The following meditation was written by Rev. Dr. Michael B. Brown, Pastor of Blowing Rock Methodist Church in North Carolina.
“‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often I have wanted to gather your people just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.’” Luke 13:34b (Common English Bible)
My first bicycle was a red Schwinn. No gears. No hand brakes. But it was a thing of beauty to a little boy on his seventh birthday. Our family lived in a house with a long driveway going downhill to the street below. Across the street was an undeveloped piece of property, separated from the road by a deep ditch.
I had learned to ride a bike (or, so I thought) by pedaling around on one that belonged to my cousin. His parents restricted us to their driveway, which was paved and flat. In that safe confinement, you couldn’t build up much speed, nor did you have trouble applying the brakes. When my parents gave me the new Schwinn, it could just as well have been a Lamborghini to me. It was the most beautiful vehicle I had ever seen. As I hopped on, my dad told me to stay on the flat area of the driveway next to the house. But, where’s the adventure in that? I was a competent cyclist, a master of the two-wheeled beauty. So, ignoring wise advice, I turned and headed down the hill toward the street below. That’s when I realized that braking on a flat surface at a slow speed was an entirely different thing than braking on a steep decline at an accelerated speed. It was many years ago, but I still remember the mix of adrenaline and fear as I rocketed toward the street below, wondering why the brakes didn’t seem to be having much effect. Thank God there happened to be no traffic!
Off the driveway I went, into and across the street, and then airborne for just a moment until my new bike and I came to an inglorious halt in the ditch on the other side of the road. My parents had come running behind me. Dad lifted the bicycle from the ditch while mom lifted me. Neither the bike nor the rider suffered any serious injury. I was more embarrassed than harmed. I do remember that the scolding I expected did not occur. Instead, my mother lifted me into her arms and held me as I cried. I was safe. Forgiven. Loved. She gathered me into her love “just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”
Jesus used that maternal language to describe the emotions he felt for Jerusalem and all that it symbolized. He was a rabbi. He knew that the Holy City was a living and visible reminder of the life and history of Israel. Somehow, within it lived the whole story of “God’s chosen people”[1], its journeys and trials, its previous exiles into foreign lands and its current occupation by a foreign captor, the legacies of its kings and prophets, its poetry of faith contained in the Psalms, its sincere but often failed efforts to honor the Law of Moses, its hopes and dreams and sorrows and tears. Jesus loved that history, he loved those people, as a mother does who gathers her child into her arms and sympathizes and comforts.
All of life’s surfaces are not smooth, flat, and easy to navigate. There are downhill slopes that we feel incapable of traversing. Frightening experiences or alarming crises occur, increasing in speed and intensity, and we have no brakes to slow them down. Sometimes, like the victim in The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), we find ourselves feeling bruised, bleeding, and beaten in one of life’s ditches. It is then, Jesus promised, that he comes to us, that he is with us, that he gives us strength not our own to survive the moment, and that, like a loving parent, he holds us close until the pain has passed. Kyrie Eleieson, we pray. “Lord have mercy.” And he gathers us into his healing arms.
Joy,
[1] References to the theme of the selection of Israel and of the New Testament Church for a special and intimate relationship with God can be found in Deuteronomy 7:6; 1 Peter 2:9
Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood 