Willing All This I Suffer for You

When it was time to leave my vicarage assignment, a family to whom I’m still very close gave me a gift. This family knew my love for art that reflects our Christian faith and they wanted to give me something that would not only remind me of them but also of the Savior whom I was going to be serving in about a year. The gift was a mold of a carving that was originally created to decorate a castle in England during the Middle Ages. The mold featured one of my favorite Christological symbols of the faith named “The Pelican in Her Piety.” On the back of the gift was a taped note and a verse from St. John 15:13 that read, “Greater love has no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.” It was amazing how much the verse reflected the symbolism of the mold.

According to legend, when there is little to no food around, the mother pelican will take her beak and slice open her own breast so that her chicks can feed on her blood and live. The reason that this ancient symbol has remained for so long in the Church is because it so vividly reminds us of the same willingness of Christ to sacrifice Himself for the sake of His own brood.

St. Thomas Aquinas pointed to both the symbolism and the truth behind the pelican and the crucifixion. In the hymn “Thee We Adore, O Hidden Savior” we sing the words, “Thou, like the pelican to feed her brood, Didst pierce Thyself to give us living food; Thy blood, O Lord, one drop has pow’r to win Forgiveness for our world and all its sin.” Christ was wounded for our transgressions, and from His blood we are fed.

The pelican is an enduring symbol in the Church, but if we delve deeply into what my favorite hymn writer, Paul Gerhardt, has to say in his Lenten hymn “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” we’ll see two other significant symbols: the lamb and the anchor:

A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, The guilt of all men bearing; And laden with the sins of earth, None else the burden sharing! Goes patient on, grow weak and faint, To slaughter led without complaint, That spotless life to offer; Bears shame and stripes, and wounds and death, Anguish and mockery, and saith, 'Willing all this I suffer.'

The Lamb of God is none other than Jesus Christ, our Lord! He Himself is the one who was wounded for our transgressions and from those wounds we are still fed, like little pelicans whose only interest is our own survival, but then we gaze upon the one who is feeding us. St. John that Baptist, after calling all to repentance who would hear him, pointed to Christ and declared loudly, ““Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And as that Lamb of God walked forward to be baptized to sanctify and make clear all waters to be a lavish washing away of our sins, He journeyed even closer to the slaughter of the Lamb and He did this willingly—FOR YOU.

In the second stanza Gerhardt sums up the walk of the Lamb who was heading forward and ever constantly toward our salvation at His great expense:

This Lamb is Christ, the soul’s great Friend, The Lamb of God, our Savior; Him God the Father chose to send To gain for us His favor. 'Go forth, My Son,' the Father saith, 'And free men from the fear of death, From guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, But by Thy Passion men shall share The fruit of Thy salvation.'

The pairing of the Lamb of God and the soul’s great Friend seems like an unlikely duo, yet the Lamb marches ever forward to the salvation of our souls. He does this with the great command of the Father to, “Go forth, My Son” so that we would be freed from the fear of death, but more importantly, freed from death itself. By the wrath that dug into the breast of the most pious of Pelicans and into the fleece of the meekest of Lambs we find the fruit of our salvation. If that weren’t enough, we also receive the merits of that Passion poured into both font and chalice and we hail the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Gerhardt goes even further in his fourth stanza when he puts the mercy walk of the Lamb/penetration of the Pelican’s breast into our account to be paid in full upon the receiving and having full sins atoned, we fear death no more:

Of death I am no more afraid, New life from Thee is flowing; Thy cross affords me cooling shade When noonday’s sun is glowing. When by my grief I am opprest, On Thee my weary soul shall rest Serenely as on pillows. Thou art my Anchor when by woe My bark is driven to and fro On trouble’s surging billows.

In this stanza, we learn that we can rest from our journey here on earth. Through Christ, our Anchor, we are weighted down so that no billowing waves or turn of the tides in this life may harm us. When our eyes grow sleepy in death, we have the firm assurance that when our eyes open once again we will behold Christ face to face.

As Lent approaches, let us take note of many the symbols of the Church that remind us of what Christ has done for us. May we also repent, not because of the season, but because we are in need. May we flee from those who disregard God’s Law for the sake of a false Gospel that harms more than helps. May we drink from the breast of the Pious Pelican and give thanks for the Lamb of God who was slaughtered for our sake. Finally, let us be happily weighted down by the crucified and resurrected Christ, our Anchor, who is our only true hope.

Rev. Gaven M. Mize is the pastor of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hickory, North Carolina. A graduate of Concordia University of Wisconsin and Concordia Theological Seminary, he is married to Ashlee Mize, who is awesome.