In Japan, Christmas bears little connection to Christian faith. Last week, I stopped by a nearby supermarket and found a sixteen-page catalog overflowing with Christmas cakes—glossy photos designed to tempt shoppers. The prices ranged from twelve to eighty euros. In a few weeks, shopping malls and certain streets will glow with lights, just as they do in Europe and America. Supermarkets will pipe Christmas carols through their speakers.
I often wonder how many people here truly understand what Christians are celebrating. For most, I suspect it feels like Valentine's Day—a commercial occasion, a chance for shops to sell chocolate. I checked our community's Japanese calendars and looked at December. The 22nd marks the winter solstice. The 23rd is a national holiday, the birthday of the current Emperor. Christmas receives no mention at all.
You may know that Christians in Japan are a tiny minority—roughly 1 percent of 128 million people. About half of those Christians are Catholic, some 700,000, of whom 350,000 come from South America and the Philippines. In my thirty-six years here, I have never met a Christian who is ethnically Japanese.
On Christmas Eve, many of our churches fill with people, many of them visiting a church for the first time, drawn by the special warmth of the season. Some come forward for a blessing—perhaps baptism or their children's first Communion.
I have no doubt that He who was born in Bethlehem and died on the cross for all humanity is preparing the Japanese people, in ways we cannot see, to share in the glory of the Lord.
Ludo—Japan