[Shusaku] Endo locates the point of contact between Japanese life and the Gospel in what he observes, and has experienced personally, to be the essence of Japanese religious awareness. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person’s life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are intelligible only in the experience of their opposites. Endo sees them incarnate in the person of Jesus through his own experience of failure, rejection, and, most of all, ineffectualness. Only rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and find understanding and compassion. Endo argues that it is our universal human experience of failure in life that provides us with an understanding of Christian faith in its depth.
ADORACIÓN A CRISTO EN LA CRUZ: "Nosotros, al reconocer, proclamar y exaltar la realeza de Cristo, lo hacemos a través de la adoración del Verbo hecho Hombre en la figura del fracaso y la derrota humana. Nosotros adoramos a Cristo en la Cruz. + pic.twitter.com/mfFyWABdCm
— Gandalf (@gandalf_1010) April 15, 2022
–Fumitaka Matsuoka, The Christology of Shusaku Endo, Theology Today (October 1982) [emphasis mine]