“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, and you were not willing. (Matthew 23:37 NIV)
You may have to be from rural Mississippi, or from some farm background to really know how graphic this image is. How often have I seen a mother hen do exactly what Jesus suggested he wanted to do for Jerusalem.
I’ve seen the old hawk soaring overhead, doing his surveillance, spotting the hen and her little chicks. And I’ve seen that sensitive mother hen, seeing or hearing the hawk, senses danger. She knows what is about to happen. She gives that mother “cluck-cluck.”
The hawk is not to be outdone. He soars down and attacks the mother hen, but she fights him off. He comes again, and she fights him off. Courageously, with all the energy that is hers, she does it even though her head and her body are bloodied.
`It’s a graphic picture of the protecting love of a mother hen, and Jesus says that’s what He wanted to do for the people of Jerusalem. He wanted to gather them unto himself as a hen would gather her brood.
I wrote recently about the mother eagle’s relation to her young read about it here. During this Mother’s Day season, ponder both the method of the mother eagle and the method of the mother hen. The mother eagle suggests tough love, pushing the little ones from their nest. But the mother hen suggests courageous and protective love, gathering the little ones under her wings.
The eagle and hen describe the toughness and the goodness of God, In the eagle, there is also a suggestion of loftiness, in the hen the suggestion of lowliness. Think about it: Majesty and meekness meet together in the motherhood of God, and severity and goodness are reconciled.”
Return to the picture of God, like a mother hen, providing the comfort that only a mother can provide. The prophet Isaiah expressed it,
“I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream;
you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;
and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:12-13 NIV)
Is there a more characteristic picture of love than a mother nursing her child? But there is more. In my travels over the world, I’ve seen children carried by mothers in all sorts of ways. But the most common way is this one Isaiah knew — the mother carrying her baby on her hip.
I have felt for a long time that a baby was heavier to everyone else than to the mother. Why? Because no day has passed without the mother carrying the child — and that the child is getting heavier with each week is no issue to the mom.
It’s a picture of the comfort and the care of our mother God. The Psalmist expressed it, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. (Psalm 46:1)