Another earthquake today | Business as usual in Japan

I woke up pretty early this morning and involuntarily listened to the radio on my alarm clock for a bit.  I heard about the 5.7 magnitude quake off the coast of Chiba (Chiba City being a sister city to Houston) or 55 miles east of Tokyo - oh yeah, and Happy White Day!

Fortunately, no injuries have been reported yet.  It reminded me of the hundreds of aftershocks (600 some?) last year from the infamous 3.11 quake (as in March 2011).  Many of these things I talked about in our Japanese Bible group last March, but since this blog wasn't around back then I thought I'd mention post some of those thoughts up.

Of course there are tons of verses in the Bible that talk about earthquakes (Psalm 30:5-10; 60:1-3; 62:5-12; 82:5), especially the one I quoted a couple days ago on here from Isaiah 54:10.  But the one that came to mind this morning was from Hebrews 12:25-29:

See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.  Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

Clearly this is to be a dire warning and wake-up call (along with the invitation and comforting promise!) about the seriousness of the living God trying to speak to us and the difference between belonging to these two kingdoms.  One is "shakeable" and the other is permanent and eternal.

Are you without hope and meaning and knowledge of relationship with God in this world?  How to enter the Kingdom of God is what Jesus came to proclaim to people like you and me all over the world (John 3; Matthew 4:17).

“The people living in darkness
   have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
   a light has dawned.”
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Again it says, Jesus traveled throughout the lands, teaching and proclaiming “the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.” (Matthew 4:23-24)


Thinking through Questions and Answers on Suicide 

The other day in my one-on-one tutoring I was talking to my adult students about the anniversary of 3.11.  (Should I clarify?  I mean, the Great East Japan Earthquake in Tohoku - 東日本大震災).  Many of them are doctors and nurses.  We reviewed vocabulary related to death and disasters (i.e. 'grieving', 'wreckage', etc.) and talked about what kind of things they are trained in when talking to trauma victims.  One of the questions I wanted to ask them was if they could talk to one of the tsunami victims a day before 3.11, what would they say?  What kind of life advice do you give someone who you know will die the next day?  What kind of comfort or peace or security or joy could you possibly offer someone?

We also talked about whether they thought suicide was generally acceptable or not in Japanese culture these days.  (In case you don't know, Japan has had an epidemic of some 30,000 suicides per year for quite a while).  One of the students commented that she didn't think so.  Then she told me that she thought the president of TEPCO (the somewhat devious Tokyo Electric Power Company in charge of the Fukushima power plant) probably wanted to commit suicide for his failures or inability to control or remedy the radiation problem, and that if she were him then she would have wanted to as well!  So, I guess, it's not totally acceptable per se, but given the right circumstances people would still want to do it to escape from their overload of shame.  I'm not sure I understand the cultural thinking about suicide yet very well, but maybe their evaluation comes more from an emotional and social or situational rather a moral perspective.  (Just so you know, Confucianism and Buddhism offer some guidelines as far as filial piety and the like, but the ethical fabric of Shintoism is largely amoral; there is nothing akin to the Ten Commandments under-girding or informing the background of Shinto in society).

I asked another student what she thought happens after death and she responded reincarnation.  I asked her then what she would say to someone contemplating suicide since the person would actually just be escaping the pain and suffering of his current situation and going on to the next bus station loop in the endless cycle of reincarnation - so in that case what would be wrong with self-murder/suicide?  In fact, for anyone that's hurting or lonely or in constant pain, why not commit suicide and skip on to the next reincarnation?  I wasn't asking it blithely.  She didn't have an answer.  Then she asked me what I would say.  So I told her.

She thinks it's something worth studying and we'll be continuing the conversation together.  What would you tell someone if they were thinking about committing suicide?


In Light of These Things, What Must We Do?

Around A.D. 30 or so, a high tower fell over in Jerusalem and killed several people.  Jesus asked the people if they thought God basically toppled the tower to punish those specific people because they were more deserving of judgment than other people.

Jesus didn't have to speculate.  He was the foremost theological expert on the issue since, you know, he is the Most High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.  His answer was that those people killed in the tragedy were not necessarily worse sinners than anyone else, but the clear lesson was still there: all people are sinners.  All people have lived their life against God, resisting Him and rebelling against His authority in their own self-centered ways.  Therefore, all people actually deserved the fate of those killed by the falling tower.  The fact that only a few were killed should then be taken as a merciful warning to everyone else.

Jesus told them, “Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:4-5).

According to Jesus, this story tells us that any stupor of complacency or apathy or fatalism (無関心) we might have that "it won't happen to me" or that you won't have to think about death until many years down the road is a deception and a blindness.  As C.S. Lewis put it, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

"It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).  All of us must reflect on these kind of disasters and ask ourselves: am I ready to die and stand before God?  Has my life been clean and righteous for His eyes?  How can I correct my life to live the right way for Him?


Gleanings from Japanese Festivals and What the Bible Says

God wrote the Bible to answer that very question.  We need to turn away from our self-centered ways ("repent") and surrender our lives to God ("trust").  We must ask Him for the forgiveness and righteousness that He offers to provide for us in the sacrificial death of Jesus.

Washing our hands with water alone (みそぎ) cannot clean our filthy hearts, let alone give us new hearts.  Our offense is deeper, more serious than that.  Can a liar erase his lies by splashing water on his mouth?

Sin is like a blood disease, inherited from our first ancestors.  The very roots of our family tree are infected with the curse.  The pollution comes from the very head-stream of the river and flows all the way down to us.  In reality, sin is not an impersonal or external "mistake" that can be brushed away so easily, like lint from your business suit.  It is a personal heart-offense committed against a particular person: our Creator God.  The only way purification (祓) can be made and the judgment of God can be escaped is by a comparable sacrifice of life for life.

In Japanese culture, the idea of substitutionary atonement can glimpsed or hinted at in various images during the purification and appeasement rituals of their festivals.  In my article for Christmas 2011, I presented what some people have noticed about the Ontohsai Festival (御頭祭) at Suwa Taisha Shrine (諏訪大社) and its astonishing parallel to the story of the akedah of Isaac in Genesis 22.  Of course, nearly all the events, the festivals, and typological heroes in the Old Testament are foreshadowing the divine "savior/hero/healing/cleansing/escape" offered in the Christ's self-sacrifice on the cross.

In the Doya Doya Festival in Osaka, two groups of men in loincloth compete for an amulet.  In Hadaka Matsuri, an actual person is selected to separate and purify himself as the shin-otoko (God-man or spiritual man) and then run through the town naked while all the people try to touch him in order to transfer their sins onto him before he is ceremonially banished from the town.  Leviticus 16 scapegoat anyone?  (See Hebrews 13:12-13; 2 Corinthian 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Isaiah 53).

Another obvious example would be Oni-oi-shiki or Tsuinashiki (鬼追式 Driving out the devil ceremony) in Nara, precursors of Setsubun.  At Yakushiji temple, people dressed up as demons run around with threatening torches until a priest symbolizing the Buddhist deity Bishamon (previously borrowed from another god in Hinduism) also known as Tamonten or Hososhi appears to drive them away. (Colossians 2:13-15, etc.)

During Oharae (大祓 the "Great Purification") a sort of national day of Atonement is conducted by Shinto priests on behalf of the country.  Instead of the ceremony in Leviticus 16 though, Japan has two ceremonies, one in the winter (toshikoshi no harae) and one in summer (nagoshi no harae).  For summertime a straw rope is used or for wintertime a huge bell is rung.  Especially interesting is the custom of using a piece of wood or paper or even straw puppet (like a doll), writing or touching the sins and defilement and sickness of the nation onto it, and then throwing it into the river where it will be carried away out to sea (Micah 7:19).  In the past, instead of dolls real human sacrifices would have been used.

The number of examples is nearly endless, but most are derivations of these common patterns.  The truth is that inferior, imperfect, or incomplete substitutes won't work.  And no amount of seasonal ceremonies, talismans, amulets, charms, good luck fortunes, wish-dolls, lucky arrows, protective dog statues, shamanist dances, wish-trees, food or child sacrifices, the waving of paper wands, pilgrimages, chanting, fingering beads, possession, oracles, waterfalls, offerings, incense, sincere self-effort and ascetic discipline, 頑張る, or vague prayers into the void will cleanse a man from his guilt and shame before a holy and righteous Creator God.  It is obvious to us that by ourselves we are too weak and powerless and self-centered to make real change within our hearts and peace with Him.


Hope and True Life amidst Tragedy and Death

But here's the good news about Jesus.  God showed His love for us in providing His own mediator/go-between/peacemaker in giving up His (perfect, sinless) Son Jesus as one sacrifice for the whole world to reconcile us back to Himself (Romans 5:1-11; John 1:29).  Even after he changed me at the age of five, effectively bringing me into the love and eternal security of the family of God, I've had various struggles with sin (like all followers of Jesus), but now sin is no longer my master.  Jesus has the power to replace my depression, loneliness, nihilism, bitterness, and unforgiveness with an ever-growing joy, selflessness, purpose, contentment, peace, and love in Him.

"Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Hebrews 9:22-26).

Jesus told a seeker, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).  The idea of reincarnation (endless attempts of merely new physical birth, flesh to flesh) doesn't solve anything, not for the suicide and not for you and me.  Only Jesus gives a new heart or a new spiritual life from above through His Holy Spirit. 

There is an exceedingly great invitation and promise here.  Like Jesus told his followers, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).  This is the kind of peace-filled life that is ultimately unshakeable.