To Kill a Swallow...

When I was about 12 years old, I went and spent the day with my friend, Jeff.  Jeff lived out in the country and his dad had an old dusty barn that probably more closely resembled a shop with old equipment in it.  What would a barn be without swallows?  They hated these small birds because of the mess they would leave over everything.

I don’t recall if my friend and I actually had his parents’ blessing to go out and try to shoot the birds or not.  My guess is that where there are 12 year old boys, pesky birds and a BB gun…well, you should have no problems drawing a proper conclusion.

Jeff and I alternately took turns drawing a bead on one of these tiny birds up in the rafters.  Not an easy shot at such a small target over your head and 20+ feet away.  We tried and tried and eventually the inevitable happened, one came fluttering down in a heap.  The bird was not dead, just wounded and scared.

It was amazing how quickly my aggression turned to remorse.  Everybody knows what it is like to suddenly wish that they could turn the clock back a few seconds and take back the action or words that have escaped from their person.  The reality of what I’d done made me kind of sick in my heart and I felt dirty and ashamed.  I had been caught up in the excitement of the moment but in my heart I knew better.  The hardest part of the experience was that we had to complete the job.  We couldn’t leave the bird like that and the right thing to do now was to put the delicate creature out of its misery.  I’ll spare you the details.

1 Corinthians 2:6-8 reminded me of that day in the barn where I realized that I hadn’t thought through the consequences of my actions.  So it was with the rulers that crucified Jesus.  I wonder when it hit them that they had made the gravest mistake of not only their lives but of human history?

Is the gravity of their actions really so unlike our own?  We may not have literally been the ones to crucify Christ, but how often do we wound Him and cause Him pain and sadness by our sin?  Stranger yet is that we know better.  It’s pretty hard to get self-righteous when we prove time and again that our understanding is no better than theirs.