On longer runs up the river from my apartment building, I come to Sensoji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo. According to legend, Kannon appeared as a gold statue to two brothers fishing in 628 A.D. They tried multiple times to return the statue to the river, but it continued to pursue them. Eventually, the chief of the village decided to turn his home into a shrine so that everyone could come and worship there.
Today around Sensoji, I see signs everywhere for Kannon (観音), which literally means “see sound.” Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion and mercy, sees and listens to all sounds of suffering. Some statues display eleven heads to be aware of all suffering, a “thousand” eyes to see all suffering, and a “thousand” arms to reach out and relieve all suffering. Though able to achieve the peace of Nirvana, Kannon is “The Merciful One” who waits with compassion for all suffering beings.
During the roughly two hundred and fifty years of persecution in Japan, “Hidden Christians” used images and statues of Kannon to secretly worship the God of the Bible. Sometimes, they made the statues look like the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus, what are known as “Maria Kannon.” Sometimes, they simply hid a cross in the back or the base.
It’s fascinating to think about Jesus in a culture where Kannon is so prevalent. Jesus is the greatest of all perceivers. He is the One who sees and hears all our cries of pain and suffering.
“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry. . . . The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.” (Psalm 34:15, 17)
Jesus is the greatest of all merciful ones, who reaches out with his mighty arm to save.
“The arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear” (Isaiah 59:1)
More than a reappearing statue, Jesus is the greatest of all pursuers, “the Hound of Heaven,”(1) who never stops until he has brought peace to people from every language, tribe, and nation.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.” (Revelation 3:20)
Jesus the merciful Savior “sees all sound” of our cries of pain and suffering and answers with his own cries of pain and suffering from the cross. Jesus responds to our cries for mercy with the “blessed sound,” the fukuin (福音) of the gospel.
(1) A poem by Francis Thompson (1859–1907) that portrays God as relentlessly pursuing his people. http://www.houndofheaven.com/poem.
Excerpt from "Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan" by Roger W. Lowther