MEDITATION TIP —Second Sunday of Advent, December 4, 2022

“From the stump of the Jesse a shoot will sprout, and from its roots a young branch will grow, upon which the Spirit of the Lord will abide.” (Isaiah 11:1-2)

　Three years ago today, on December 4, Dr. Tetsu Nakamura was killed by the bullets of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is still a thorny issue. It is not only civil war and foreign interference that have shaken the country to its very foundations. The most significant cause is the drought that has intensified since 2000 due to global warming. Afghanistan used to be completely self-sufficient in food, and still earned its wealth by exporting its rich agricultural products. However, the rapid desertification of farmland has forced many people to leave their villages, and the country’s food self-sufficiency rate has been cut in half. Dr. Nakamura was engaged in medical activities in this country, but the area where he worked was also hit by a severe drought and turned into a barren desert. Residents left the village en masse, and the number of children collapsing from malnutrition and dehydration skyrocketed, and deaths from dysentery followed in rapid succession. Hunger and thirst cannot be cured by medicine. It was a pre-medical problem. Hunger can only be quenched with food. Food production requires water for agriculture. He advocated “one irrigation canal rather than 100 clinics. Although he himself was a doctor and had no civil engineering skills, he taught himself civil engineering and stayed on site for seven years to lead the project. Finally, in February 2009, he completed the 25-km-long Marwarid ir-rigation canal across the Gambelli Desert, transforming the barren desert into a green land. He continued to fight sandstorms and floods as he continued to cultivate the desert, but on December 4, 2019, he died as a testimony to the words, “A grain of wheat remains a grain of wheat unless it falls to the ground and dies. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). His way of life struck a chord with many people and was featured in Japanese textbooks.

　The “stump of Jesse” at the beginning of this text refers to the once-severed Davidic dynasty, and Jesse was David’s father. The stump is a remnant of a tree that was once cut down and appears to be dead, but a tree with strong vitality can sprout from its stump even after it has been cut down. In the same way, it means that a new savior will be born from the descendants of the Davidic dynasty, which once appeared to be cut off and dead. Dr. Nakamura, too, once felled by deadly bullets and cut down like a tree, but his spirit has not ceased, and we feel many buds of hope sprouting from his stock. Dr. Nakamura was a Protestant layman.

　He turned a desert into a green land by drawing an irrigation channel from another river. Let us also change the flow of our hearts. The energy of hate and love is released from the bottom of the same heart. The important thing is to change the path of evil into one of love. If God just changes the flow of the water source pond of our hearts a little, the bad flow will turn into a good flow. In this way, we can change our barren hearts into lush hearts. During this Advent, let us pray that God will change the flow of the water-source pond of our hearts, and let us pray that Dr. Nakamura will cooperate with us from heaven in creating a waterway for our hearts.　

 　　　　　(Father Akabae)