Where is Christ// Jessef Leslie

     In silence, as the priests and Christians in custody are asked to step on the fumie, one of the men is shot. “What he could not understand was the stillness of the courtyard, the voice of the cicadas, the whirling wings of the flies. A man had died.” (128) Nature does not reciprocate human feelings or values. When great evil happens, life goes on as if unchanged. Sebastien can’t understand this because it goes against traditional wisdom, if one does good, God will reward them with good. God is all-knowing and all-powerful, so why wouldn’t he help. Sebastian is left to wonder why God is silent in all this.

    Even in God’s silence, I think that he still is still there. When the priest is told he will apostatize the next day, he begins to think about what brought the other Japanese joy in this suffering “... there was joy in the thought that he was not alone. In this very sea those two Japanese peasants, bound to stakes, had endured the same suffering.” (170). If what man needs to push through pain is a friend who suffers with them, understands them, and loves them. Then even in silence, that friend can be there. Christ does this exactly. Christ suffered throughout his whole life on earth and remained vigilant. Now, when Sebastien begins to suffer, he remembers he is not alone, for he is suffering from Christ.

 

Comments: Olsen and Bryant

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