Matthew 25:1-13

I am always captivated by the immage of God as a mother hen. I see a spring time farm yard, with a red hen over seaing a yard full fluffy yellow chicks.  They are running around, eating worms, sqeaking and pecking, in the warm sun.  Then the morning is disturbed by the sound of a car come in up the drive or the slam of the kitchen door and the rapid pound of a running child's feet at she tear across the farm yard on her way to somewhere.  And sudddenly all the chicks run, they don't scatter willy-nilly but they run for the hen, her wings are open wid eand she gathers them in, to protect them from what ever danger there may be, either real or percieved.

This is God, the red Hen, wings wide open calling for us to come, to be gathered in. Sheilded, protected under wing.  But Jesus is saddened here, because Jerusalem repeatedly refuses to come gather in.  They run the other way, ignore the pleas of the mother hen.  Go their own way, come what may, they will handle it on their own.  Will I be Jerusalem, going our own way, ignoring the loving arms of our Savior, or I be a chick, looking to Jesus for the guidance and protection he longs to give?