The Parochial Church Council and I have puzzled about it for years now and we just don't know how they do it, but somehow birds, mainly starlings, find their way inside St Mary's Church in Fen Drayton. And once inside, they discover themselves to be trapped - they cannot find their way out again. And after a few days of frantic flying around, they die - but in the meanwhile they make quite a mess.
When I go into the church in the morning to say Matins and I find a trapped bird, I open the doors wide and hope that during the service they will find their way out. But more often than not they never do. Their instinct is that the way out is upwards towards the light. But there are no openings high up in the windows; their only hope of escape is to fly down and out through the open door. And sometimes, when they are weakened after two or three days of frantic flying, they do fly down and find the offered way out - the open door.
I sometimes think that many of us are a bit like those poor, trapped birds. We know we need to find a way to the freedom of heaven but we're certain that we know the way ourselves and we're not going to ask anyone else for help. Jesus says, 'I am the Door; if anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.' (John 10.9, New American Standard Version)
The Door that is Jesus lies open for each one of us and God's invitation to us is to find that Door and use it to escape into the freedom of his kingdom. But we won't find it if we just follow our own instincts; we must bow our heads and accept the Way that is offered - just as Jesus bowed his head and accepted the way of the cross before his loving Father raised him up to highest heaven.
The Door is open for all of us.
John-David Yule