The Pelican in Her Piety

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

-John 15:12-13

This past weekend, my family joined 22 other families from our church for the annual Family Retreat at Epworth by the Sea. It was a wonderful few days of worship and community in a place that is sacred to St. Andrew families, past and present. Since the retreat is still fresh in my memory, and since I am not clever enough to come up with another theme, this week’s devotions will be drawn from experiences at Epworth.

One of the more ubiquitous sights around St. Simons Island is the brown pelican. All day long, you can see them flying overhead from their nesting grounds on the nearby protected sanctuary of Andrews Island out toward the ocean. If you spend time on the beach, you will likely watch them hunting, soaring low above the water and then making sudden, sharp dives when they spot fish below. If you wander down to the pier, you may see an entire congregation of pelicans gathered around the people fishing, waiting for someone to drop a scrap.

In fact, for the past twenty years, you could go to the pier and meet “George,” a brown pelican so well known by locals that they nicknamed him “The Mayor.” George passed away in 2024, but his memory still lingers around the pier.

“That’s great, Ryan, but what does this have to do with Jesus?” I hear you saying.

Well, did you know that the pelican was one of the earliest symbols adopted by the church?

The symbolism of the mother pelican feeding her young is rooted in an ancient legend that predates Christianity. According to the legend, in times of famine, the mother pelican would wound herself, piercing her own breast with her beak, so that she could feed her young with her blood and keep them from starvation. In another version of the story, the mother pelican feeds her dying young with her blood in order to revive them from death, losing her own life in the process.

This legend became such a powerful Christian image that pelicans can be found throughout religious art. Do a quick Google image search for “pelican in her piety,” and you will find hundreds of interpretations of this theme. The image at the top of this devotion is a 19th-century example from the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, Germany. If you ever find yourself in Rev. Dana’s homeland of Louisiana, take a look at the state flag!

As a symbol, the pelican points us back to Christ, who gave us not only teaching and example, but gave us himself. His blood was shed for love of us. His life was poured out so that we might live. The pelican reminds us that our Christian faith begins with a love that is poured out for us long before we know how to return it.

That is where Jesus begins when he gives his disciples this commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” This isn’t a vague, sentimental nicety. Christ tells us to love with the kind of love we have first received from him. A love that gives itself away. A love that pours itself out for the life of another.

This is the shape of Christian love. We love because Christ first loved us. We give because Christ first gave himself for us. We lay down our pride, our comfort, our need to be first, and a million other things because the One we follow laid down his very life for us.

So perhaps the next time we see a pelican soaring over the water or standing watch at the pier, we might see more than just another beach bird hunting for fish. We might receive it as a reminder: before we ever knew how to love God, Christ loved us. Before we ever knew how to offer ourselves, Christ offered himself. Before we ever had anything to give, we were already being fed by grace.

Rev. Ryan Young