Christmas in Korea: It might have looked like this. . .
Christianity came to Korea with missionaries, but I know that Jesus Christ was in Korea before any westerners arrived. Jesus might have…
Christianity came to Korea with missionaries, but I know that Jesus Christ was in Korea before any westerners arrived. Jesus might have been born in the Middle East, but each culture must be free to find its own way of making his story their story. I was excited when a friend introduced me to a collection of 30 paintings entitled “The Life of Christ,” by famous Korean artist Kim Ki-Chang, better know by his pen-name Unbo.
Besides the uniqueness of a Korean Jesus, Kim Ki-Chang’s paintings show the depth of his personal faith. When he was seven, typhoid left him without hearing and partially mute. These impairments as well as the devastation of the Korean War raging at the time he painted, inspired Kim Ki-Chang’s “The Life of Christ.” In the artist’s own words,
“I was praying for the quick end of the Korean War and peace both to Korean people and to my painful mind when I made brush strokes.”
I wanted to share the first four paintings with you as the bells of Christmas fade away, and a new year begins. Social distancing rules may have over-shadowed my first Christmas in Korea, but that’s not what stays with me. The privilege of celebrating Jesus’ birth in a new place with a new culture remains in my heart. I hope you appreciate Kim Ki-Chang’s depictions of Christmas in Korea as much as I do.