(Note:
This blog entry is based on the text for “Give and Take”, originally shared on March
10, 2022. It was the 197th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of
Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Who killed Jesus? Powerful leaders? Sinful people? Everybody? Nobody? Today, we’ll get an answer from Jesus, using a hen as a metaphor for God.
We see the lethal drama of conflict played
out in our news media every day.
Jesus once found
himself being warned flee because a tyrant wanted to kill him. We see it in Luke
13:31-35, and we’ll start with verses 31-33,
31 At that very hour
some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to
kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that
fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today
and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet
today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible
for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’
Perhaps Herod was afraid that Jesus
represented a threat to him and wanted to kill him as a warning to others. That
would certainly be consistent with his character.
He was a crafty predator, one who devalued the
lives of his own family, as well as those of the people he ruled. One
commentator suggested the term “fox” might be thought of as the same as “rat”
in our language and culture. Tyrants are tyrants from generation to generation.
Margaret Meade, the anthropologist, was once
asked what she thought was the first sign of human civilization in a given
society. She answered, “The first evidence of civilization is a healed femur.”
(thighbone)
A healed femur means that someone had to set
the bone and provide security, hunt or gather food and carry water for the
injured person while they healed, all at a personal expense to themselves.
Prior to that, if you broke a femur, you died.
Civilization begins when we put the needs of others ahead of our own, a
very Christian concept that is rooted in the central event of the Christian
faith.
Jesus knew the reality of what awaited him.
He would die in Jerusalem. And yet, his reaction was to go toward the danger.
His response was not to destroy the town, but to protect it.
We continue with verse 34,
34 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!
Jesus was filled with sadness and resolve.
He uses a seldom seen feminine metaphor for God, that of a hen.
Hens are givers. Hens produce meat and eggs
that help humans live. Hens are not predators, they are prey. Sometimes of
foxes. Yet Jesus models the work of God as like that of a hen. Jesus concludes
this passage with verse 35, where Jesus promises to return as a blessing.
35 See,
your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time
comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the
Lord.’”
Some say that this statement was fulfilled
on “Palm Sunday”, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, described in Luke 19:37-38,
37 As he was now
approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the
disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of
power that they had seen, 38 saying,
“Blessed is the
king
who comes in
the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
and glory in
the highest heaven!”
But other scholars remind us that a few days
after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the city was filled with cries to,
“Crucify him!” and that his statement is better understood as referring to the
Second Coming of Jesus at the end of time.
Still other scholars say it applies to both.
Jesus says, in Luke 13:32 (which we read a
minute ago), that in three days he will complete his work, he will be on his
way. He mentions the same number of days near the beginning of his 3-year
public ministry in the second chapter of John.
After Jesus had cleansed the Temple of its
commercialism he was asked for sign, or for the authority, on which he had done
it. He answered, in John 2:19-22,
19 Jesus answered
them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The
Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he
was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he
was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they
believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
No one takes Jesus’ life. He gives it, and
then takes it back again. It’s Jesus’ give and take.
I heard a story, for which I can’t find an
attribution, in seminary about a theory that there is life on many planets
throughout the universe. God created sentient life in many forms for a living
relationship with God on many of them.
Most of those life-forms received the
personal relationship with God gladly and there was no disobedience and fall,
as with Adam and Eve.
On some planets there was a fall, and God
reached out to them until they returned to that living relationship with God,
and all was good again.
In
some cases, God had to come in the form of those creatures in order that they
would not be afraid of Him, and they received him gladly and there was
reconciliation.
On one of those planets, however, God came
in the form of the life-form he had created for a personal relationship with
Him, and the creatures killed him.
That planet was Earth and, as a result,
human beings had a reputation for unfathomable violence and when the news got
around, Earth became the pariah of the universe.
And that’s why creatures from other planets
don’t come here. 😊
But would that be an accurate assessment of
the actions of God and humanity? No. Human beings were the means, certainly. But
who took Jesus’ life? In a sense, no one did. Jesus gave his life, and then
took it back again. It was Jesus’ give and take.
Jesus says, in John 10:14-18,
14 I am the good
shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just
as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the
sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to
this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there
will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason
the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up
again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay
it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take
it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Jesus is not a hero. Jesus is God. And Jesus
is our Savior, the Savior of the world. He gave his life to give us eternal
live and he took it back on the third day, in the Resurrection, to validate that
he was who he said he was, and that his death could be the means by which we
might be saved.
How do we know this? The most important reason
is that the Holy Spirit reveals it to us, the Holy Spirit that is like streams
of living water, gushing up from within us unto eternal life.
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