The Birdcage Story Retold For Easter 2024

The Birdcage Story Retold for Easter 2024 is an allegory for the Resurrection Story and the price the Christ paid for the sins of the world.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard or read Jesus and the Birdcage by Paul Harvey.

Likely most of you have, because it’s a story that’s been told and re-told through the generations for almost a century. Paul Harvey was a prominent Christian newspaper columnist and radio broadcaster in the 1940s. You can read the original story here.

This is the story, told in our own words, for 2024.

The Birdcage Story Retold

It was Easter Sunday and the church was packed.

It seemed the whole congregation turned out for this service, commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Some of the pewholders came every single Sunday of the year, hearts aglow and minds turned toward their Savior.

Others came a few times a year, when they had time from their favorite sports or summer vacations.

Some made it a point to attend on Christmas and Easter Sunday, because they could not miss church on those days. It just wouldn’t be right. They’d be dishonoring Grandma.

And so, here they were, gathered together to celebrate the story of Easter.

The minister came up the aisle. A few looked up from silenced phones to see him carrying a birdcage. They glanced sideways at each other. Dads winked. Moms raised eyebrows. The minister was getting on in years, but seriously? A rusty old birdcage on the pulpit on Easter Sunday? Had they bought new clothes and made the effort to get to church on time to listen to a senile preacher?

Then the minister began to speak.

He said as he took his morning walk the day before, he thought of the importance of the weekend. The betrayal, faux trial, the beating. Then the crucifixion, burial and triumphant resurrection of our Lord. Then the frantic squawking of birds invaded his quiet. He looked up. Had something disturbed a nest? No. No, the noise was coming toward him, on the sidewalk. A young boy, 10 or 12, hair on end, shirt torn, open-mouthed leer on dirt-streaked, freckled face. Carrying a cage with three wild birds plunging against confining wires. Feathers flew.

“Poor birds,” the minister thought. He spoke, “Hey, boy, what happened to your pets?”

“Oh, they’re not my pets. I trapped them in that alley,” the boy said, pointing.

“Why do you want them?” the minister asked, conjuring memories of childhood bullies and heinous imaginations.

The boy shrugged elaborately, grin widening. “I don’t know. Tease ’em a little. Make ’em fight.”

The minister shuddered. “Then what will you do?”

“Oh, we have a cat,” the boy chortled gleefully.

Now the minister felt an earthquake up his spine. “Will you sell them to me?”

“Sell them? Why do you want them?”

“How much? 100 dollars?”

The boy’s eyes grew large and lustful. 100 dollars? This was some crazy man, offering so much for scraggly old birds.

The money and the cage exchanged hands. Then the minister gently carried the cage back up the alley, to the end, where an empty lot provided protection in the wild growth of weeds and fallen trees. He opened the little door, and waited while the birds jerked and staggered out. They huddled on the ground, peering for danger, then, gaining courage, fluffed their feathers and flew-jumped off into the brush.

“That,” the minister told his congregation, “is why we are here this Easter Sunday. We are here to find the way out of our cages. Jesus is the way. He purchased us with his blood so we can be free from the bondage of sin. He opened the door for us to find escape.”