Chickens

Chickens
Originally uploaded by auntjojo

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!" Jesus' lament in Luke 13.34 resembles a mother crying out over her rebellious children. God as our mother reaching out in love and care, yet facing rejection and eventual death at the very hands of the one's she is gathering under her wings. The redemption offered to human beings by Christ is both the bearing of our sins and walking alongside us in our suffering. Though Christ seems to become more and more isolated on his journey to Jerusalem, in reality he is drawing ever closer to us. Solidarity with the suffering, but also a fierce clinging to the perpetrators. A willingness to remain in relationship and offer redemption to those who chose to turn their lives back towards God. A willingness to remain in relationship despite the depth of pain and sorrow it causes. Are we willing to do the same? To cling to those who hurt us in love? To return to those we have hurt and seek forgiveness? Not in weakness, but in a strength that holds on to our own integrity, in a truth that names the reality.