I love heroic stories, where the protagonist journeys along a difficult path, with adversity waiting at every turn. Characters like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or the heroes and sheroes in Star Wars. I love the idea of a pilgrim setting out on an epic journey, dealing with the dangers that he or she encounters, slaying dragons, overcoming adversity, and coming to the eventual end of the journey where good always triumphs over evil, and our hero is transformed by the adventure.

On Ash Wednesday, we began the forty-day journey of Lent. We have made this journey before, so we know where we are going: we are heading towards Holy Week:  Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and ultimately, Easter Sunday. We are a people on the move and our hero is Jesus Christ. But this hero does things a little differently.

There’s a lot of movement in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus is always going somewhere: specifically, he is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will face his death: knowingly, with full acceptance, and suffused with the Holy Spirit which came down upon him at his baptism. Along the path ahead of him lies pain, suffering and ultimately, death.

Today, we find Jesus passing through Galilee, in the territory of Herod. He is warned by the Pharisees that he should leave – he is in danger of being killed. But Jesus has no intention of leaving. He is a man with a mission and a purpose. A man with his face firmly set towards Jerusalem and his destiny.

Just as Frodo’s story doesn’t stop on the road to Mount Doom and Harry Potter’s doesn’t end on the train to Hogwarts. Jesus’s journey has to end in Jerusalem.

Jesus knows that the prophets were not listened to and were ultimately killed. He knows what his enemies have planned for him but he is not driven by anger or revenge. Instead, he laments, and on the journey, he keeps doing what he has been doing all along. He keeps walking purposefully in the direction that he must go and, on the way, he stops, to meet people where they are, and as they are, to heal, to help, and to teach. And then he is on the move again…

His manner in today’s Gospel is one of sadness, but also, gentleness. He describes his feelings with one of the most tender and loving images in the gospel… describing himself as a mother hen who longs to take her wayward chicks under her wings to protect them.

As a mother, and as a teacher of young children, I can relate to this image of Jesus as a mother hen and I’m sure you can too. When children are toddlers, we are constantly trying to keep up with them. When they become teenagers, we do our best to keep track of them as they listen to the beat of their own drum (often delivered at deafening volumes.) Like a mother hen, we run in circles trying to gather them in, circles that grow wider and wider until we can no longer contain them. And we too have our moments of lament, as our chicks stop listening and go their own way. But no matter where they go or how far they may drift, we are always prepared to step in front of them and spread our wings to protect them from danger.

Jesus is our mother hen, gathering us to him. And when danger appears, he will protect his flock.  It is a deeply moving image. A maternal side of Jesus and perhaps not the image of a classical hero.  We wouldn’t usually think of a hen as a hero.  All a hen has to offer in the face of danger is to stand in front of the enemy, and spread her wings, offering her own body as protection.

And here we have it. Our hero, Jesus does not carry a sword to venture into battle. Instead he spreads his wings on a cross and offers himself to save his children as a mother hen would do.

And so, we continue on our journey, a journey of faith that invites us to trust God, even when the road ahead seems uncertain, when world events overwhelm us, and when the tasks before us seem to be more than we can bear. We are on the move with Jesus, towards Jerusalem and we never travel alone.

 

 

 

 

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