AS A SPARROW ALONE UPON THE HOUSETOP

The psalmist now changes the picture from those of the solitary pelican and owl to that of the sparrow. The sparrow is not usu­ally found alone, as it is a gregarious bird that is often seen in flocks of many hundreds. How lonely therefore must be the experience of the sparrow on the housetop.

The Lord spoke on two occasions about the sparrow in the course of His public ministry. To an ‘innumerable multitude’, He gave the lesson from the marketplace, ‘Are not five spar­rows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God’, Luke 12. 6. The inference is that the fifth sparrow was given away free. The sparrow that was of no value in the eyes of men was not forgotten by God and the lesson to be drawn by the multitude was, ‘Ye are of more value than many sparrows’, Luke 12. 7. As we consider the loneliness of the Lords death, we remember that He is beyond the evaluation of the marketplace, for He was ‘disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious’, 1 Pet. 2. 4. We can be sure He was not forgotten before God.

When the Lord commissioned the disciples to go to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’, He spoke about ‘two sparrows sold for a farthing’ and the lesson for the disciples was ‘one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father’, Matt. 10. 6, 29. For those disciples, who would face the opposition to their announcement that ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand’, the Lord directed them to the sovereign purpose of God. If the death of the sparrow could not happen without the Father, how much more would they know His protection and guidance as they carried out their ministry? And if they could take encourage­ment from an understanding of the Father’s purpose, the Lord could go to Calvary knowing that whatever ‘wicked hands’ would do, they would be restricted by ‘the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God’, Acts 2. 23.

And yet there is a mystery about the person and work of Christ, for He went to the cross with this confidence, ‘Ye … shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me’, John 16. 32.