Matthew 23: 37 (The Father God speaking from a shared heart with Jesus … repeated in Luke 13: 34)
“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.”
The above words were spoken by Jesus and recorded by both Matthew and Luke. The verses are identical, unique and extremely under appreciated. The reader easily gets caught up in the next few verses that prophesy the destruction of the temple and the pillage of Jerusalem where over a million of its citizens were killed in 70 AD. Such fulfillment of prophesy is engaging but let us focus on verse 37, as it gives to us the clearest, short summary description of the God of the galaxies.
Jesus has started his journey to Jerusalem and in a few days he would arrive in the power center of the religious leadership of historical Israel. For all of his preaching time, Jesus has badmouthed the religion of his birth because that religion had left most of the people behind without hope. The miracles of healing, the natural miracles, the parables, the teaching and preaching were all directed to restore hope in a God that cared for all the people. This God is blind to ethnic origins, nationality, education, disease, economic success in life or social acceptability. Jesus described that hope as the kingdom of God.
The justified disrespect of Jesus toward these religionists of Israel would be thrown right back at him. How can the center of religion in Jerusalem respect an itinerant and uneducated carpenter’s son with questionable birth circumstances? He has no official connection to our religious leadership and is said to perform miracles without permission. Most of all, Jesus is a troublemaker! The conflict would conclude in Jerusalem where Jesus will be crucified Roman style, the event being manufactured by the schemes of these same religious authorities.
Knowing the severity of the conflict that lay ahead of him, “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”(Luke 9:51) He knew that these folk would kill anyone who challenged their authority. Their hearts and intentions were exposed by their own history, “you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you”. For 1500 years the religionists fought and killed the voices of change that God had sent into their midst. The Old Testament Scriptures, themselves, reflect the double mindedness of the religious lords of Israel. The task of the reader should be to separate the good stuff from the earthly manipulations of men. One need not throw out the less valuable scriptures, only consider the source.
God gathers while humankind scatters. Religion scatters or fragments or divides peoples and relationships while God gathers peoples and relationships together. Jesus saw himself as the shepherd of the sheep, his task on earth was to gather together the children of the Father. Is there anyone in the sea of humanity that can not qualify on that score? Verse 37 notes, “how often I have longed to gather”, that longing for unity is God. What follows is that beautiful word picture, “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings”, there, under the wings of God is safety and a destiny to be realized. Do we not long for the gathering God as preached to us by Jesus?
We must confess that too many of our days are wasted running from God. As Jesus said, you will not because “you are not willing”. We must choose to stop running and allow the gathering. There are a few moments in every life when the clutter recedes enough to allow a change of direction. All things above are expanding, all matter, all universes are constantly running away from each other. Then there are the recently discovered black holes, capturing and compacting all things in their wake. Is this not a picture of our spiritual journey, the reprocessing of the galaxies, God capturing the lost sheep?
The verse ends on a sad but true note, the heart and will of mankind has been turned to go it’s own way. We all are our own worst enemies, we all avoid the truth that we were made to be gathered. If God is God, and if the very center of that reality is a longing to gather his children, ultimately, in this world or the next, we all shall be gathered to the Father.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
