ルカによる福音書9:18-20 Luke 9:18-20,
イエスが言われた。「それでは、
（ルカ9:20）
メシアは「油注がれた者」という意味で、
このような預言に基づいて、
ペトロはその重大な意味をもつ言葉を使って「
Someone pointed out to me that Japanese Christians still have the tendency to be so-called “clandestine Christians,” i.e., hidden Christians. Indeed, this may be an undeniable fact. Japanese Christians suffered severe persecution under the Toyotomi and Tokugawa rule. In order to escape persecution, there were people who, while superficially posing as Buddhists, went into hiding, formed secret organisations and continued to observe the Christian rites. When Father Petitjean of the Paris Foreign Mission established the Oura Catholic Church in Nagasaki in 1865, some 30,000 of these hidden Christians are said to have returned to the Catholic Church. However, other some 30,000 people remained hidden and followed the rites handed down to them by their ancestors. In modern times, such hidden beliefs are said to be difficult to carry on.
The hidden faith tends to lose its life and become only a formality. Christian faith is that which is believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth, resulting in communion with Christ. Romans 10:9 says: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Also, 1 John 4:15 says: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” If we merely believe in our hearts, the contours of our faith will gradually become blurred, and eventually we will not even know what we believe. A living communion with God can only be confirmed through constant confession with one’s own mouth.
However, in Japanese culture, if you speak out about ideas and beliefs that differ from those of other people, you will be met with a strong reaction from those around you. Of course, nowadays in Japan, life-threatening persecution is rare, as was the case during the Tokugawa period and before and during the Second World War. Even so, it is not uncommon to be looked at coldly and told that you are an eccentric. Therefore, there is a strong tendency among Japanese Christians to avoid publicly confessing their faith in Jesus Christ. Some people think that even if they do not confess their faith publicly, it is okay because people will gradually recognise them if their deeds are good. But is this really the case? Certainly it is important for Christians to witness to their faith in the way they live their lives. But shouldn’t that be done on the basis of a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ? People who say that they are doing good deeds without publicly confessing their faith in Christ are often prone to complacency. In other words, they do what people praise them for and think they are doing good deeds, but in reality they are only promoting themselves and not witnessing to the grace of Christ.
Today’s Bible passages are about Peter, one of the twelve disciples, publicly confessing his faith in Jesus Christ. The relationship between Jesus Christ and his disciples had progressed to a certain critical stage. On the one hand, the disciples had witnessed the miracles of Jesus Christ and had reached the point where they could say who their teacher was. On the other hand, Jesus Christ himself was now on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified. So, after he had prayed and prepared himself, Jesus Christ asked his disciples two questions. The first of these questions was: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” In other words, he did not ask what the disciples themselves thought, but what the reputation of the crowd was.
They answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen. (verse 19)” The reputation of the crowd is mentioned in verses 7-9 of chapter 9, too. The first thing that appeared in that reputation was that he was John the Baptist. That meant, according to 9:7, that “John had been raised from the dead.” That this answer was off the mark and strange was pointed out when I unpacked the passage. Other popular opinions from the crowd were that Elijah had appeared, or that one of the prophets of old had risen. What they all had in common was a way of understanding that the man Jesus was one of the great ones. In other words, if you read the Old Testament and study the history of Israel, you will find a number of great prophets. And at the beginning of the New Testament era, there was a great man called John the Baptist. The crowd understood that Jesus was one of those great prophets. This was not a very difficult question for the disciples to answer, because all they had to do was introduce the rumours of the people.
The second question, however, was a very serious one. Jesus Christ asked, “But who do you say that I am?” The question “Who do you say that I am?” means “How do you live in relation to me?” Therefore, it was a serious question that determines how the disciples would live their lives according to the answer to this question. Silence probably reigned over the disciples for a while. Then, to break the silence, Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” What was Peter trying to say by these words? If we read this verse according to the Greek original text, it is “ton Christon tou seu” (τὸν χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ).
As I have told you many times before, Christ is derived from the Greek word “Christos,” which means “anointed one.” Again, “Christos” is derived from the Hebrew word “Messiah.” Messiah means “anointed one” and refers to the three offices of prophet, king and priest in the Old Testament. Of these three offices, the word Messiah was frequently used to refer to the king of Israel. The word Messiah, or “anointed one,” became a term for a king of Israel, since a king of Israel entered into his office by means of an anointing ceremony. In the midst of the decline of the kingdom of Israel, the coming of the Messiah, the ideal king, was eagerly awaited. God gave the prophecies of the coming Messiah through the prophets. For example, Isaiah 9:5, which is read at Christmas time, says: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This is a prophecy of the birth of the Messiah.
Based on these prophecies, Peter believed and confessed to the person of Jesus before him that he was the Messiah from God. And this confession was of great importance. First of all, the Messiah was not one of the great men, but the one king who would appear to save Israel, God’s people, as both judge and deliverer. Also, the Messiah was not merely the king of Israel, but also the king over the world. In other words, it was the only one to whom God gave authority to judge and save the nations of the world. Messiah was the word with such a significant meaning.
Peter used the word with such a significant meaning when he confessed to Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter, “The Christ of God.” And it was this confession that set the course for the rest of Peter’s life. As you all know, Peter denied Jesus Christ three times when Christ was on trial before his crucifixion, saying that he did not know him. But when the risen Christ was asked three times, “Do you love me?” he replied, “You know that I love you.” He then received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and became a powerful proclaimer of Jesus as the Messiah. This confession, “The Christ of God,” set the course of Peter’s life.
Here you may be asking yourself a question. It may be natural for a Jew like Peter to believe and confess that Jesus is the Messiah, but it is unnatural for us who are not a Jew, isn’t it? For example, the novelist Mr. ENDO Shusaku tried to find in the figure of Jesus not the Messiah or Christ of the Old Testament, but rather an “eternal companion Jesus” who gently accompanies human sufferings. Mr. ENDO’s works, such as The Life of Jesus and The Birth of Christ, often express his intention to offer an approachable Jesus figure to the Japanese people of today. But before we jump to such musings, we must turn our minds to what the Bible itself, the word of God, portrays the person of Jesus as.
Luke’s Gospel is said to be a book written to proclaim Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, i.e., non-Jews. In terms of the purpose of its writing, it was written with a different intention than the Matthew’s Gospel, which was intended to preach Jesus Christ to the Jews. The readers of Luke’s Gospel were Gentiles like us. Nevertheless, Luke repeatedly emphasises that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. For example, in the angel’s announcement read at Christmas time, the angel says: “Today there has been born to you in the city of David a deliverer—the Messiah, the Lord. (REB, Luke 2:11). The resurrected Jesus Christ also summarises the Old Testament: “So you see that scripture foretells the sufferings of the Messiah and his rising from the dead on the third day, and declares that in his name repentance bringing the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. (REB, Luke 24:46-47). Whether Jesus is the Messiah or not is the central question of Luke’s Gospel. In other words, Luke is very thorough in emphasising to non-Jews that the person of Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. There is no compromise there.
In this light, it must be said that to replace the idea of Messiah with something else on the grounds of being modern or Japanese, even if done with good intentions, is an attempt to pervert the intention of the biblical author. Attempts to replace the idea of the Messiah with other familiar ideas often end up being dominated by the values of the group to which one belongs. In the case of Mr. ENDO Shusaku, his framework was the culture of modern Japanese people, and he was able to push the biblical Jesus into that framework. Also, in the pre -Secomd World War period when nationalism dominated, there were those who tried to understand the teachings of Jesus as an outpouring of national spirit. As a result, so-called “Japanese Christianity” was born. In “Japanese Christianity,” Jesus’ spirit of love was replaced by the Japanese Emperor-centred spirit of universal brotherhood, and Jesus’ mission to the world was absorbed into the idea of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. These examples show that the Messiah is an important concept that must not be replaced by anything else. The basis of the life of faith is to publicly confess Jesus as the Messiah, or Christ.
Mr. NISHIMURA Kyuzo, an elder of Sapporo Kita-ichijo Church, who was previously introduced in a biographical novel by Ms. MIURA Ayako, achieved great success as a businessman through the Nishimura Confectionary Shop, which he founded in 1929. When the war with the USA eventually broke out and flour, the raw material for confectionery and bread, became unavailable, he continued his business by processing shaved flakes. He was also elected as a member of the Hokkaido Prefectural Assembly, as he was trusted by the citizens of Sapporo. Mr. NISHIMURA was called up for military service a total of three times, from 1937 to 1939, 1943 to 1944 and 1945. In each case, he was a second lieutenant or first lieutenant in charge of logistical support duties such as the procurement of food, and did not take part directly in the fighting. He was extremely considerate of soldiers below him in rank, and when he was sent to the island of Horomushiro in the Kuril Islands on his second call-up, he personally led the soldiers in carrying 40 kg of food, despite his rank as an officer. He was also sent back to the army hospital in Asahikawa after suffering a relapse of pulmonary tuberculosis, which he had contracted in his youth, due to his physical exhaustion from carrying artillery up a hill while soaking wet from the rain. Furthermore, when he was called up for the last time, he faithfully took on the responsibility of cleaning up after his superiors in the difficult circumstances following the defeat of the war, and dealt with the remaining work.
However, Mr. NISHIMURA regretted the state of his religious life before and during the war, and in a speech he gave at Hakodate Aioi Church, he said: “Even if I had been stigmatised as a rebel against the Emperor and had to die under the penalty of death, I should have confessed the existence of Christ’s church. It was an indescribable desolation that our faith and church life had not been nurtured to such an extent… It was indeed a matter of great regret.” As an expression of his repentance, he began pioneering in the peatlands of the Ishikari Plain in an attempt to build a pioneer village based on the Christian spirit. As a result, his health failed and he returned to Sapporo in 1951, where he passed away in 1953 at the age of 55.
What was it about Mr. NISHIMURA Kyuzo, whose love and good deeds were beyond the reach of ordinary people, that made him say, “It was indeed a matter of great regret”? It must have been the fact that he could not make his own Christian banner any clearer, even though it was a very difficult time. Of course, Mr. NISHIMURA was one of the most faithful Japanese Christians of his time who continued to serve the church in difficult times. However, his failure to fully confess in word and deed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour and King of the world, led him to say, “It was indeed a matter of great regret.” Simply and clearly confessing that Jesus is the Messiah is the basis of the life of faith. And we must not forget that the name “Jesus Christ,” which we utter, is also a confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.