Even though Japanese culture can emphasize conformity,
it doesn't mean it's boring. Beauty is everywhere. Japan is an eclectic
blend of future and past. Digital and analog.
Gundam and Samurai. But this level of creativity
isn't just about what you can see, it's about the stories
they tell—stories of brokenness and stories of redemption. Okay, so I can't really talk about Japanese
storytelling without talking about anime. Anime is not the first
or only form of Japanese art. In fact, Japan has been making art
for thousands of years. Paintings, sculptures, even the way
they serve tea is an art form. But anime and manga are also a lot
older than you might think. They go back as far as 1907, and today it's had a massive global impact,
especially in the U.S. It's estimated that 60% of animated series
made today are of Japanese origin. Some of the most critically acclaimed
stories today are told by Hayao Miyazaki. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke,
Howl's Moving Castle, just to name a few of his movies. And these aren't just kid's cartoons. Sure, there are those as well. The many anime series explore complex
themes around pain and suffering. And as is the case with most art,
a lot of Japanese art is born out of struggle, loss, and hurt,
and Japan is no stranger to hurt. Just think about the atomic bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or even more recently,
Japan's natural disasters. Japan sits on the western edge
of the Ring of Fire, and on March 3rd, 2011,
the whole country was shaken. 8.9 magnitude. Now, we know that's a big number. It was the fifth largest earthquake. A catastrophic tsunami
rising out of the Pacific. That huge wave
sweeping away everything in its path. A massive wall of water that rose as high as 30 feet,
swallowing up parts of Japan. The tsunami wiped out entire villages
and displaced nearly half a million people from their homes. It also caused explosions at the Fukushima
nuclear power plant that led to the evacuation
of 150,000 people from the area. The whole disaster was so devastating, Japanese people call the day 3/11,
and all of this comes on top of even deeper needs. Many struggle with shame and loneliness. As many as 1.5
million people are considered hikikomori, which means they isolate themselves
from the pressures of the outside world. Hirohito Shimazu is one. His bedroom has been his universe
for the best part of 20 years. He's now 40 years old. Hirohito spends most of his day
touching the world through this screen. His downward spiral began when he couldn't live up to his family's
and society's expectations. Japan's suicide rate is high,
and it grew higher during the pandemic. One pastor told me that everyone is one
degree of separation away between knowing someone who has committed
suicide. In October 2020,
Japanese authorities reported 2,100 suicides during that month alone. Fewer people had died of COVID
in Japan during the whole year. Meanwhile, the birthrate
in Japan is dropping, and the number of elderly
people is rising. Japan is the only country in the world
where adult diapers outsell infant diapers. Officials worry about how they'll provide social services, and many older people
wonder who will care for them. Human trafficking is also a problem. And the U.S. State Department
reported that Japanese authorities continue use to demonstrate a lack of
political will to criminally investigate and prosecute cases of labor
trafficking and child sex trafficking. Just this year, Japan raised the age
of consent for sexual activity to 16. Before that, the legal age of consent
was 13 years old. But even with all this brokenness,
there's still so much beauty in Japan. And maybe that's partly because art
is often born out of trauma, and also because a search for beauty points
to a search for the creator of beauty. To better understand the search,
I visited a friend. Her name is Ayaka. She also lives in Tokyo,
and she's an artist who sees the hand of the creator all over Japan. Crushing mineral and the fact that, so this white one, it's,
this is an oyster shell. You buy it like this,
and you have to crush this into really, really fine powder. And then, you mix it with the glue
into a little dough, and they call it 100 pounds. So, you literally, like pounded it
down to the ground, get the air out. And my teacher was saying,
"If you're lazy, it shows up in your color." So, the more that you pound, the more that you crush,
that your white actually becomes purer. You do this thing to check your heart. And she always says, "You know,
you never, like, you never paint something
to conquer the subject." And she said, "Come under, come under what you're painting,
and your art will always be better." And even those times, you know, I'm like,
oh, it's like reading the Scripture. We want to come under the word of God. Yeah, I just find that
this process of crushing, it truly feels like a worship
because, you know, like contrite spirit God doesn't despise. I just wanted to paint a restful scene,
and I started painting it. And probably two months in after this, I discover my, oh, my husband's like ten year affairs
and a lot of lies came to light. And it was just so shocking
that I couldn't make, the colors left my eyes. I can't paint this anymore,
and I actually need to stop all of it because some of my heart just left. So, then I took a break. I came back to this piece,
and I actually washed off all the layers
of what I had painted. And then I relayered
different types of blue over it. And I kept layering
and kept playing with blue. And I thought that it would just look like
just a blue square. Well, you can actually see all the rocks
through it. And, then, my teacher was saying,
"Oh, it's because you washed it. I think it's because of your tears. You can see, like, what's under." And then I realized, oh, wow. Like how, it's almost like
God sees my grief, and even though I try to cover it,
cover it, it's still there. There's this guy named Roger Lowther. He's an artist and missionary in Tokyo. His book, "The Broken Leaf," describes
how much brokenness and beauty are tied together in Japan. Look at the art of the tea ceremony. For
the aroma and flavor of tea to come out, the leaf must be broken. Look at kintsugi pottery, where craftsmen
repair broken bowls using gold. You still see the cracks,
but now they're golden. He says, "Somehow, these vessels
were more beautiful and more valuable for having been broken." It all points to a world broken
by sin and people broken by sin. But it also points to the gospel. I have to embrace light and dark
at the same time. I have to embrace
grief and joy at the same time. And the life is never that clean cut. I was like, in the moment of grief, there can be joy. In the moment of sadness,
there can be rest. I actually share with my classmates about, you know, when I was finally able
to embrace my weakness and sadness and I was vulnerable
about that before the Lord, I found peace. I found rest. And maybe that's what this Basho's Zen
is like. In the midst of the battle, not when you're pretty, you know, not when you're put together
in your perfect armor and, you know, I'll wash off all the blood. But no, like your bloodshed
and exhausted, and you just saw death. And that's when you soak
naked before the Lord, and that's when you find rest. There's something that Lowther said
in his book that stuck with me. "A broken world is healed by a broken Christ on a broken tree." That's our hope. That's Japan's hope—that all of the
brokenness will point to the beauty of being made whole again
in Christ who is broken for our sin. There is hope when we remember that hard to reach doesn't
mean impossible to reach. Whether it's sharing the gospel
with a Japanese student in your own neighborhood
or going all the way to the nations, we have a mission to carry out. So, let's pray
that the beauty of the gospel will once again shine brightly
in the land of the rising sun.
