As newspapers repeatedly noted after World War I, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”
As a team, we have difficulty comprehending numbers like “millions” of lost Japanese. Our zeal for reaching the lost deadlocks with our finite brains and overprotective psyches. But part of the answer to compassion collapse comes with taking a more God-like view of Japan – literally.
From 1,148 feet high, we can see the colossal metropolis that is Tokyo, stretching to the horizon and beyond in every direction. Millions upon millions of homes, schools, businesses, and waterways, with semi trucks like children’s toys and ships like models in a bottle. We can see just a fraction of the 37 million people in the greater metro area, yet even this reawakens our senses. Of the sea of souls beneath us, most will be lost forever. But the Christian presence here is so very small! “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Another practical solution to compassion fatigue is experiencing Japanese spirituality. Our visit to the Buddhist temple Senso-Ji was a feast to the senses. Brilliants reds and golds, glowing scripts, and soaring pagodas stood in stark contrast to the small Christian churches meeting in plain, unadorned spaces. Yet the primary god, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, has been locked away, hidden from the view of even the chief priests since 645. Although known for being the god of infinite compassion and mercy, this god of the Japanese is not a god who incarnates. His followers pray for compassion, but their god has not descended into their suffering nor does he walk with them through it. The Japanese desperately desperately need the reality of a God who suffered in their place and who weeps with them as he redeems the brokenness of this world.
We are praising the Lord that he does not experience compassion fatigue. To paraphrase Jonah 4:11, “And should I not have concern for the great city of Fukuoka, in which there are more than a 1.77 million people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”