The End of the Crossbill

This past weekend, I was working on my computer when I heard the shock of something hitting the house. Smack! Sudden silence.

I didn’t investigate. Pinecones drop onto our metal roof all the time. They sound like tree branches bouncing down. In our house, Crash! equals a boy crying wolf.

But when I walked into the bedroom a few minutes later, my husband asked if I’d heard the noise. “I did. What was it?”

“I don’t know. I thought a bird hit the window, but I didn’t see anything.” He pointed toward the big picture window, shade raised.

“Maybe it was your woodpecker,” I said. He rolled his eyes. Woodpeckers love our stainless-steel chimney pipe. They frequently wake Mike with their rapid-machine-gun-fire sound. I tend to wake up before birds do.

I looked out the window and down to the deck below. “Well, it wasn’t your woodpecker,” I said.

Mike looked to see what I was seeing. “Oh,” he said. It was a gray bird with a yellow chest and a strange beak that made me think she needed dental work. Google identified her as a common crossbill.

Fifteen minutes later, I checked on her again. She hadn’t moved. I sighed. “No miracle.”

Mike shook his head. “Nope. Not for that bird. Not this time.”

A few years ago, a bird hit one of our windows in Texas. We thought he was dead, but fifteen minutes later, he started twitching. He then flipped over and sat quietly on the porch for most of the afternoon. When he was ready, he flew away. He gave me a reason to hope it would work the same way for the crossbill. It did not.

This reminded me of an event that occurred at church one Sunday morning when I was in junior high. Somehow, a song sparrow found its way through open doors into the building, through the narthex, and into the sanctuary. Our youth group, seated together on the right side of the sanctuary, tried not to laugh as the sparrow flew around, emitting sharp chips and trills. Our pastor tried to laugh off the disruption as well, but we could tell he was flustered by the interruption.

As the sanctuary emptied after the service, several of us tried to think of a way to direct the little bird outside. Suddenly, though, he flew into the wall behind the choir loft. We ran to investigate. The bird wasn’t moving. I ran to get a grown-up to help. My dad was talking with a few other men outside. I barged into their conversation, out of breath, and asked them to come help the bird. When one man turned and led the way, I figured he knew what to do.

Instead, he picked up the bird, carried it outside, and dropped it over the back fence into a neighbor’s yard. My eyes went wide, and I inhaled sharply. I said something like, “What did you do? He needed help.”

“It was a bird.”

“He was hurt.”

“It was dead.”

“How do you know? You didn’t even check.”

“It was just a bird. I got rid of it.”

I looked at the faces of the other men gathered around. They looked more amused at me than concerned about the bird. I went back into the sanctuary to find consolation with my friends.

Looking back on that event and comparing it to our loss of the other day, I realize that my distress came from the shock of sudden change. One moment, a song sparrow or a common crossbill can be flying, soaring, calling. The next moment, the bird is dead. God has His eyes on the sparrows, yet they all succumb to death. We all succumb to death, and it can happen just that fast.

We don’t like to think about that. Birds breaking their necks on windows are painful reminders of our mortality.

Thankfully, Jesus addressed this during His ministry on earth. Matthew 10:29-31, NIV says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Jesus said this while giving his disciples instructions about going out to care for others in His name. He didn’t want them to live in fear, even as they did hard things, things that could get them beaten, imprisoned, or killed.

Our God’s ability to keep track of and care for everything, only allowing them to die at their appointed time, is unfathomable. Yet it’s comforting to know that He is that aware of everything going on everywhere. It’s also reassuring to know that we mean more to Him than the sparrows He keeps His eyes on. In fact, we mean so much to Him that He sent His only Son to conquer death once and for all. Because of Jesus, death is not the end. For those who trust in Jesus, death is just a doorway into eternity with Him.

That doesn’t make death any less painful for those of us living on this side of it, but it does give us something to look forward to. Something beyond glorious—an eternal life of perfect love. Our heavenly Father is watching over us, loving us as only He can. At just the right time, we’ll see Him in person. Until then, there’s no need to live in fear.

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Crossbill photo by Daniil Komov on Unsplash

Sparrow photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash