“Do you want to be made well? … Stand up, take your mat and walk.”[1]
My father won a Bronze Star for bravery under fire in World War II. His citation for “meritorious achievement [at a battle] in the vicinity of Ensheim, Germany, somewhat casually mentions that he “was wounded by enemy artillery fire.”
The wound which the citation glides over so nonchalantly was actually multiple shrapnel wounds that pretty much tore up his right leg and required two years of surgeries, physical therapy, and learning to walk again. He was left with a significant limp and constant pain for the rest of his life, pain which he self-medicated. His drug of choice was alcohol. Some of my earliest memories include fetching for him a Miller Hi-Life beer from the fridge or the bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon in the living room drinks cabinet.
Late on the night of March 30, 1958, while driving under the influence of that alcohol, he lost control of his car on a desert highway east of Kingman, Arizona, rolled his Thunderbird convertible three times, and broke his neck. My father, though he did not die in service and was, indeed, a civilian at the time of his death, was a casualty of World War II just as surely as if he had died on that battlefield in Germany. I am certain that if, at any time during those thirteen years between his wounding at Ensheim and his death in the Arizona desert, someone had said to him “Do you want to be made well?” his answer would have been, “Yes! Hell, yes!”
Let’s have a show of hands: everyone who believes that there is a Constitution of the United States raise your hand. OK, good. Now everyone who believes in the Constitution of the United States raise your hand. Some of you might be thinking, “Wait. Didn’t he just ask us to do that?” Well, no. There’s a difference between “belief that” and “belief in.” 
“[W]e had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel . . . and . . . it is now the third day since these things took place.”
In today’s Gospel, we are again in that long discourse from John’s Gospel which Bible scholars call “The High Priestly Prayer.” We’ve heard various parts of this prayer throughout the Easter Season. In this part of the prayer, Jesus asks of the Father, on behalf of the disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
Monday being “Memorial Day,” this weekend, in the traditions of our country, we are remembering and celebrating those who have fought on behalf of, and given their lives for, the United States. In the traditions of the church today, we are celebrating something called “Rogation Sunday,” on which we give thanks for the abundance of the earth and ask God’s blessings upon agricultural pursuits, upon the fields and the herds. I’d like to read you a story about giving thanks for abundance. It is from the Paul Harvey radio program.
A few years ago, at my former parish, we had a Sunday school presentation in which each of the kids was to recite a verse of Scripture. On little guy came up and just stood there, shuffling his feet and looking very uncomfortable; he just couldn’t remember his line… His mother was in the front row to prompt him. She gestured and formed the words silently with her lips, but it did not help. Her son’s memory was blank. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered the cue, “I am the light of the world.” The child beamed and with great feeling and a loud clear voice said, “My mother is the light of the world.”
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin , an 18th century French politician once said, “Tell me what kind of food you eat, and I will tell you what you what kind of man are.”
In today’s Gospel lesson we heard, as we always hear on the Second Sunday of Easter Season, the story of “doubting Thomas.” What is striking about the Thomas’s demand … “unless I see” … is that our Lord accepts and encourages it … “Reach out your hand.”
Easter is a joke. Amen.
Lenten Journal, Day 40
