Journeying to Jerusalem
How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings
A couple of years ago, I was in Australia for the wedding of a very dear friend. The first few days of our stay were frenetic – only hours after our arrival, we were busily transforming the gardens and grounds around the farm house that they may become the beautiful setting for her wedding reception. The following day, activity was equally frenetic, returning the place to a functioning farm once more. Not much time for sleep and recovery from jet lag. And the following day we began our journey with our now married friends to the southern coast of Western Australia. I was utterly exhausted and rejoiced in the thought of a long nights sleep. But in the early hours of the morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard Joanne calling me in a very excited voice. Sleepily, and I have to say with not the most gracious feeling in my heart, I made my way to the top of the stairs. Come and look at this, she said excitedly; it is the most beautiful dawn. I turned to get some outdoor trousers and a top. Don’t worry about that, she said, just come in your PJ’s. And so the two of us ran bare foot through this tiny hamlet to the edge of the lake, and watched the most glorious rising of the sun. The light and colours across the water were incredible. Tiredness, (and bad grace) melted away as she and I just sat and watched in silent wonder. A part of me just wanted this moment to last forever – yet knowing it could not – so treasuring every second as if trying to burn it forever upon my memory and senses. Nature has a remarkable way of speaking to us of the things of God in a way that nothing else can.
And this I suspect is the reason why stories of the natural world occur so often in the teachings of Jesus. Today is an example. But first, to put the passage we have just heard into context.
The Herod referred to is Herod Antipas, and as a political leader he would not be one under whom you would perhaps wish to live. He was a regional ruler of the Roman Empire, one of three sons of Herod the Great. His father was notorious, not least for killing the baby boys born around the time that Jesus was born; thus, committing one of the great atrocities of all time. Herod the Great had also killed his two older sons. Until the death of his father, one can only imagine that Herod Antipas must have lived in fear that his father would kill him also if he did not rule in the manner his father demanded. And that required Herod to keep the peace, to stop rabble-rousers from stirring up the people and causing headaches for the occupying forces. Life during the Roman Occupation was hard and at times cruel indeed. It was within this culture of fear and oppression that Jesus lived, travelled around and worked, challenging the values and mores of the day. He would have been only too well aware of the cruel and unjust way so many ordinary people had been treated, all too often resulting in their death. His own cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded. In the middle of all this, the Pharisees walked a tight rope – if the occupying forces thought for a moment that the Jews were challenging the authority and order of the Roman Empire and occupation, they would be forbidden from practicing their religion. And so there was real tension – obeying the rules of the occupying forces and distort the love of God, but live in relative peace, or live according to God’s law of love and risk losing everything. No wonder Jesus was a thorn in the flesh of the Jewish authorities! Here was a man bringing a new vision, a vision that valued the poor, the oppressed, the outcast, a vision that spoke of love, forgiveness and compassion rooted in his faith and trust in God his Father, a vision that constantly challenged the status quo, encouraging people to lift their eyes, their hearts and minds beyond the here and now, and set their hearts on a vision of the world as God would have it to be, to trust in God’s promises! Not for the first time the Pharisees were anxious to get him off their turf so to speak, and say to Jesus “Herod wants to kill you – go!”.
But Jesus likens Herod to the sly and wily fox who cannot be trusted and whose ways would have been well known to this rural agricultural community. “Go and tell him”, he says “that I have work to do, I will not be manipulated, but will continue along the path that is set before me, a road that will lead to Jerusalem “for it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem”.
And then you sense a moments reflection - pain and sadness, frustration and tenderness, tumbling together:
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!”
It is difficult not to think of Jerusalem today, so beautiful, yet so tragic, so oppressive, undercurrents of violence which results in killing. How our Lord must weep still.
Jesus knows what the probable outcome will be when he enters Jerusalem, but trusting his Father, he continues that journey. There may be moments when he will long for a different outcome, but the trust never waivers. And so he goes to the cross, the innocent victim of political oppression, social inertia and religious bigotry, his arms outstretched as the wings of a bird as she gathers and protects her young.
St. Paul, in his letter to the people of Philippi picks up the theme of trust in God’s promises. He urges his readers to trust, to hold on to that vision of the bigger picture. As ever, Paul does not mince his words; he leaves his readers in no doubt about his feelings for those who set their hearts, their minds on earthly things. Our lifestyles, our actions, our hopes and desires he tells us, declare our loyalties. But he points them also to the new dawn of hope – that our Lord Jesus Christ will transform our efforts, or as Paul puts it:
“He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory”
As we journey with Jesus through this time of Lent towards Jerusalem and the Cross, we are encouraged to spend time listening to God as he did, called to listen to that inner voice throughout the day , in order that we might know what God is asking of each one of us and then to: -
Trust the still small voice of God who nudges us and sometimes firmly boots us along a particular path, and course of action
Trust Him to sustain us in our own wilderness of doubt and uncertainty
Trust Him to forgive the mistakes we make along the way
Trust Him to use our best efforts and to transform them to his greater glory.
Trust him to love us as the people he created and created for some definite work to which he has not committed to another – there is no time for inertia
In that knowledge, may we all find the courage and strength to be fellow workers with God, so that, in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
We can extend Gods kingdom of shalom, of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of sharing, of laughter, joy and reconciliation so that the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our God.
That is what underpins our journey as we travel through Lent and Holy Week and make our way to the glorious dawn of Easter morning.
Lesley McCormack, 28th February, 2010
