What Jesus said

Alex Buchan

I met a man called Bao recently in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). He was conscripted in 1966 in Hanoi to fight the Americans and South Vietnamese. Gradually the war dehumanized him. He saw his best friends shot; his girlfriend brutally raped, then strangled. He chewed a jungle leaf that was prized for its narcotic effect, and would lapse into dreams of a perfect world, then waken once again to war.

One day, his troop ambushed a South Vietnamese patrol. After a fierce skirmish, only one of the enemy survived. They stood him up to be shot and gave him a last request. The prisoner did not request a cigarette as is the usual custom, but asked that he be read a portion of the New Testament, which he had in his pocket.

Bao began to read him a portion. He started, "And Jesus said. . . . " Suddenly, the air was full of thunder, and the trees around them were being shredded by bullets. Bao dived for cover and just managed to escape the destructive path of a helicopter gun ship, dropping the Scripture in the process.

Bao said, "I went the rest of the war getting more and more curious about what it was that Jesus said. It must have been important, for a dying man to want to hear those words." He even asked his platoon commander, "Do you know what Jesus said?" By the response, he realized that this was not a question he should continue to ask.

Bao was one of the first soldiers into Saigon in 1975. Shortly after his arrival, he paid a surreptitious visit to Notre Dame Cathedral, which was then full of smashed stained glass windows. He found a Bible, carefully re-covered it and read it all the way back to Hanoi. He became a believer because he saw in Christ "a person who could end war with love and who actually had the courage to do it".

Alex Buchan is Asia Bureau Chief for Compass Direct, an international Christian news service.

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