Do You See What God Sees? (Advent 1)

The book of Zhuagzi, the great Daoist philosopher, begins with a mind-blowing allegory about a fish named “Kun” which is thousands of miles in width and lenght. Yes, you heard me right. He sayid that the body of the Kun fish is thousands of miles long.

What’s more incredible is that this fish suddenly turns into a bird named Peng. With a flap of his wings, he rises up to 3,000 miles above the ocean. Then, riding a whirlwind, he ascends to 90,000 miles above. Its wing span is thousands of miles wide. When it flies, it covers the sky.

The Peng bird travels to the southern darkness known as the Pool of Heaven. It flies without resting for six months.

Seeing the Peng bird in the sky, a cicada makes fun of it by telling a pigeon, “Each time I try to fly up an elm tree, I fall back to the ground. What chance does that bird fly up to 90,000 miles high? Ridiculous!”

A quail also laughs at the Peng bird, “Hey, where are you traveling to? I can hardly leap up to a few feet. What’s the point of flying up to 90,000 miles high? Meaningless!”

However, the Peng bird at 90,000 miles up there doesn’t react to the ridicule of those small creatures. He enjoys the breathtaking vision of the earth’s grandeur from up high. The noises down there don’t bother him at all.

This book was written by Zhuangzi over two thousand years ago. So, it was before Christ. The entire book is filled with profound parables and rich imagination. I encourage everyone to read it.

The question is, what does this story mean? According to some scholars, the Kun fish (鯤: 魚子也) is actually a tiny fish or baby fish. The author is describing the size of its mental capacity or spiritual maturity. It means this fish is physically tiny but spiritually vast.

Its ambition is to fly to the Pool of Heaven, meaning its vision is the kingdom of God. Since it seeks first the kingdom of God, the criticisms, ridicules, and condemnations of other creatures don’t bother him.

Allegorically, this fish represents spiritual seekers like us. Our vision is eternal life, and our destination is the kingdom of God. The cicadas, the quails, and other creatures don’t understand us. They often ridicule us for believing in God, reading the Bible, and singing hymns.

Like the Peng bird, flying 90,000 miles above, we see what God sees. So, we don’t care what those small creatures are chattering about. They are making fun of what they don’t understand. But if we pay attention to the naysayers, we will become one of them and lose our pursuit of the kingdom.

Let’s look at a real-life example. When Elon Musk was building Tesla, initially, I thought he was crazy because I was like one of those cicadas and quails who believed he would fail, but I was wrong. Then he went on to do other things even crazier, building Space X, Neuralink, Boring Company, etc., flying higher and higher.

Observing him, I discovered that the higher he climbed, the nosier the small creatures became. He got ridiculed, criticized, and slandered for trying to fulfill his vision that those with arrogant small minds could not comprehend. As you hear in the news, those who don’t see what he sees mock him constantly like those noisy cicadas. That’s an excellent contemporary allegory.

For us Christians, on our journey to the kingdom of heaven, we see what God sees. We are like the Peng bird flying at 90,000 miles above the sea and look ridiculous to those who don’t see what we see. Sometimes, we do feel the noisy cicadas to be annoying.

Jesus says his followers will encounter misunderstanding, ridicule, and even persecution by worldly-minded people. Paul said,

Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Co 2:14).

He says our discernment is foolishness to the unspiritual because they don’t have the gifts of God’s Spirit, so they can’t comprehend what we see. Then Paul said,

Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Co 2:15–16).

We have the mind of Christ to discern all things. That’s an incredible gift. We must treasure that. We should not be bothered by those who don’t have the mind of Christ. They are just noises.

Jesus wants us to “keep awake,” meaning not to let those noises take away what we see. The word “keep awake” is translated from Greek “ἄγρυπνος (ágrupnos), which also means “to be watchful.” To keep awake is stewardship of vision or discernment. Don’t let the noisy cicadas blind us.

Do you see what God sees? It’s essential to see what God sees at trying times like this, or you can be swallowed alive by the noises of the fallen world. So, today, we will explore Jesus’ teaching from this week’s scripture lesson to discover what Jesus wants us to see at these end times. Let’s begin!