Wrestling with God

It’s painful when you’re sharing the gospel with someone and the longer you talk with them, the further away they seem to fade. We meet Saturday mornings in a trendy-sounding French café near Umeda, in central Osaka. K-san is in her sixties, and a new student to me. She wants to brush up on her English. Her goal is to organize an art exhibition space at an American university in honor of her son who died while attending classes there.

When our English lesson time is over, she asks me some Bible questions. She has been to church before and has even been baptized. To her, the idea of “God as Creator” is obvious, but she’s not sure about Jesus as God. She says she agrees with about 99% of Christianity, but some things are hard to grasp.

She asks, “Why did Jesus have to suffer so much to compensate for sin?”

Wow! Encouraged by the question, I grab a little scratch paper for notes and start pulling out some passages and tying in atonement analogies from Japanese culture and history. But here and there she starts to hedge. She admits that the percentage she agrees with drops to 90% and then 80%. I’m wondering where it’s going to bottom out. Her idea of “God” is abstract and impersonal and it’s hard for her to feel a sense of sin. Jesus seems more like an optional add-on.

I press on to try to make headway, but I worry. . . Am I explaining things too intellectually, like a fancy-pants Westerner in a philosophy classroom? Am I throwing in too much Scripture?

We keep at it, working our way deeper, then we hit something solid. The ever-looming question: What happens to those who die without Christ? What happened to my son?

I pray to somehow be more pastoral in my words and careful now as I lay out a few passages.

“What about reincarnation?” she presses. “Can’t the Bible somehow allow for it so people without Christ can have a second chance?” This is what it seems to come down to for her. “If Christianity doesn’t allow for that, even the possibility of it hidden between the verses,” she says, “maybe I have to abandon Christianity.”

At some point I look up at the clock. Looks like no bell will be coming from some referee. I propose we continue this discussion later and we make plans to meet again.

As I take the train home, I sullenly second-guess myself. Even with a friendly sumo match, a draw like that leaves everyone feeling a little underwhelmed. I’m sure Jesus would have had a dramatic story to sidestep her questions, catch her off-balance, and find her opening—that spot sore and bruised from death’s sting—and press his salve onto it.

The next time we meet, she looks tired. She tells me that rather than working on the exhibition idea, she’s been binge-watching videos from Pastor Kenichi Nakagawa, trying to make sense of the Bible. I’m stunned. I finally realize that it’s not me she’s wrestling with, but God.

I’m reminded of what that means—to agonize with him, as with Jacob, to get the blessing of his favor and protection. Or trying to squirm against his hold in the case of Jonah. The struggle could leave one crippled for life or flung down into the depths. Who can strive at all against the Almighty if God did not also give them the strength to do so? It’s the same for a patriarch, a prophet, or a grieving mother in Osaka. But in the end, if we persist, we can confidently confess his name, and receive a new name, and rest in his blessing.