Our Visit to Hiroshima

October 14
11:26 a.m.
Hikari 462 Bound for Shin-Osaka

We just left Hiroshima a few minutes ago. We are headed now to Koriyama where Nobby and Bev Tajima live and minister. We are scheduled to arrive in Koriyama at 6:55 pm. I will be preaching tomorrow at the Tajima’s church.

The side trip to Hiroshima was definitely worth it. We stayed in a hotel near what is called the “peace dome”. It is the remains of a domed cultural center that survived in part the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. The exact time is marked by a watch on display in a nearby museum. The watch froze at the exact moment the bomb was detonated.

The watch was about the only thing that froze in that moment. Virtually everything else was incinerated by the blast and the subsequent release of a tremendous amount of heat and energy—an amount equivalent to something like 20,000 tons of TNT. Interestingly enough, the word scientists chose many years ago to be the common designation for TNT is the Greek word dynamis, or dynamite as we know it. In other words, the word dynamite is much older, by a few thousand years, than the explosive compound it has come to signify. The same word appears many times in the Bible and is translated by our word power. For example, in Romans 1:16, the Apostle Paul wrote: “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” As powerful as the bomb was that dropped on Hiroshima, the power of Christ is far greater. The dynamite associated with the exaltation of Jesus as Lord is what raised Jesus from the dead (see Philippians 3:10). Furthermore, the dynamite of the atomic bomb brought horrific death and destruction. The dynamite of Jesus in his exaltation brings life and peace. Hiroshima today stands in great need of this latter type of dynamite.

The horrific death and destruction in Hiroshima that resulted from the dropping of the atomic bomb is difficult to describe or quantify. Almost everything within a 1-2K radius around the peace dome was completely (and I do mean “completely) incinerated. The “before” and “after” depictions are stunning. After the bomb, everything was reduced to dust—not rubble, but dust. More than 140,000 souls perished instantly. Another 60,000 died in the aftermath. The suffering and loss are overwhelming as you read tales of parents finding nothing but a few shreds of clothing from their missing children and visa versa. One pair of sandals are on display in the museum, recognized in the aftermath of the bombing by a bereaved mother by the straps she had made with her own hands as all that was left of her young daughter’s remains.

There were thirteen Christian churches in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. All of them were either partially or completely destroyed.