The female hornbill of east...
Illustration
The female hornbill of east and south Africa is an unusual bird. She is a large but an unattractive bird with an enormous bill often surmounted by a colorful hornlike casque. She also has a remarkable practice in laying eggs. She is walled into a hollow tree by the male. She incubates two to four white eggs in her imprisonment and then cares for the young until they can fly. The male feeds the female through a small slit in the mud wall.
In a word, the female hornbill sacrifices her freedom to the point of death, if necessary, so that her young might have life and fly away.
Walter Wangerin, Jr., in reflecting upon the sacrificial habit of the female hornbill thinks of someone else and asks: "Who denied himself celestial flight for the sake of a people and walled himself inside this world, in time and space and flesh, that he might be the refugee of the weary?"
Christians who view Isaiah's prophecy from the perspective of the cross and the resurrection see something similar in the "bruised" servant who is promised through his sacrifice that he shall see "his offspring" and "the fruit of the travail of his soul."
-- Hasler
In a word, the female hornbill sacrifices her freedom to the point of death, if necessary, so that her young might have life and fly away.
Walter Wangerin, Jr., in reflecting upon the sacrificial habit of the female hornbill thinks of someone else and asks: "Who denied himself celestial flight for the sake of a people and walled himself inside this world, in time and space and flesh, that he might be the refugee of the weary?"
Christians who view Isaiah's prophecy from the perspective of the cross and the resurrection see something similar in the "bruised" servant who is promised through his sacrifice that he shall see "his offspring" and "the fruit of the travail of his soul."
-- Hasler
