those moments, you will find the pinnacle of life.
Before being arrested, Jesus foretold to his disciples that “you will weep and mourn” and “you will be shrouded in sorrow.” The capture and death of Jesus to the disciples means that the light on which their lives and hopes were staked is swallowed up by the oppression of conservative Judaism and the chaotic situation of the Roman Empire at the time, and the world sees the world as they have seen since childhood. It must have been seen as evidence of a flow to the logic of convention and power. But Jesus, who overcame death, rose from the dead in an unbelievable way, and promised to take his disciples 'next to the Father', prepared the most powerful moment of bliss for those who lived with him in his heart. . This, like the last verse, seems to be purely intended to “make you rejoice.”
These are the words of Lu Xun that I was fiddling with in my mind before reading the Bible.
“If you think about it, you cannot say that hope is inherently present or non-existent. Hope is like a road on the earth. There is no road on the ground from the beginning. Because if there are more people walking, that place will naturally become a road.”
Suh Kyung-sik, a Korean-Japanese and a family member of a pro-democracy fighter, interprets Lu Xun as follows. “When Lu Xun says, ‘It cannot be said that hope exists or does not exist,’ he is saying that there is no hope. Otherwise, at least say 'never'... Humans do not walk because there is hope. As long as humans walk, it cannot be concluded that there is no hope. That is the true ‘hope’.”
As Suh Kyung-sik and Lu Xun said, there are too many cases where we do not see any hope from the beginning. Here, it is said that the reason that human beings can have hope is not because hope is “given”, but because human beings live and experience it as a certain subject in the midst of all kinds of hardships and adversity. I deeply agree with these statements. Without the actions of those who have faith, hope cannot be created.
But now, I think of <Wonderful Life> and think of the confidence and love contained in the words of Jesus. And I wonder if hope is already a part of the important grace of ‘the life that is given to us’, and if we look at life one step at a time, we can say that ‘there is no situation without hope’. Hope is a gift prepared by God for those who have faith and practice it. Perhaps on the last day of my life, I am daring to imagine Jesus, who will point to the place he left blank when he said, “I love you,” while choosing the memories of my life. *