Week 34—Wednesday Luke 19:1-10
Week 34—WEDNESDAY
“THAT IS WHAT I WANT”
Only as the Word becomes flesh does the Word become power. Admiral Sato was the commander of the Japanese submarine fleet at Pearl Harbor. I asked him how many submarines he had, and he replied, “Nineteen and a few suicide, pick-a-back type.” When I asked him how many of these submarines got into Pearl Harbor, he replied, “Possibly one of the suicide type.” (Incidentally, that disposes of the controversy about whether President Roosevelt ordered the submarine net to be lifted before the mouth of Pearl Harbor to allow the Japanese submarine fleet to come in, in order to get America into the war in the Atlantic by the back door. If the net had been lifted the whole of the Japanese submarine fleet would have gone in instead of possibly a suicide type.)
Admiral Sato really believed the emperor was divine and carefully indoctrinated his naval officers in the Naval Academy. When the war came to an end, his world fell to pieces—his admiral’s position gone, his income cut off so that he had to work on a farm for his livelihood, and then the emperor announced that he was not divine—his religion was gone. I asked him what happened to his thinking when the emperor announced that he was not divine. “My world turned upside down,” he replied. He became bad-tempered, lashing out at everybody and everything. He contemplated suicide. A member of a church asked him to come to the church and get a faith. But it was the Word of faith become word, so he replied, “Oh, I have no time for that.” But one day in a prayer meeting in a home he saw something he had never seen before—saw it in the faces of women who had suffered, had lost their husbands in the war, and yet were poised and radiant. “That is what I want,” he said to himself as the tears rained down his cheeks. It was the Word become flesh. He was baptized on Easter Day. When I asked him if the vacuum within had been filled, he smiled and put up his three fingers (Jesus is Lord!). He heard preaching, received an invitation to accept a faith, but only when the Word of Faith became flesh in simple women did it become power.
O Divine Redeemer, we thank you for those who so quietly and so unobtrusively show us the Word of Victory become flesh in their own persons. Help me this day to show that Word become flesh in me. In your name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If Christ is lifted up in me, he will draw others to himself.