Celebrating the Swans of Today
She came to the Midwest from Augustine’s continent, and I call her a swan.
Her skin is dark, her voice gentle, and as she works with her hands to style hair, she sings of Christ. My African friend, who we can call Nadine, tells neighbors who share her skin color, but not her same first language, that they are loved and can be in fellowship with God because of Christ’s atonement for sin. Her moist eyes shine, as if she holds a secret, one she’s bursting to share. She carried it across the sea, and like a rare swan she sings, same as Augustine once did. Augustine’s nickname, “Swan,” originated from the splash he made, establishing sound doctrine and biblical teaching.
Today, faithful swans continue to tell of God’s glory and proclaim Christ. They provide a beautiful image of a tie that binds believers both past and present, telling of what the hymn calls “the old, old story.” Hearers may recoil, offended by the message of a savior crucified for the sins of the world, yet believers are swans faithful to participate in sharing the good news of Jesus.
The literary symbol of swans impressed me as I stood near the Upper Mississippi River in winter. A migrating flock flew overhead, and I mistook them for geese until they flapped enormous, eight-foot wingspans and cried out. My family and I were compelled to return and look for them the following week. Our hiking trail was dotted with trampled snow, and as we walked, we listened. (Swans don’t exactly sing but make a soft noise like a whistle.) Then we heard their far-off sound. The river freezes ten inches thick most years, yet there a flock of Tundra Swans sat in a rift. The stone-cold ice had parted. I thought of the gospel Christians are commissioned to share. This message has the capacity to part icy waters and warm stone-cold hearts. It’s God who wills and acts (2 Cor. 4:6), and yet he invites us, his flock, to tell.
Paul the Apostle spoke of his gospel hope when he retold the story of meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. As he stood before King Agrippa, the king scoffed and said, “In such a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” (Acts 26:28). But Paul was compelled to share the good news. Four-hundred years later, Augustine, too, spoke of Christ. He’s revered today for upholding Scripture and the doctrine of salvation by grace. When John Piper wrote the series The Swans are Not Silent, seminary students, grandpas, and homeschool moms read about Augustine and other saints whose stories Piper retold. Like both Paul and Augustine, these saints defied culture by singing of their hope in Jesus. The result? Heads and hearts turned to the need for repentance and a response. Hearts once stone-cold like ice, opened to receive the good news. Christians who speak of Christ and turn heads toward God’s glory are like swans, a rarity perched along a frozen river.
Today’s cultural chatter paints Christians as noisy, judgmental, and close-minded. But if you listen closely, faithful swans are singing of Christ.
Swans who Sing of Him, not Themselves
When Crossway published Gentle and Lowly in 2020, it became a best seller and it sings the praises of Christ Jesus. It’s not a self-help book, nor the kind that showcases people’s success stories but instead revels in the loving heart of our Savior. Dane Ortlund writes to cherish Christ and tell of God’s great love as displayed through the Son. About God, Ortlund says, “His heartfelt thoughts for you outstrip what you can conceive” (160). He says one aspect of the Christian life is, “the long journey of letting our natural assumptions about who God is, over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God’s own insistence on who he is” (151). Ortlund, a swan like Augustine, points to Christ and draws from Scripture to supply listeners with God’s praises.
Swans who Sing of Faith Alone with Grateful Joy
Disciple-making formed the early church and enabled the gospel to travel. Generations later, the Protestant Reformation ushered in Christians who sang steadfastly of justification through faith when a false, works-based salvation crept into church culture. Like the Bereans, like Augustine, reformers searched the Scriptures and preached of faith alone (Gal. 2:16). But it didn’t stop there. Joy-filled, these saints knew their status—known and loved by God, saved by grace through faith—and so, silence didn’t characterize them.
Timothy Keller says, “the Reformation taught that we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that remains alone. That is, we are saved by Christ’s atonement, apart from any merit or goodness in us. But genuine faith in Christ will always result in a grateful joy that produces life change” (God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life, 47).
In my own community, I see people at church serving with this “grateful joy.” Laurie leads the church’s preschool ministry and knows every family’s name. Her identity in Christ causes her to invite newcomers on Sundays. She follows up and checks in on young families struggling to find community. It may sound small, but when families find a place to belong within a church, they also find a place to encounter and connect with God.
Swans who Sing of Another Kingdom
Swans live as migrators, sojourners. When the flock camped by the river, their stay was temporary. It’s why we returned to see them. Today, ice is a memory and the red-winged blackbirds have settled back in for spring, so I won’t expect to hear the swans. They only passed through.
We, too, know this world is temporary. We sing of another kingdom, not because we’re disappointed with society or culture, nor because we’re morbid or deluded. We sing because we belong to God in Christ. We’ve become members of a heavenly kingdom.
A pastor at my local church spoke recently about the parable of the hidden treasure in Matthew 13:44. It’s with joy this treasure-finder sells all to acquire land where the treasure sits, hidden in a field. This treasure’s likened to God’s heavenly kingdom. That same week, the word “kingdom” popped up in my small group women’s Bible study. We journeyed through Lauren Chandler’s book, With Us in the Wilderness, and at the end she captures the why. “We all hope for a place to call home where we’re loved and accepted, where we find value and meaning. Essentially, we all long for the promised land—the kingdom of God . . . The heart of the promised land is the King. The point of it all is God making his dwelling with us. He is our portion. He is our beautiful inheritance. He alone holds pleasures forevermore” (201).
To dig deeper, Chandler is saying the pleasures of life originate in and with Christ. Many saints have done well to write volumes on this, but these pleasures expand as we read our Bibles and dwell on God’s immense love. The treasure is ours both now and in the future. As new creations (2 Cor. 5:17), we repent of sin and impart grace to others because we have received grace. Then we speak of this kingdom, beginning with Christ, so that others will unearth this treasure, too.
The metaphor of swans includes Christians today who turn heads with a message like no other. In your own community, are there swans who sing of Christ? The telling and the sharing to extend God’s kingdom. “Jesus sends us in his authority to make disciples of all nations,” Johnathan Dodson writes in Gospel-Centered Discipleship. This means we partake in the extraordinary. Nadine, my African friend who sings of Christ as she styles hair, reminds me to celebrate this. Together we’re one flock, saved by grace through faith, and members of an everlasting kingdom.
Timarie Friesen serves with her husband in youth and missions ministries at Hope Church in Dubuque, Iowa. She enjoys reading fiction with her three children and she writes poems and short stories that reflect the good news of Jesus. As the GCD Writers’ Guild Director, her hope is for writers to grow in the craft of writing and to know and love God more.