Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2024

They are the survivors of the most destructive moment in the history of warfare: when U.S. forces dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, effectively ending World War II in the Pacific.  Some 200,000 were killed in the blasts. The 650,000 survivors became known as the “bomb-affected people” — in Japanese: hibakusha.  About 114,000 are still alive. Many have dedicated their lives to recounting their first-hand accounts of the inferno and devastating aftermath of radiation. Their powerful testimony has had a profound impact on the world’s understanding of the devastation of nuclear weapons.

A decade after the war, survivors formed Nihon Hidankyo, a grass roots organization to advocate for survivors who continued to suffer from the effects of the bombings. “Humanity must never again inflict or suffer the sacrifice and torture we have experienced,” the group wrote in their founding statement in 1956.

This October, Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for its decades-long campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The Nobel Committee praised the group for “helping us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain caused by nuclear weapons.”  The Nobel Committee noted that although nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, nuclear powers are modernizing their arsenals while other countries are working to join the nuclear club.

“At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves that nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” the committee noted in announcing the award.

For many in Japan, the hibakusha represent a time they want to forget — but the survivors continue to tell their stories. Now in their 80s and 90s, they are working with young Japanese to take up their message.

“Please,” said the chairman of Nihon Hidankyo, “abolish nuclear weapons while we are alive.”

The members of Nihon Hidankyo are no less than prophets in the spirit of John the Baptist who heralds the coming of God’s reign. By their powerful witness to the horrors they experienced, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureates call the world to recognize the destructive power of modern warfare and our responsibility to eradicate its threat in order to realize peace in the world all people and nations share. Each one of us, by our own witness to what is right and just, is called by God to the role of prophet — to be witnesses to God’s word of justice and reconciliation here and now, along our own Jordan River banks and in our own broken cities.