Oh, Jerusalem

“Oh 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 chicks under her wings….” Matthew 23:37

I like this verse. It says so much about who Jesus is.  He’s a protector, for sure.  He’s a shelter. He’s a hen?  How many men would use a feminine simile to describe themselves?  “When I see you, baby, I just feel like a big ole mama chicken!”  Doesn’t exactly make you swoon.  It’s more of a playground taunt, usually. “CHICKEN! BUKUKKKK!”

Jesus doesn’t care about that. He’s not worried about his manly image. (Read ahead to Revelation –that’s where the manliness really comes out.)  This is him in love. He’s weeping over His people who won’t listen to Him or His messengers.

This verse, every time, reminds me of a story (a modern parable?) I read – a grassfire sweeps across the prairie, burning everything in its path. The farmer manages to save his home, but not his pens and barns and small animals.  He goes outside after the fire to survey the damage. Walking amongst the charred ruins of his farm, he kicks at a clump of burned material.  It’s a chicken, burned to death. But from underneath the dead hen’s wings scurry out four or five little chicks. She’d gather them under her, just like when they were eggs, then hunkered down over them while the fire swept over them. She died; they lived. The hens’ body was enough to insulate her children from the punishing fire: Jesus’ body, given in Love, is enough to insulate me from the punishment that must be meted out.