Luke 13:31-35: a reflection

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!’”

Warned that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus refuses to be deflected from his mission, and then breaks into a lament of astonishing tenderness over the city that will reject him: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. The image is startlingly tender: God as a mother hen longing to gather her chicks under her wings, to shelter and protect them.

Notice the heart revealed in that image. Jesus does not look at rebellious, prophet-killing Jerusalem with cold anger, but with the aching love of one who has longed, again and again, to gather and shelter them, and been refused. How often I have longed, he says, a longing repeated over and over, met each time with unwillingness. His grief is not that of a judge eager to condemn, but of a mother whose outstretched, sheltering love has been rejected by the very children she yearns to protect.

That tender, longing love is God's disposition toward us, and it comes with a sobering freedom: you were not willing. God's sheltering love does not force itself; it can be, and often is, refused. He longs to gather us under his wings, to shelter and protect us, but he will not compel us to come. If you have been keeping your distance from that love, hear the ache in Jesus' words: how often I have longed to gather you. Do not be among those who were not willing. Come under the sheltering wings of the One whose love for you aches to gather you in.

Lord Jesus, you looked at the city that would reject you and grieved with a mother's love: how often I have longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood, and you were not willing. Thank you that this longing, sheltering love is your heart toward me. Where I have kept my distance, help me not to be among the unwilling. Gather me under your wings, and let me rest in the love that aches to gather me in.