Scripture Daily

Context No. 437 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 13:31-35: in context

31On that same day, some Pharisees came, saying to him, “Get out of here and go away, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I complete my mission. 33Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, for it can’t be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.’ 34“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused! 35Behold, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Some Pharisees come to warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him and that he should flee. Jesus is entirely unintimidated. Go tell that fox, he says, that I will keep casting out demons and healing today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my course. He will not be diverted by the threat or driven off Herod's schedule; he moves on his own appointed timeline, toward Jerusalem, because that is where his mission leads. His fearlessness is not bravado; it is the calm of a man who knows exactly what he has come to do and when it will be finished.

And then, as his face is set toward the city that will kill him, he breaks into a lament that is one of the most tender things he ever says. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, he cries, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. Sit with that image. The one speaking is God in the flesh, walking toward his own execution at the hands of these very people, and the picture he reaches for is a mother hen, spreading her wings to pull her chicks in close and shelter them. It is a picture of self-sacrifice, since a hen will cover her chicks with her own body against a fire or a hawk and die doing it. That is God's posture toward his people, aching to gather and protect them. And the heartbreak in the line is not that they were unworthy. It is that they were not willing. The shelter was offered, wings spread wide, and they refused to come under it.

That is the tragedy the passage lays bare, and it is a personal one. What thwarts the sheltering love of God is not, in the end, our unworthiness but our unwillingness, our stubborn refusal to come in under the wings. How often I wanted to gather you, and you would not. Have I been like Jerusalem, refusing the very shelter God longs to draw me under, saying, in effect, I would not, to the protection he aches, even at the cost of his own life, to give me?

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