Paul McCarntney and wings

Ah, wings.

If you're like me, and you most likely are, you love wings.  And I mean wings in all kinds of permutations, but especially the hot wings.  The hotter the better!  If they go up in the heat scale all the way up to suicide wings, then I'm happy as a clam.  There have been many evenings in which congregational members and I have gone out for blazing hot wings at a local eatery to talk about the origins of the universe, and our place in it.

Good times.  Easier times before I had kids, but good times nonetheless.  And chickens, as they go, are remarkably divisible.  I remember hearing from someone many years ago that Kentucky Fried Chicken was no longer going by that name because the birds they used were so genetically modified, that you couldn't call them chickens anymore.  So they changed their name to KFC.

Sadly, that cool story isn't true.  They changed their name to drop the connotations that go along with the word 'fried,' which is a dirty word these days.  But I mention KFC (or PFK if you're hon hon hon), uses all sorts of bits of chicken.  You can get wings, breast, thighs, drumsticks, drummettes, and if there's nothing left after that, then get a big ol' box of popcorn chicken, featuring the also rans of the cuts of meat.

But it's the wings that I find captivating, because you can go out for them.  Bars and clubs have wing nights, certain establishments prize themselves on their wings, all that.  Well, you all know what birds use their wings for, besides being delicious.  They use their wings for the purposes of flight.  for getting around.

But birds, they do something else funny with their wings.  They protect their young.  Now, this isn't a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down.......  Sorry, lost my train of thought.  No hold on.  This isn't a story all about how a swan can break a man's arm with one beat of its wings, nor a story about how a flightless ostrich can kick a lion's head clean off.  No no no.  This is a story of smaller birds.

I know on Sunday I talked about mother hens gathering their chicks under their wings so that a predator might take the mother instead of the babies.  This is behavior I've heard about, but never witnessed for myself.  I've heard about it, mainly from the Bible, about how chickens will do this, but I've never seen it.  What I have seen, though, is one of those loony birds who will pretend to have a broken wing in order to distract predators from their brood.  I saw this when I was working grounds keeping for Prince of Peace Lutheran church ,school, manor, village and harbour.  And when I was employed in that regard, the grounds were so big that we'd ride a gator from place to place.  A little john deere two seater, with space in the back to carry loads of gravel. 

And as we'd tool around, we would drive past the nest of this ridiculous bird.  And this bird would do this nutso dance, doing its best for all the world to look weak and wounded, so we'd go off and chase it instead of the clutch of eggs or whatever that were in the nest.

Now, you may very well decide to make fun of this bird.  First of all, why on earth are you laying your eggs, your precious offspring on the ground, on the earth, where they can be picked up by the first hungry predator. Secondly, why oh why are you counting on that crazy dance that you do to fool anyone? 

Well, joke's on me.  I saw that bird every day, and watched it do its song and dance routine.  And I never found the nest.  So it worked.  I was sufficiently distracted to not notice one thing about the clutch of eggs.  So, well done stupid crazy bird.

Now, our judgment that we have on that bird could well be levelled against God Almighty himself.  That silly goof, why oh why did he place his beloved children on the earth, instead of in Heaven?  Why did he put us here where temptation could strike us at any moment?  Why did he put us in a place where Satan could get at us?  And especially, what was his big plan to get us out of trouble? 

It was the same as that goofy bird's plan to get its chicks out of trouble.  It was that exact same plan.  It was the plan to appear wounded, to draw the forces of sin and death and the devil away. It was the plan to be a much bigger prize, to be a wounded prize, to be easy to get, to be simple to drag away, and then the chicks would be easy prey next. 

Well, the joke's on the devil.  As usual.  What these goofy birds do is to lure the predators away, but not actually, hopefully, become dinner themselves.  They don't want to leave their chicks defenseless.  They lead the predators away, and then, just when all seems lost, when they appear to be snacktime for a hungry fox or whatever, then all of a sudden, they reveal that the wing wasn't broken, and they take to the skies.  They leave the predator hungry and desperate, as the easy meal takes to the air, fleeing their attempt to chow down.  The predator, the foxx, the wolf, the coyote, just stands there in frustration, as the big prize, the sweet meal, flies away.

That's our Lord, if you will.  His weakness drew the devil away, his broken body lured the devil to him.  His blood and nail pierced hands diverted attention away from us.  His bloody sweat, his agony, his whipped back, and finally his death led the devil to him and only him.  And then when death was about to score its final, great victory, when the devil was about to do what he had always wanted to do, to destroy God himself, Jesus took flight, rose from the dead, and left the hungry grave open and disappointed.  He led all the attention away from us, which was where it belonged, and took that attention upon himself.  We escaped the wrath and judgment, the eternal death and separation, the hellfire and damnation, because of the wounds and apparent weakness of Christ.  Leading all this stuff away from us.  Onto himself.

Lent

Sacrifice

The Cross

The nails.

All that.