For some reason today, I sensed that there was an openness on Mary’s part that I could probe a little further. So I asked her, since she was a free thinker, “Have you come to any specific conclusions about who Jesus is?” She replied to me that she had not and it was difficult for her to know what to make of Jesus. To clarify further what I was trying to get at in asking her that question, I told her the story about my conversation with a Hindu student one day. This Hindu student has said to me he was very comfortable with his Hindu beliefs. I told her that I said to him, “I am happy that you are comfortable about your Hindu beliefs, but I have just one key question for you, what are you going to do with Jesus because he didn’t just claim to be just like any other religious leader?”

Then I continued to ask her, “Do you know that Jesus did some significant things that are different from other religious leaders?” She nodded yes that she did understand this. So I probed further. I asked her if she believes the miracles Jesus did, and specifically the miracle of the resurrection. To my surprise, she said yes and that she believes that Jesus really did die on the cross and then rise from the dead (though I know she is not a Christian). This further probed her to ask, “I know Jesus really did die on the cross. But why would someone do that for another human being?”

At this point I asked her if she understood that the Chinese word for “Righteousness” literally means “Lamb over me”. I told her that my former next door neighbor from China asked me a similar question when she asked why Christians believe that Jesus is like a lamb. I explained to Mary then the role of sacrificial lamb in the Old Testament. The sacrifice of the lamb symbolized the taking away of the sins of the people of Israel. I explained to her that in a sense when Jesus died on the cross, he was our sacrificial lamb who died as a substitute to take the place of what we owe because of our sins. I then went on to explain what I mean by sin is that God created us and then we all decided to go our own way rather than do things in God’s way. I tried to use an analogy to explain to her what it means practically for Christ to die in our place. I said to her, “Let’s say you have terminal cancer, what is going to happen to you most likely? You are doing to die right?” She agreed. I said “This is just an analogy but what Jesus did for you and I is that he took our “cancer cells” and put in his own body. What would happen to Jesus if he did this? He would die right? What would happen to you, you would live right? This is kind of what it means that Jesus is our substitute.” Then I explained that He did this because of his great love for us.After I said this I realized she wasn’t ready to go further that day, I told her that the next time I see her I would give her a little booklet entitled “Discovering God in Chinese Characters” that shows the connection between Chinese words and the Old Testament concepts (Like the Chinese word for Redemption). See www.chinesewomentoday.com

I was just so happy that after several attempts at building bridges to the gospel with her, the door had finally cracked open. In the future it would be easier for me to go even further and find out what is really holding her back from putting her faith and trust in Christ right now. I trust this story may encourage all of us to realize sometimes we just need to wait for God’s right timing and then witnessing to others may become easier than we ever thought possible.