August 31, 2025　worship message

Title:“Wounded, Yet Risen”    Scripture: John 20:24–29 by Nasushiobara Church pastor Rev. Yoshio Konno

Only the Gospel of John tells us that the risen Christ still bore the marks of the nails in His hands and the spear wound in His side. These very wounds were the undeniable proof that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth had indeed risen. When He first appeared to His disciples, the Lord Himself showed them His wounds. The disciples saw them and rejoiced.

One of the disciples, Thomas, was not present at that first encounter with the risen Lord. When the others, overjoyed and excited, told him, “We have seen the Lord,” Thomas, overwhelmed, said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails and put my finger into them, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe.”

Thomas wanted to believe. He wanted to meet the risen Lord himself, yet he honestly could not bring himself to believe without proof.

Eight days later, when Thomas was with the other disciples, the Lord appeared again, stood in their midst, and said, “Peace be with you.” Thomas may have expected a rebuke, but instead Jesus said, “Put your finger here and see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side.” Confronted with this, Thomas could only utter the one and only confession of faith in the Gospels: “My Lord, my God!”

The Gospel of John emphasizes that the risen Christ came back with His wounds still visible. Why was it not a perfect, glorified body without scars? I believe it was to teach us that we too can live on, even with our wounds—that we should cherish them as part of our lives. Through this, I came to understand more deeply what forgiveness of sin means.

After my last sermon, someone asked me to share a story of adventure. Through this passage of Scripture, I was able to overcome the trauma of a Himalayan mountaineering accident and rise again.

Unusually for a pastor, I once undertook adventures such as an expedition to the North Pole and three climbs in the Himalayas. Today I will tell you about my experience of an avalanche during my very first Himalayan expedition. Perhaps some of you here also carry painful memories you would rather not recall, or you are still tormented by past sins. I pray that one day you may come to understand the deeper meaning of such negative experiences and receive them as God’s profound guidance and nurture.

During my university years, I belonged to the mountaineering club and devoted myself to climbing. I experienced the harshest winter mountains and difficult rock climbing in Japan. In my third year, I even joined the Japanese North Pole Expedition, the first Japanese team to reach the Pole.

Before setting out for the Arctic, I was baptized at the church I had attended since my first year in university—almost as if taking out an insurance policy in case I died. The only things I was truly serious about were mountaineering and church. Just before graduation, my pastor encouraged me to enter seminary and become a minister. I also thought, somewhat lightly, that seminary would still leave me summers free for climbing. Perhaps because of that impure motive, I was confronted by God with a life-and-death trial in the form of the avalanche.

At age 24, in my first year of seminary, I immediately joined a summer expedition to the Indian Himalayas with the student division of the Japan Alpine Club. On the seventh day of climbing, we reached Camp 1 at 5,260 meters. But that evening, an unprecedented heavy snowfall set in. At dawn the next morning, my tentmate Tom, a 25-year-old American student in Japan, and I found our tent completely buried in snow. By 7 a.m., we heard frequent rumbles of avalanches around us. But since our tent was pitched on a ridge, we thought we were safe.

At 8:05 a.m., just after I had gone out to make a radio call and was returning to the tent, there was a muffled “thud,” and suddenly the ground swept my feet away. I fell without understanding what was happening, but I vividly remember Tom’s orange tent being swept away at the same speed, right beside me. I must have lost consciousness for a few minutes. When I awoke, I found myself stopped just 30 centimeters from the edge of a sheer cliff. Tom, however, had fallen 250 meters to his death. It was a massive slab avalanche that took down the entire slope. Barefoot and without gloves, I struggled for a whole day to return to base camp.

Having narrowly survived, I came home with deep regret. If only I had realized the danger sooner and fled, perhaps Tom would still be alive. I could not forgive myself for surviving while he died. Why did I live when Tom, right beside me, perished? When I rushed to speak with my pastor, he comforted me: “There was a deep plan of God in your survival.” More than forty years later, I can accept those words, but at that time they felt like an excuse, an evasion of my own responsibility.

“How can I live with myself?” This is what is now called “survivor’s guilt”—the guilt felt by those who, though surviving wars, disasters, or accidents, struggle with the fact that others died while they lived.

My life fell into disorder. I could not focus on seminary classes and spent six miserable months tormented. One thought would not leave me: “Perhaps my survival was a mistake of God. Maybe I was the one who should have died.” I felt I could not go on living without an answer. I left seminary and the following summer attempted another Himalayan climb in Nepal. At 7,200 meters I collapsed from exhaustion, and the expedition failed to reach the summit. Yet despite the failure, I felt a fresh wind sweep through my heart. I had tried to die but could not. I realized I had no choice but to live.

I was allowed to return to seminary. At 27, I dedicated this spared life to God.

What I especially want to share today is this: Even after becoming a pastor, even after preaching forgiveness through Christ’s cross, I continued to be haunted by the fact that I alone had survived. The burden did not disappear. Scenes of snowy mountains on television or a sudden memory would trigger flashbacks of the disaster. I believed in forgiveness at the cross, yet my heart remained restless. I felt unworthy before Tom and his parents. There was no peace in me.

Around age 35, while preaching on this passage, I saw the wounded Christ anew. I realized: “It is all right to live with wounds. We need not hide them. Cherish the wounds and live on.” Jesus tells us: “Your sins I bore on the cross. Now live as one who is forgiven.” Forgiveness does not mean forgetting sin or erasing memory. It means not hiding it, not covering it up, but facing it again and again. That is our responsibility in life. From those wounds, new messages come. From them, we can rise again. “Resurrection” itself means “to rise again.”

When climbing a vertical cliff, if I hammered in a piton securely and tied myself with the rope, I could lean back from the rock face and gaze into the deep valley below without fear. In the same way, being firmly tied to Christ, trusting His forgiveness, enables us to face our sins and weaknesses without running away. That is how we are freed from sin’s power. Trusting God’s deep plan, I learned to listen to His voice even through my wounds and to walk on without fleeing.

Why did I survive? Why was I spared? Was it mere coincidence, or a miracle? Resurrection itself forces this choice: do you believe, or not? I believe my birth was a miracle, and that my life now is a series of small miracles. The Lord told Thomas: “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” What matters is trusting that we live within God’s deep plan and asking what meaning lies in each miracle. Today, I can only give thanks.

Still, I cannot help but think of Tom, who died so young. Those who are wounded cannot easily forgive, even when told, “It couldn’t be helped.”

Yet after returning to Japan, something mysterious happened. On climbs, we would strip down our belongings so much that even the cardboard tube of toilet paper was removed. But I always carried a small Gideons Bible. I had it with me even in the avalanche. Though much was swept away in the snow, my teammates searching for Tom found that little Bible lying on the surface, and it was returned to me. Holding that Bible, I believed: “This Bible fell in my place. Jesus Himself fell in my place.” And I also believed that Jesus had been with Tom to the very end. How could I believe this so simply? Because Jesus did not just die on the cross and rise again—He endured nails, the spear, blood, and excruciating suffering out of love for us. Such was His love. Surely He embraced Tom to the end. I entrusted everything to Him.

Until then, I had thought memories of sin and weakness would fade with time. But I was wrong. We carry both “strong memories” and “weak, fading memories.” As we age, the strong memories consume the weak, and at life’s end, it is the vivid memories of sin that remain. Time alone cannot heal them. Peace does not come by itself.

But Christ, with the master key, enters our hearts and says, “Peace be with you.” The Christ who suffered and died for us on the cross forgives every sin completely and ultimately. That is why we must not live as if nothing happened, but face our sins and wounds without evasion, asking what they mean. In doing so, we are given peace with Christ. His wounds heal ours, and through them He makes us new.

To continue wrestling honestly with sin is hard, like Job’s struggle. Yet even in such difficulty, peace with the Lord is given, freedom from sin’s dominion, and the blessedness of faith. Let us accept even bitter experiences from His hand, leaving them unlocked, and keep asking Him their meaning. Perhaps the full meaning will only be revealed when we are called home. Still, because we believe our sins are forgiven, we may receive the peace of Christ even now and carefully listen to the message that comes from our wounds.

Prayer:
O God of heaven who works all things for good, You know everything, and before You I see only my sinful, shameful self. I am filled with sorrow for sins beyond repair. Yet I believe in Your forgiveness through Christ. Grant me strength not to flee from my sins and weaknesses, but to hear Your voice through them. Nurture me richly as I walk this path. Amen.