ponderosa

As the morning sun casts her radiance on my hull,

I feel young and powerful.

Horning loudly, I declare: “I’m the King of the Sea.”

Then begin my journey, whose destination I cannot see.

“I want to conquer the ocean, Captain,” I insist.

Smiling patiently, the Captain does not resist.

Bigger ships I encounter along the way.

Their speed and pace left me in dismay.

At the wrong turns comes the pirate,

Who plunders all I have, leaving me irate.

In the storm, the captain asks, “let me take control.”

With conceited heart, I refuse to surrender all.

Racing through the raging seas, I rely on my working and thinking.

When the storm ceases, I’m found leaking and sinking.

Now and then, I see beautiful ports that lure me to stop by.

Unfortunately, the size does not fit, I don’t know why.

In search of my final resting place,

I feel tired being tossed by the wave.

The wave corrodes my hope and makes me insecure.

“Just be patient,” the Captain assures.

Finally the sun sets in the horizon

And I still have not reached my destination.

Feeling hopeless, my machine grinds to a complete stop.

“I’m not a ship, just a fishing boat,” I sob.

“My machine rusts, my body is fragile and short.”

“I’m not a ship that can fit well to any port.”

“Not a ship with complete navigation system.”

“Against the pirate, I cannot fight them.”

“So let me guide you my child,” offers My Captain.

Slowly but surely, in the darkest night, I finally sail, purposeful and certain.

On my 1st weekend in Swiss, I was told that willy, hari, and mark had planned to visit our host family in Fribourg. I was quite shocked since I had not really settled down yet in Zurich and yet, I was thrilled because I really wanna see them again after 1 year. The reunion was fun. The 2 days I stayed over in their place, I drank alcohol that exceeded the amount I drank during my entire stay in Singapore. 1st day, 2 glasses of wine and 1 glass of beer. 2nd day, 2 glasses of beers and 2 glasses of wine. I had enough. I don’t really enjoy drinking beer and wine. I mean, I can live and survive without alcohol. But, the european ppl drink so much alcohol and I think they cannot live without it =) that's already in their culture perhaps. Even, in the national budget, the swiss authority considers beer as the staple food of a typical swiss family. However, there is 1 type of wine that appeals to me. EISWEIN in germany. Oh man! It tastes so good. It has a tinge of sweetness combined with the typical flavour of wine with its lingering pleasant after-taste. I simply love it.

We had fun chatting and travelling around fribourg and visited our favourite place - the jutted-out terrace on top of the hill that overlooks the whole city of fribourg. It was awesome. Then we had a great BBQ dinner. Time flies and on sunday night we have to head back to fribourg. We took the after-7 train since we have bought the Gleis 7 pass that entitled us to free after-7pm train ride to the whole Swiss in 1 year.

It was 1 week before the ETH Zurich and uni of zurich start the new semester proper. This 1 week is so precious because this will be our last chance to have a long break for travelling. During school term, we won't enjoy such a luxury. Not even a mid-semester break =(  Most of us had a travelling plan fixed already. Willy, Hari and Mark planned to go Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotherdam. Zic and Kenneth flew to spain. Winnie, Suetchian, and Maybelle planned to shop in London. What about me? No plan at all. This is because I don't have a schengen visa. i never applied for one in Spore. Therefore, I could not go out of Swiss until November perhaps, when Swiss will join the Schengen territory.

Then on the friday night, a nasty idea came to my mind. “Perhaps I should travel to Germany?” The idea really challenged me to take the most bold and rebellious act I have taken in my life as I asked myself, which country has the most amiable and peaceful relationship with Swiss? Perhaps the border checks are not so stringent over there. Italy with their notorious mafia is out of question. France could be but last year I went to Paris, the whole train passengers have to pass the immigration counter. So, the answer will be Germany. Many german and swiss people commute to and fro daily crossing the borderline for works or study. Yes, LET"S GO GERMANY. hehehe...... But the consequences of my action really scared me. It is still good if the police ask me to go back home. But, what if they deport me back to Indonesia? All my SEP plan would go down the drain. Nevertheless, being inherently rebellious in nature, I took the challenge, hoping for the best.

Then, a stream of ideas came rushing to my mind. I should go Frankfurt to meet my friends Ivana and Johan. So, I can have free lodgings =) I should go car-sharing. The cheapest way to travel. By train Zurich - frankfurt costs me 90 one way. With Car-Sharing (Mitfahrgelgenheit), it costs only 40 francs. Then I immediately search the website www.mitfahrgelegenheit.ch to check out the possibility to hitch-hike. It was cool =) we travel by a turquoise-green VW van. I should go Heidelberg, the fairytale-like town in Germany. Soon after I invited Joanna and Yinuo to join my travelling, I drafted the initial travelplan: zurich - frankfurt - Heidelberg - Stuttgart - Zurich all with car-sharing. In Frankfurt, I stayed with Johan while Joanna and Yinuo stayed with Natasha, an Indonesian who study medicine together with Ivana. Johan is my church friend in Singapore. He is working for a project in Commerzbank Frankfurt. I was so happy to meet Ivana, my old friend back in junior high school. She became our trustworthy tour guide in Frankfurt. Thanks a lot, because of you we can learn a lot about Frankfurt and other cities in Germany for our travelling itinerary. 

After learning about Hessen ticket, Baden Wurtemberg ticket and Schoenes Wochende ticket from Ivana, we realized that we can save more money by taking train for the rest of our journey. So, we modify our itinerary to become: Zurich – Frankfurt – Rudesheim – Heidelberg – Rotenburg – Konstanz – Zurich. I guess Stuttgart can be omitted since there is nothing much to see over there except for the numerous german industrial establishments.

In Konstanz, through Ivana, I met 2 new friends, Rio and Lia. Both are studying in Konstanz. I guess there are more Indonesian communities in germany compared to in Swiss. I really envy them. On Sunday night we went back to Zurich =) What a fabulous 1-week germany trip. And I thank God that we can come back home safely.

This Mission Impossible to save humanity from the clutch of devil and bondage of sin has been accomplished by Jesus Christ. No one else can do that. To me, each religion represents human effort to interpret and speculate the mystery of God’s Great Rescue Plan for Humanity. Since the beginning, God has promised Adam and Eve a plan to save mankind from the clutch of sin and eternal damnation. Unfortunately, in the long course of time up till now, man with his scheming and speculating minds very often misreads God’s plan. Pitifully, man often plays God throughout history. The 6000-year-old Satan, who witnessed everything and understands God’s plan better than man, managed to confuse us with so many religions, beliefs and world temptations.

After all, who are we to try to guess and understand the unfathomable thought of God? For examples, initially all Israelites share a common belief in the coming of Messiah (the Saviour) who will bring salvation. When Jesus declared Himself as the Messiah, some believe and some don’t. Those who believe are the first Christians, whereas those who reject Jesus and still waiting for “another Messiah” until now are the fathers of Judaism. They could not accept that the promised Saviour was someone who was born in a dirty stable and eventually crucified at the cross. They thought (human’s thought) that the Messiah should be a powerful King in Israel who will reign the world. They became disappointed with God’s plan and diverted from the Way of Truth. Unfortunately, God’s divine Way is not human’s way and God’s thought is not like our limited thought. We cannot dictate the way God works using our own human understanding.

Whenever, a group of man interprets God’s plan differently from others, a new religion is born. Even in today’s modern world, new religions such as the New Age, Scientology, etc keep coming up and manage to attract myriads of followers. Therefore, we should not focus too much on religion. Do not put our faith in Religion. Put our faith in the living God. Like oil and water, God Almighty (Jesus alike) and religion have never mixed well. Religion is the practice of making simple things hard. A religion is also a man-made institution. It represents human endeavour to rescue himself from eternal punishment and earn him eternal life. It’s totally against God’s Rescue Plan. How can we, a sinful man, try to save ourselves from sin-inflicted punishment? How can we, a sinful man, reach the holy place using our own effort? I believe that the One from the holy place has to come down and rescue us. I believe that the One who has been wronged by our sins is the Only One who can forgive us of all our sins and save us from eternal punishments. Therefore, no religious acts, no rituals nor traditions, no holy man nor prophets, not even all our good deeds can save us. Only God alone can save us. After all, Jesus Christ came down to earth NOT with a mission to establish a new religion, rather to free us from the bondage of the religious Law.

Being a spiritual being, every human being must have at least 1 God in his life – something that he puts his hope in because that something, he believes, has power. It can be deities or even money, statues, rocks, or even the devil. Even those atheists who claim that they don’t believe in any God, they actually have one. Their god is their own selves, their understanding and their pride, refusing to succumb to the authority of their Creator. So which God do you believe in? It is all up to each individual to choose because we all have a God-given freewill. Choose wisely!

The questions about God’s existence often troubled me as a teenager. Why do I need a god in my life? I guess I am myself self-sufficient enough. Until one day, I heard the Greatest Love Story and I got to know Jesus Christ. He is God who so loved me that He died for me. God - GOD! – DIED for me! These 2 words were oxymoron to me at that time, GOD and DIED. Initially I could not understand. How could God, who is all-powerful and omnipotent, die? I never heard any other God or person willing to die out of His unconditional love for all sinful humankind, including you and me. Jesus, God Himself, died the most torturing and humiliating death for my sins! He died so that I don’t have to die. Then, I thought to myself, “If God is like that, then that God shall be my God!” That very moment, I surrender my life and faith to Jesus Christ, my saviour. 

I believe in Jesus Christ, and you can ask me why =)

Modern medical science has learned that to fight a disease, it is sometimes necessary to be “infected” with it. Through this ironic process, the treated are rendered immune to the effects of a given illness. Surprisingly, this process of “deliberate infection to bring about immunity” was described in prophetic details by a man, who lived a few thousand years Before Christ, who never heard the word vaccination:

“He (Jesus Christ) was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes that wounded Him, we are healed… The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” - Isaiah 53:5-6

Isaiah, the prophet, looked into the future and described the torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. His words provide a glimpse into the blueprint of the Creator’s great plan to rescue humanity. Being 100% man and 100% God, Jesus came to earth with the power to heal and forgive. Within this “second Adam”, the warring factions of spirit and flesh also existed. He was indeed tempted like we are, yet He was without sin. Hanging nailed at the cross, Jesus was also deliberately infected with all manner of sickness and sin, so to bring about salvation and healing through His divine, immunized blood. He became our substitute. He suffered the penalty for our sins and died in our place. By simply believing in Jesus as our saviour and the power of His blood, we can be cleansed from our sins and healed from our disease.

“He went once and for all into the Holy of Holies of Heaven, not by virtue of the blood of goats and calves to make reconciliation between God and man, but His own blood, having found and secured a complete redemption and an everlasting release for us.” Hebrews 9:12 

The sin infection Adam contracted by his selfish act under a tree was covered for all time by Christ’s selfless act on a tree. Satan was once again defeated and no barrier of separation, except for man’s own free will to choose, now stood between the Creator and His creation. Jesus has paid in full the sacrifice for our sin forgiveness, yet He cannot force us to believe in Him. Each of us has our own free will to idolize one God. The bible says that nobody can have 2 Masters. For at any one time, he will adore one and ignore the other.

Although God disliked the way man had used the gift of free will, He still loved us as His unique creation. He knew that if things remained status quo, humanity would be lost forever and would ultimately suffer the same fate that awaited Satan – eternal punishment in hell. For divine fellowship to be restored, mankind had to be cleansed of the deadly disease (sin) it had contracted.

Therefore, God devised a 2-phase purification process:

1. Initially allowing Him closer contact to His tainted creation that He might tend to the physical symptoms of sin,
2. Introduce a cure which would totally annihilate sin itself and all of its diseased properties.

The one element common to both of these purification phases was the shedding of blood as blood represents the life of all flesh. In the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and throughout the ancient world, covenants were sealed and confirmed with blood.

Phase One: The Temporary Covering Covenant

The first phase of the Creator’s rescue plan was to narrow the gap that Satan had forged between God and man. For a reconciliation to happen requires both conflicting parties to come together. Therefore, the Creator established a covenant with His creation and sealed it with the blood of a slaughtered animal. After Adam and Eve committed their first sin and saw themselves naked, God Himself slaughtered a beast and made coats of skin for the couple to wear. The Lord shed the blood of an animal to provide a covering for humanity’s transgression. That event initiated the practice of animal sacrifice. Its purpose was to act as a temporary blood covering for man’s transgressions. So every time the ancient Israelites committed sins, they may beg for God’s forgiveness and His blessings by sacrificing animals. Hitherto our Muslim friends still practice this animal slaughtering tradition once a year a few weeks after Hari Raya celebration. The shedding of animal blood was a means of “momentarily sterilizing” man’s sin infection, so that he might reestablish limited contact with His Creator. However, its effectiveness was so inadequate that our Old Testament forefathers had to repeat the process each time they brought a petition to the Lord.

Man’s free-will decision changed God’s paradise into Satan’s perdition. The corruption of sin that infest the world restricted mankind’s access to His maker. Although the Lord longed for direct companionship with His creation, the first blood covenant could do very little to rescue mankind from the curse of sin.

From the beginning, God’s strategy was to break through Satan’s barrier, eradicate sin and its numerous diseases and restore man to his rightful place of dominion. However, this portion of God’s rescue plan demanded a sacrificial covering far more potent than the blood of a soulless and spiritless animal. To eradicate the disease of sin, it would require a dose of pure blood from the same species that was originally infected – man.

Phase Two: The Perfect Sacrifice

But man did not qualify. Unfortunately, nobody is right in God’s eyes. Humanity’s bloodline was tainted from the very start by Adam’s sin. Everybody has sinned, even a new-born baby. Because sin is not only talking about committing acts which disobey God, but it’s also talking about our status. By default, everyone originating from Adam has acquired a “sinful” status.

The perfect sacrifice must be pure and of sinless bloodline. The sacrifice of this pure and perfect substitute would not have to be repeated. Its potent flow would supply, once and for all, the ultimate covering for all of humanity’s sins and transgressions.

Man’s sin leads to eternal death and man’s sickness needs a cure. Ironically, man cannot save himself. Someone who is holy has to come and save the unholy for the unholy cannot save themselves to make themselves holy. (This very concept is logical and appealing to my intellect). The perfect sacrifice has to come from God Almighty Himself. Therefore, seeing no other alternatives, God Himself came down to earth in the personation of Jesus Christ to be the ultimate sacrifice. Clothing Himself in man’s flesh through a virgin birth, Jesus Christ came to earth and became the sole supplier of what this temporal and imperfect world needed most: the healing power of divine and pure blood.

“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He was submissive and opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter…..” – Isaiah 53:7

Recently, I stumbled upon my friend’s serial blogs on Buddhism entitled “Why I left Buddhism”. As the title suggests, the blogs contain his deep reasonings on his decision, after spending hours of thinking, to denounce his former religion. I strongly believe that this issue is highly relevant as I am introducing some Christian belief in my 4-part blogs entitled “Mission Impossible”.

After reading his blogs, I quite admire my friend. I give him my approval NOT because I, being a Christian, agree with him and support his stand against Buddhism, hoping that he might embrace Christianity as well. I give him my approval for his courage - the fact that he dares to challenge what he believes in, not accepting his faith superficially at face value. I myself also learn to constantly challenge my Christian belief, to continuously re-examine and review its teachings and values. I am also learning to be open to other ideas and teachings from other religions. Therefore, I find his posts on Buddhism enlightening. I encourage everyone to do the same. We should not blindly cling on to some faith or belief without giving it incessant pondering and thinking upon it because narrow, fanatic mindset is harmful. For example, the suicide bombers in the name of a religion.

There are many ways to the so-called “the truth” offered to us. However, I believe there is only ONE WAY leading us to the one real TRUTH. Because, to me having many correct ways leading us to the one truth is nonsensical. To put it in a simple analogy, it’s like having many gods and deities of different religions with their different ideals, agendas and laws living together in perfect harmony in the same heaven. Unfortunately, that ONE WAY leading us to the only TRUTH will only be revealed to all of us at the end of the day. Only then we know who is right and who is wrong. It may be too late for some of us to make the right choice. Therefore, I would like to encourage everybody to keep seeking and choose wisely. I strongly believe that every persistent seeker who humbles himself to learn and receive will eventually discover the Truth =)