Birds

 “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add on cubit to his stature?”

-Matthew 6.26-27

“You see, He is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers.  It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the Gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men, and daily should emphasize this to our eyes and ears, as if he were saying to us: ‘Look, you miserable man!  You have house and home, money and property.  Every year you have a field full of grain and other plants of all sort, more than you ever need.  Yet you cannot find peace, and you are always worried about starving.  If you do not know that you have supplies and cannot see them before your very eyes, you cannot trust God to give you food for one day.  Though we are innumerable, none of us spends his living days worrying.  Still God feeds us everyday.’  In other words, we have as many teachers and preachers as there are little birds in the air.  Their living example is an embarrassment to us.  Whenever we hear a bird singing toward heaven and proclaiming God’s praises and our disgrace, we should feel ashamed and not even dare to lift up our eyes.  But we are as hard as stone, and we pay no attention even though we hear the greatest multitude preaching and singing every day.

“Look what else the dear little birds do.  Their life is completely unconcerned, and they wait for their food solely from the hands of God.  Sometimes people cage them up to hear them sing.  They get food in abundance, and they ought to think: ‘Now I have plenty.  I do not have to be concerned about where my food is coming from.  Now I have a rich master, and my barns are full.’  But they do not do this.  When they are free in the air, they are happier and fatter.  Their singing of Lauds and of Matins to their Lord early in the morning before they eat is more excellent and more pleasant.  Yet none of them knows of a single grain laid away in store.  They sing a lovely, long Benedicite and leave their cares to our Lord God, even when they have young that have to be fed.

“Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher.  He exhorts you with this Gospel, not mere simple words but with a living deed and an example.  He sings all night and practically screams his lungs out.  He is happier in the woods than cooped up in a cage, where he has to be taken care of constantly and where he rarely gets along very well or even stays alive.  It is as if he were saying: ‘I prefer to be in the Lord’s kitchen.  He has made heaven and earth, and He Himself is the cook and the host.  Every day He feeds and nourishes innumerable little birds out of His hand.  For He does not have merely a bag full of grain, but heaven and earth.’

“Now, since the birds have learned so well the art of trusting Him and of casting their cares from themselves upon God, we who are His children should do so even more. Thus this is an excellent illustration that puts us all to shame.  We, who are rational people and who have the Scriptures in addition, do not have enough wisdom to imitate the birds.  When we listen to the little birds singing every day, we are listening to our own embarrassment before God and the people.  But after his fall from the word and the commandment of God, man became crazy and foolish; and there is no creature alive which is not wiser than he.  A little finch, which can neither speak nor read, is his theologian and master in the Scriptures, even though he has the whole Bible and his reason to help him…”

-          Martin Luther

Mmm, how can you not love the reformers?  Reading this I cannot help but wonder what else could be added besides my guilt, shame and silliness and the subsequent grace, beauty and greatness of my Lord.  How can we keep from singing praise?

To God be the Glory

To God be the glory, great things he hath done!

So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,

Who yielded his life, an atonement for sin,

And opened the life gate that all may go in.

 

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,

Let the earth hear his voice!

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,

Let the people rejoice!

O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,

And give him the glory, great things he hath done!

 

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,

To every believer the promise of God;

The vilest offender who truly believes,

That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

 

Great things he hath taught us, great things he hath done,

And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;

But purer, and higher, and greater will be

Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.