Tis the Season of Giving @ Zion Bishan
Written by Ps Vernon Quek
This weekend, we celebrated Christmas – the holiday we most naturally associate with the act of giving. Today is also Boxing Day, a day I always assumed was named as such because it was the day that all the boxes that Christmas presents came in were disposed of. But according to the BBC, Boxing Day was actually inaugurated by Queen Victoria in the 1800s due to the practice of the rich giving gifts in boxes to the poor the day after Christmas. The rich giving gifts to the poor. That’s what Boxing Day should remind us of, and this year, it is an opportunity for us to be reminded that we as believers are actually the richest of all peoples because we have the greatest Gift of all: the Gift of Jesus. A Gift that all the ‘poor’ around us in this world need! All our ‘lesser’ gift-giving this season should help point us to this.
And so, this last Sunday of 2021, how has your Gift-giving been this year?
We’ve been incredibly blessed as a Zion Bishan family to have a multitude of Gift-giving opportunities this Christmas Season. Have a look at just some of the events we’ve had this month alone:
4th Dec: ‘Who Knows?’ – Evangelistic Event (John’s Gospel)
11th Dec: Seniors 360 Christmas Party
18th Dec: Soccer Ministry Christmas Event
19th Dec: Migrant Worker Food Delivery
20th & 21st Dec: Friendship Meal Delivery and at Golden Jasmine
22nd Dec: Safe Sound Sleeping Place Volunteers and Guest Stayers fellowship
23rd Dec: Friendship Meal at the Living Room
Not to mention our AGs being involved in bringing food and gifts to the Bishan Home staff and also helping with the Domestic Helper Fellowship’s delivery of Christmas gifts to about 50 helpers!
If you’ve been struggling to step-up your Gift-giving, now is the time.
In this season of Covid, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has moved most of my shopping online. In this Christmas period, Amazon has actually added in a warning notice to let you know that what you’re purchasing might arrive after Christmas Day – as in… the gift you’re planning to give might not reach in time. Just like that warning from Amazon, we too should remember that there’s a time-frame to our Gift-giving. There is a time coming when it will be too late to give the ‘poor’ world around us this greatest Gift that we have. As some of us put in lots of effort every year to plan our Christmas gift-giving (and card-writing), let’s put in even more effort to ensure that our giving of Jesus is even more well planned out and thought through – our labour in this will not be in vain!
Let me leave you with the precious words of our Lord Jesus from Acts 20:35, how He Himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
May we believe and live out these words in 2022.
