trouble all around

This week, I was intruiged on textweek.com by a post entitled, "That's why they call it the blues." Not one of my usual resources, but interesting this week, at least, Peter Woods expanded Jesus' epithet toward Herod in an interesting way. As we come off his temptation in the wilderness, where Satan tempted him with food, power, and protection, and then left until an opportune time, we see in our Gospel lesson for Lent 2 that trouble continues to come from all sides.

Herod, the fox in the hen house, is obviously a concern, but Peter notes that there is trouble from the skies too, Rome. One of the key symbols of Rome's military might was that of the eagle.

Peter writes, "As a caring lover of all people, Jesus knew how threatened the vulnerable chicks of Israel were. The poor, the widows, the outcasts, were at the mercy of the Foxy Herod and the Roman Eagle. In a homely farmyard metaphor, Jesus likens himself to the vulnerable hen who, despite the danger to herself, gathers her chicks when the eagle is soaring and the fox is stalking. Did he know even then that Herod and Caesar would rip him apart at the end? Jesus sang the blues"

Trouble is all around for Jesus, but he has already set his face toward Jerusalem and knows where that will lead. Thank God, literally, for Jesus' faithfulness in spite of all the danger.