The Murderer Who Found Peace

In 1918, Tokichi Ishii sat in a Tokyo prison cell awaiting execution. He had committed multiple murders, attacked guards, and earned a reputation as one of Japan's most violent criminals. Two Canadian missionaries, Caroline MacDonald and a colleague, visited his cell and left behind a New Testament. Ishii had no interest — until one restless night he opened it.

He read slowly through the Gospels and arrived at Luke 23, where Jesus hung on the cross beside criminals not unlike himself. When he reached the words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," something shattered inside him. Ishii later wrote, "I was stabbed to the heart, as if by a five-inch nail. Shall I call it the love of Christ? Shall I call it His compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that my hardness and direct opposition to God melted away."

Ishii was baptized in prison. He went to his execution not with dread but with a calm that stunned the guards who had once feared him. He spent his final days writing poetry and letters of gratitude.

Paul writes that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" and that through Him "we have peace with God." Tokichi Ishii — murderer, convict, condemned man — discovered that no rap sheet is longer than the reach of grace. The same love that found him in that cell is extended to every one of us today.