Broad-Tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus) ~ Death-Defying Love

I went on a hike recently.  It is springtime, and the hummingbirds are appearing in the mountains around my house.  I love to stand and watch their mating rituals.  It is a fascinating show: they climb high into the sky, their tiny motors humming, and then zoom straight towards the ground in a death-dive.  At the last moment they change directions and fly upwards again.  It thrills my heart every time I see it!

Biologists used to think that the hummingbirds emitted one loud chirp just as they were turning around from their death dive.  It puzzled them how this animal could vocalize so loudly in the middle of this complex maneuver.  Just ask any pop star—many do not actually sing while they are dancing, rather, they mouth to a recording of their voice!  Strenuous physical maneuvers do not allow for much vocalization.

Later it was discovered that the ‘chirp’ at the turn-around of the hummingbird’s dance was not a vocalization at all.  The hummingbird male actually breaks the sound barrier with his tail because he turns so quickly!  This is the only animal to date known to break the sound barrier with its own body.

I suppose there is nothing with more power to woo than a male who would dive straight toward death in the name of winning a female.  If there is anything that proves love, it is going near to death for the sake of someone else.

As I continued on my hike, hummingbirds buzzing all around me, I began to think of Christ.  Did he not defy death to win me?  Not a red-throated hummingbird, but a red-stained man of sorrows was He.  He went into the very maw of death, into its very belly, before turning around!  And when he turned, He not only broke the sound barrier, but He broke the spiritual barrier.  The curtain in the holy of holies was split into two.  The earth shook.  Darkness covered the land.  With His body, Christ broke time itself into AD and BC.  He broke hearts, He broke chains, He broke open the gates of Hell itself.


If that doesn't woo me to His heart, then what will?


“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5v8


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