Religion in Hiroshima and Other Places

The people in Hiroshima, like people in all of Japan, seem to have so much by way of material goods. The photo to the left is the view out the window of the hotel where we stayed. It is only two or three blocks away from the peace dome and ground zero.

The prosperity here now takes us back to the matter of how to present the Gospel to them. I have already written how difficult it can be to present the Gospel in terms of it meeting people’s needs if those people do not sense they have any needs. One Japanese Christian even told us that most Japanese realize there is a God, but they think it is better to not be religious at all. By “better”, the Japanese mean that they are able to get more out of what life has to offer with respect to material things. Many Japanese, especially the young people, are clearly focused on material things. In effect, unfortunately, they are trading their ability to show appreciative love for the Lord Jesus for the ability to possess material things.

Imagine for a moment that someone told you that you could have everything you ever wanted, but it would cost you the ability to appreciate the beauty of a sunset over the ocean. You could see the sunset, but you would never again have any appreciation for it whatsoever. Allow me to use a second example since we soon will be passing by Mount Fuji, one of Japan’s most well-known and most majestic landmarks. Imagine someone told you that you could have everything, but never again would you be able to appreciate the beauty of a natural landmark like Mount Fuji. Again, you could see it, but you would be utterly unresponsive, utterly unable to respond, to its breathtaking majesty.

Most of us would see the inequity of such a deal. In other words, if we knew that we would have to trade away the ability to appreciate the beauty of a sunset or the breathtaking majesty of Mount Fuji in order to possess some material thing, we would say, to coin a phrase, “No deal! It’s not worth it!”

The ability to appreciate the beauty of a sunset is not the only “deal or no deal” proposition out there. A similar choice presents itself in regard to someone’s ability to appreciate the beauty and majesty of Jesus as Lord of All. Imagine someone saying that he or she were willing to exchange their ability to appreciate Jesus as the Lord of All for possession of a house, a car, nice clothes, some electronic gadget or any other material thing. It would be utter foolishness, a bargain that someone would make only if they had no idea of the comparative values involved. This is what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote that he counted all things as loss (literally, “dung”) compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ as Lord. In other words, if he were to compare the value of possessing material things to the value of his participation in appreciative love for the Lord Jesus, he would definitely choose knowing Christ as Lord. Nothing material would ever be worth trading away his ability to appreciate the Lordship of Jesus.