Shelter and Safety

The Second Sunday in Lent

March 16, 2025

Luke 13:31-35

 “Shelter and Safety”

With the spring season upon us, we now enter into the season of sudden and violent storms. Although it can be fascinating to watch these storms move through, there is also great risk and danger in doing so. The warmer temperatures that come with spring can trigger heavy weather that forces us to seek shelter and safety. Here at church, especially with the children in our Early Childhood Education Center, we have identified interior areas away from windows that are our go-to place in case of storms. We all need to think through this for our own safety, whether we are at home, work, school, or wherever we might be. Shelter and safety emerge in today’s Gospel lesson as Jesus laments over Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34). It is that image of a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings and these words of Jesus that become the basis for today’s sermon on this Second Sunday in Lent, entitled “Shelter and Safety.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake.

Today’s Gospel lesson begins with something surprising: the Pharisees, who usually opposed Jesus as we read throughout the Gospels, here give him a heads-up, a warning, that Herod was out to get him; to kill him. “Watch your back,” they were telling Jesus. But why did they do this? Weren’t they the very ones who wanted to get rid of Jesus and plotted against him? Didn’t they try to entrap Jesus in his own words on a number of occasions? For whatever reason, in this one instance, they do something nice for Jesus. In a weird sort of way, it seems like they were providing Jesus with shelter and safety. Jesus responds by calling out Herod the king as a fox: cunning, sly, not to be trusted. Jesus’ mission is not going to be defined by who Herod is or what he does. Though they had never met, Jesus would stand before Herod on trial before going to the cross (Luke 23:6-12). Jesus gives a prediction of where he is heading as he says: “Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course” (Luke 13:32). The third day: Jesus is pointing ahead to what he will do on the third day, which is to rise from the dead, triumphant over sin, death, and hell itself. If we are looking for shelter and safety, this is where we’ll find it: in all that God in Christ has done for us.

Jesus acknowledges a terrible irony here in this text. Those whom God had sent to Jerusalem, to his own chosen people, in order to call them back to himself in repentance and humility, suffered the same fate as Jesus himself would. “… It is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33b). In today’s Old Testament lesson (Jeremiah 26:8-15), the prophet Jeremiah was being threatened with death. The reason for this is that Jeremiah proclaimed a message that God’s own people didn’t want to hear. They stubbornly refused to hear the message God had sent Jeremiah to proclaim, and they wanted to kill the messenger. Jeremiah is sometimes called “the weeping prophet” because the God-given message he brought was rejected. Like Jesus himself, Jeremiah wept bitter tears as he foresaw and then with his own eyes witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:11). Jesus himself would weep over Jerusalem as he entered into it on that first Palm Sunday (Luke 19:41). This is Jesus’ weeping lament over his own people who stubbornly refused to be gathered; who rejected the shelter and safety God so wanted to give them.

In this Lenten season, in every season of life, we are all looking for shelter and safety, which can sometimes be very hard to find. Of course, there is the shelter we call home. We all strive to have a safety net of financial savings to draw on when that is needed. Having a circle of family members, friends, and neighbors to provide help and support is a great blessing. We need all of these things in life. But the storms of life can come out of nowhere and strike without warning. Like a spring storm that comes up suddenly, our life situation can also change quickly. At the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world, where do we find shelter and safety that will withstand the ravages of time; shelter and safety that will abide for time and eternity? Jesus invites us to be gathered under his shelter and safety, like a hen gathering her brood of chicks under her wings. The questions is: are we willing to be gathered to Jesus? That’s why we are here today: because we do want to be gathered to Jesus. We want to bow down and worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We want to seek his face and listen to his voice. We want to praise the One who loves us with an everlasting love; who has laid down his life for us on the cross; who forgives all our sins; who promises that he will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Through this weekly worship gathering around God’s gifts of Word and Sacrament, we are encouraged and strengthened in faith. We say with the psalmist in that final verse that we read today: “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).  

When I was growing up, my mother always had chickens, so we never lacked for eggs. In fact, my mom sold eggs to people who would come out to the farm and buy them. With the price of eggs being what they are today, this would be something of a gold mine right now. What I do not remember ever seeing is a mother hen who called her chicks, and they failed to come to her. It never happened. They always came when she called them. I think we have much to learn from God’s creatures here. Having lamented over Jerusalem, Jesus closes today’s Gospel lesson with words that point us ahead to his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: “And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:35b). Today, as our Lenten Savior Jesus Christ gathers us together with the whole Church on earth and in heaven, giving us shelter and safety in his own Body and Blood, we, too, sing those same words: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Amen.