Chicken, Spinach and Bacon Sandwich

One highlight of this week was to come through another colonoscopy unscathed.  Because a pre-cancerous polyp was found five years ago I needed to go through the procedure again.  As fellow patients know this requires a fasting preparation process.  Because my procedure was late in the afternoon I began a liquid diet two days before.  On occasions I have fasted for spiritual reasons but when it is forced on you medically the motives are quite different!

Anyway, the consultant examined my colon and I was sufficiently awake to see the whole process on the colour monitor perched above.  When he declared I was free of any further polyps I was immensely grateful.  I really am.  But then came another highlight!  Even though I was a National Health Service patient I was given treatment in a private hospital in Cambridge.  Before the procedure they asked me what sandwich and drink I would like.   And as I recovered in bed the nurse brought me coffee in a silver pot and an exquisitely displayed sandwich, cut perfectly into three pieces and filled with chicken, spinach and bacon.  Alongside was a small salad which I laced with mayonnaise....and then began the delicious experience of savouring every single mouthful.  Oh, when you are really hungry! It was so much better than any sandwich I had eaten for years!
I am in the process of preparing a sermon for next Sunday in Churchill College on the temptations of Jesus.  The first concerned turning stones into bread.  For Jesus, hungry in the desert there must have been real physical temptation here. Astoundingly he will reject the possibility because 'man cannot live on bread alone'.  He must fulfill the big mission as the Bread of Life who satisfies in the deepest possibly way by giving eternal life.  For someone who was so satisfied at one level this week....the challenge goes so much deeper.