The Nov. 6th issue of Newsweek carried an interview with Tetsuo Nakajima, a Japanese gangster(yakuza). He had been involved in crimes ranging from extortion to drug dealing and had served two prison terms.
At the height of his yakuza career he fell in love with a Korean studying in Tokyo. He eventually married her, his third marriage.
This proved to be the turning point in his life.
His new wife was a Christian who was willing to marry Tetsuo only if he promised to follow her to church every Sunday.
This he did.
And this is what happened:
“listening to the hymns moved me terribly and brought tears to my eyes. Church experiences made me question my past. I devoured the Bible. I talked with a pastor who told me that even a yakuza could start a new life.”
Tetsuo eventually accepted Christ and is now training to be a pastor. He hopes to be ordained in November.
Anyone who has been a Christian for any period of time would be familiar with testimonies like Tetsuo’s.
What is remarkable is that Tetsuo’s conversion experience is deemed newsworthy by a major news weekly like Newsweek. It is another eloquent illustration of Pascal’s observation that there is a God shaped vacuum in all humankind that can only be satisfied with a personal relationship with God.
No one else and nothing else will do.
In a day and age of breathtaking scientific and technological advances, Christians need not apologise for their continuing commitment to preach the ‘old, old story’, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Any perusal of news magazines like Newsweek will reveal that articles on the latest technological advances run side by side with reports of the latest death counts from places ranging from East Timor to the West Bank.
While we grow in our capacity to manipulate the created order, we continue to find ourselves impotent to change the human heart.
The ultimate hope of the human race does not lie with technology but with Him who declared that:
“I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the light of life” John 8:12 (NJB).
This is true for gangsters. This is true for all of us.