Under His Wings
5 min. read– client resource
So, you’ve discovered that you’re a Pharisee. Well, the first part to healing a sickness is knowing the right diagnosis. The second part is knowing the cure. But what is the cure? For those who have attended church for many years, rote memory may prompt the weary and blase response of “Jesus”. We know the answer– the “cure”–but do we really comprehend what that means?
Let’s go back to Matthew 23. When we examine Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, it might be easy to say his words solely communicate judgement. But his response is SO much more than that. In this chapter alone, “Woe” is used seven times by Jesus. “Woe” is a word that denotes judgement, but don’t miss this—it also communicates lament. And Jesus ends his declaration, his lament, with an invitation:
“ ‘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. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’ ” (v. 37-39).
Jesus is speaking to the people of Israel, which includes the Pharisees! That means that those “whitewashed tombs” & “brood of vipers” have been invited to receive him. Jesus’ response to his enemies is a tender call to draw near to him & be safe under His wings.
I’d like to end with a passage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a childhood favorite of mine. In this story, a boy named Eustace is turned into a dragon. Eustace desperately tries to transform himself back, but is unable to until Aslan, a character symbolic of Christ, steps in:
“‘The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt….Well he peeled the beastly stuff right off– just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt–and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been’” (Lewis 86, 89).
My fellow Pharisee, don’t try to peel that knobbly dragon skin off by your own effort. Only Christ can do that. What a wonderous truth! In God’s kingdom a prickly, self-righteous dragon can find refuge under the wings of God—and by doing so be truly and utterly transformed.
Works Cited
Lewis, C. S. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. HarperCollins UK, 2009.