Toyoda City Library is one of my favorite places. It’s a spot where I can heal my heart. It’s only five minute walk from the pastor’s residence. The building is well built and has a large lounge. You can borrow as many as 15 books. You can read a few different newspapers. They keep them available for us to read for a month and that’s economical for us.
The other day, I read “Tears of Jesus”. It was interesting, so I borrowed it from the library and I read it through all at once. It’s a novel and it’s a fiction. One can read it as an entertainment, but historical facts of the Christian Church are introduced in a very skillful way, which makes this novel mysteriously exciting and attractive.
Following a prologue, the first chapter begins with a stimulating title of “The impending crisis of the Christian Church”. It starts by 200 ministers attending a secret inter-denominational conference called for to discuss “the cross-detesting syndrome” occurring in the world. Fr. Yamamoto, a young priest who had been studying in Rome and was preparing to return back to Japan, and a sister who was his former girlfriend are deeply involved with solving the series of incidents. Because the major characters are Japanese, as a Japanese Christian, I felt strangely close to the story.
“The true heart of Jesus” is the basic issue this novel raises. It questions if “Jesus was really crucified with joy or not.” It also questions if the theology and doctrines of the modern church are based on true understanding on the heart of Jesus.
Jesus appears in reality and in dreams and miracles happen in this story. It has descriptions similar to the Holy Bible and makes us think about faith. Of course, it is a novel and fiction, but it is one of the most interesting stories I have encountered along with “The Da Vinci Code”.
Introduced in a blog of the Lutheran Church, Japan