Lenten Day Thirty-eight (Maundy Thursday): Sadhu Sundar Singh

The fire seized her and burnt her to ashes. – Sadhu Sundar Singh

As we enter the three holiest days of Lent, and this particular Maundy Thursday, a story comes to mind, shared by Indian-Christian and mystic Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929).  He wrote:

In a Tibetan village I noticed a crowd of people standing under a burning tree and looking up into the branches. I came near and discovered in the branches a bird which was anxiously flying round a nest full of young ones. The mother bird wanted to save her little ones, but she could not. When the fire reached the nest, the people waited breathlessly to see what she would do.

No one could climb the tree, no one could help her. Now she could easily have saved her own life by flight, but instead of fleeing she sat down on the nest, covering the little ones carefully with her wings. The fire seized her and burnt her to ashes. She showed her love to her little ones by giving her life for them. If then, this little insignificant creature had such love, how much more must our Heavenly Father love His children, the Creator love His creatures!

“This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19).  We hear these words spoken on this holy day as we recall the gift of the Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ commandment (mandate) to love and serve one another.  However, nowhere in the gospels does Jesus say, as we often hear at communion, “This is my body, broken for you.”  Broken is an incorrect translation of the Greek verb for given.  A broken body is passive.  A broken body has received an action, an assault, an accident, an illness, that has injured it by someone or something else.  What Jesus the Christ did say, on that last night, was not passive. He could have saved his own life by flight, but instead he gave, offered, his body, an action, choice, and decision—his alone—for his “little ones,” for each one of us, as deliberately as the mother bird gave hers to save her nestlings.  Why?  Because God is love and Jesus the Christ is the mirror of that love, for everyone, including you, and me.

“If then, this little insignificant creature had such love, how much more must our Heavenly Father love His children, the Creator love His creatures!” 

How much more, indeed?

Blessings ~ Rosemary