WARNING: This article contains sermon spoilers. Come on Sunday to hear the rest of the story!
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
This Sunday, we will hear a beautiful passage from the Gospel often called Jesus’ Lament Over Jerusalem. Warned by the Pharisees that Herod was out to get him, Jesus says “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” What a wonderful image of the tender care that God extends to each of us in Christ. It’s also one of the passages in Scripture where God’s love is described in feminine terms, and it had a significant influence on Julian of Norwich’s extensive (and famous) meditations on Christ as Mother.
Now, my dad grew up on a farm in Mississippi, but I grew up in the suburbs where both eggs and chickens come in a package from the grocery store. In preparing for this week’s sermon, I spent some time doing some extremely intellectual research, by which I mean watching videos of chickens on YouTube. Like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocvs3rKaWiQ
Before I did my chicken research, I read that passage of Scripture as only about nesting, about how the mother hen keeps the chicks warm in the nest. That’s part of the story, but it’s not the whole story. There is something much more dynamic at work. Outside the nest, the mother hen spreads her wings over her chicks to protect them, and in fact places herself between her chicks and any perceived danger. She is willing to come to harm first in order to protect her babies.
This image also shows up in Martin Luther’s description of what he calls imputed righteousness, where God sees us through Christ, and reckons Christ’s perfect righteousness to us despite the fact that we remain sinners in this life. He writes, “On account of this faith in Christ God does not see the sin that still remains in me. For so long as I go on living in the flesh, there is certainly sin in me. But meanwhile Christ protects me under the shadow of His wings and spreads over me the wide heaven of the forgiveness of sins, under which I live in safety.” (Commentary on Galatians)
I think I’ve shared this with you before, but here’s a video that Sonia and I put together on imputed righteousness and infused righteousness, which is the more Catholic view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYor6YJMdJA
Thanks be to God that in Christ, we are kept safe from every danger by his own willingness to sacrifice everything for us, in love. Come back on Sunday for the rest of the story!
In Christ,
Kara