Forgiveness shows Christianity is real

Forgiveness is also in so many cases the way that others learn that Christianity is real, that the Gospels are the real thing, that there is mercy, that there is grace. Matsuo Fuchida was a person who learned this from another Christian. He was one of the aircraft group commanders of the Japanese Air Force when they launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He had a terrible time. The high point of his war went downhill. When the war was over, he was a POW and he was scarred by the death that he had wallowed in; the killing and then seeing death. He became a peace advocate. His cause became peace. But he was looking for some way in which hatred could be overcome, the hatred that had brought such devastation. He found the answer from an American named Peggy Covell. She would come to Fuchida’ s prisoner of war camps with magazines, and she attended the sick and she gave words of encouragement. And then one day Fuchida said to her, You are an American girl. Why are you here, doing nice things to Japanese prisoners of war? The answer she gave rocked his world. She answered, Because my parents were murdered by the Japanese army. Her mother and father were missionaries in the Philippines. When the Japanese invaded, they were able to hide out for a while in Borneo. But they were caught and they were brought forth. There was a mock trial, and they were brutally executed. She learned of it after the war and her heart burned with hatred for the Japanese because of that. But she asked herself, What were my parents feeling? What was it like for them? And she realized that they went there to proclaim the message of God's mercy and love and forgiveness. She said, I honestly believe, knowing them, that they would have died the way that Jesus died on the cross, with a heart of forgiveness for those who were about to kill them. She realized that it was so important for her to do the same: to choose the path of forgiveness, and then commit herself, for Christ's sake, with his own love working through her to do works of kindness for those who had hurt her the most. Well, in that answer, Fuchida found the answer to peace, and thinking of that, he took a New Testament that she gave him and began to read about Jesus. He read those words of Jesus, hanging on the cross: Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. Tears sprang to his eyes and he realized that Jesus had prayed for him. And through the forgiveness of this deeply wounded Christian young lady who wanted to show the mercy of Christ, he gained it. He discovered the God who forgave him his sins through the blood of Jesus’ cross.¹

Richard D. Phillips