A Meditation on Mother’s Day

I invite you to turn to the Bible again, this time in the New Testament, to the nineteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, where from verse 17 John is recording the scene of Calvary and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. He details what the soldiers have done—how there were four soldiers that were responsible for him being there; they shared the clothing between them, splitting it in four. And then he tells us that there were four women who were also in that scene. And I want just to read verse 25 to 27:

“So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

Father, with our Bibles open before us and our hearts an open book to you, close the gap between who we are and what we are and all that you are to those who turn to you in childlike trust and repentance and in believing faith. Accomplish your purposes through this study. For we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, when I realized it was Mother’s Day, I said, “Well, this is probably the best chance I have to do what I’ve often wanted to do,” and that is, first of all, for myself, to ponder—to ponder—the agony of soul that must have been the reality of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Few mothers would be able to stand in such a scene and watch as the lifeblood of their son passed away.

She was there. We don’t know for how long. We don’t know if she heard the word of Jesus concerning those who treated him as they did, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they[’re] do[ing]”[1]—a word of mercy. Was she privy to the word that Jesus spoke to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise”[2]—a word of salvation?

John tells us that in this scene, when Jesus saw his mother, he commended her to the disciple whom he loved. I would take it that here, on the cross, Jesus looks down on the two people in the world that he loved the most. He loved his mom, obviously, and he loved John. He was “the disciple whom he loved.”

The reason that he is able even to say what he says is because it is obvious from the Gospel record that right up to his dying breath, Jesus was in clear possession of his faculties. Otherwise, he would not have been able to say what he said from the cross to the others and certainly to his [mother]. So he’s in possession of his faculties, and in his humanity, he is alert to the predicament that others are facing, and he is concerned for their welfare.

And so it is that on this day, on this particular day, we spend a moment or two considering the most famous mother in the entire world—namely, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now, clearly our time is brief; therefore, we can’t do it exhaustively. We need to do it selectively. We’re not going to do it sentimentally. We’re going to try and do it theologically, so that God’s Word may take root.

At this stage in life, Mary was perhaps in her late forties or in her early fifties. It’s almost certain that she was a widow. And there she stood.

Now, can I ask you to join in an exercise with me? Let’s imagine that we were able to go to that scene and interview Mary, like a journalist: “Here we are at the scene in Calvary, and I’m talking today with Mary and asking her about what it has meant for her—first of all, about that strange conception, that mysterious reality that became hers. Mary, what was that like?” That’s what the journalists always ask now, or “How did you feel?”

“Well,” says Mary, “an angel informed me that I was highly favored and that I was going to have a baby son. He actually told me his name. And to say that I was troubled by this is an understatement, because after all, I was still a virgin. When I went to my cousin Elizabeth’s house, she said to me, ‘You are blessed among women.’ And in that context I wrote a poem: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.’ Eventually they were going to call it the Magnificat on the basis of the Latin beginning. Joseph, my fiancé, and myself had gone from Nazareth to Bethlehem as a matter of legality and social convenience. And while we were there, delivery!”

“How was the delivery? Did you pick out your nursery colors? Did you have a reveal?”

“No,” she says. “Funnily—that’s a funny thing you suggest—but the colors were mainly brown, somewhat muted. But it’s really the smells, the sights, the sounds that I remember as much as anything else. In fact, I found it hard to reconcile the circumstance of laying this child in a manger in light of what I’d been told concerning this child: that he was going to reign on the throne of his father Jacob forever. And I looked on that scene and said, ‘How could that possibly be?” But I tell you: I treasured these things. I still do. I think of them often.

“It was a little later that we had this amazing prophecy. We went to the temple in order to do the rites of purification. That’s what we were to do, and that’s what we did. And it’s while we were there that an older gentleman by the name of Simeon asked if he could hold our baby. And we let him. And the strange thing is that when he took the child in his arms, he said this amazing thing, and he gives a prophetic word not only concerning what will happen in and through Jesus—that he’s a light that will lighten the nations and so on; he will be the occasion of the rising and falling of many in Jerusalem. But the thing that struck me was right in the middle of that, he said, directing his remarks to me, ‘A sword will pierce your soul also.’ Well, I wondered. What a strange thing to say to a young mother! And yet, although I hadn’t a clue what he meant, standing here right now, beneath this cross, I get it.”

The favor of God and the experience of agony or of pain or of disappointment or of sadness flow routinely in the same stream.

“Let me ask you, Mary: How was he as a boy?”

“How was he as a boy? He was good. He was good. I taught him his colors. I worked on the alphabet with him. His father showed him measurements and taught him how to do all kinds of creative things. He grew strong. He was filled with wisdom. He was obedient. And the only time that stands out in my recollection in relationship to his growing years was what has been recorded for us in the Scriptures. And leaving Jerusalem, we got ourselves in a bit of a bind, because, as often happens, I thought Joseph had Jesus, and Joseph thought I had Jesus. And neither of us had Jesus! And so we had to retrace our steps.

“And here’s the thing that stood out: When we finally found him, he was in the temple. He was actually holding court in the temple with the teachers of the law. He was asking questions, and indeed, he was answering questions. When we said to him, ‘Jesus, we’ve been looking for you for a while,’ he said the strangest thing: He said, ‘Do you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ ‘Don’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house’? And it was obvious to me in that moment that Jesus’ first priority was to serve his heavenly Father. We didn’t understand. But I’ve treasured the thought and think about it still to this day. As time passed, it became clear that the relationship that I had with Jesus was a temporal relationship. The relationship that Joseph had with Jesus was a temporal relationship. But the relationship that Jesus had with the Father was an eternal relationship.

“The inklings of that became apparent fairly early on. It was in going to Cana for the wedding that it really dawned on me. It was a fairly practical situation: I told Jesus that the wine had dried up. And he distanced himself from me in that instant, addressing me as ‘woman.’ ‘Woman,’ he said, ‘what has this got to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’ Well, once again, I now understand what he meant. Because as I stand here beneath the cross, his hour has come, and he has laid down his life for sinners.”

And so it is that—returning to the scene—standing beneath the cross, she hears Jesus address her in the same terminology as he had done approximately three years earlier when they had been at that wedding: “Woman.” “Woman.” It’s important for us to understand that there’s not the slightest notion of reproof or severity in that terminology. In fact, Jesus’ words are courteous. It is respectful, and it’s tender. Because the Lord Jesus knows, and now Mary discovers, that it is here that the prophecy of Simeon when he had held the child so long ago—the prophecy of Simeon—is fulfilled. This is Mary’s highly favored experience, which is mingled with extreme sorrow and agony.

We might pause and just acknowledge something: that the favor of God and the experience of agony or of pain or of disappointment or of sadness flows routinely in the same stream. It is with a closed Bible and an empty head that someone would teach that if you know the favor of God, then you would be removed from the agony. But no: “Blessed are you among women, highly favored among women.”[3] What a thought!

With mercy and with judgment
My web of time he wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
[Are] lustered [by] his love.[4]

See, Jesus is actually obeying the law in doing what he’s doing here, isn’t he? He kept the law in its perfection. He was sinless, unlike us. What does it say? “Honor your father and your mother.”[5] And from the cross, in the dying embers of his life, he does exactly that. But he not only honors her as her son, but he honors her as her Savior.

You see, Mary is not simply in need of the provision of protection that is going to come by being taken home to John’s house. Nobody actually knows about the balance of Mary’s life. Historians suggest that perhaps she lived another eleven years in that context as a widow, being cared for by the disciple. But we can’t say with certainty, nor can we say with certainty what Roman Catholic theology has routinely taught.

The temporal provision that Jesus makes for his mother is an emblem of the great provision that he makes for her by offering himself as he bears the sins of many.

What Jesus is making clear is that she doesn’t just need the protection that comes from John, but she needs the salvation that comes from Jesus. She needs to be saved. There’s a thought, isn’t it? A significant number of you have come out of a background of Roman Catholicism. You’re not sure what you learned. You’re not sure what you believed. You’re not sure about very much at all, I think, as I talk to you. To say what the Bible says—that she is blessed among women, that she is highly favored—is to say what the Bible says. But those statements provide no basis for her canonization, the notion of her immaculate conception, the idea of her perpetual virginity, the concept that she is able to hear and answer prayer, and the notion that she is the one to whom we can really go when we don’t think we can go to Jesus because she is in a position essentially to put in a good word for us. No! No, you’re sensible people. You must read your Bible. You say, “Well, where does that come from?” Well, it comes from ex cathedra statements made by the papacy.

The temporal provision that Jesus makes for his mother is an emblem of the great provision that he makes for her by offering himself as he bears the sins of many. For what was happening on the cross, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us, is that “Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,”[6] then went on into the glory.

You see, what is actually happening in this little scene is that Jesus, in commending Mary to John and John to Mary, is establishing a whole new category. This is Mary, who bore Christ. This is John, who followed and loved Jesus. Where are such individuals to be united?

See, what Jesus is doing at the cross is he is fashioning the family of faith. Because it is only in the cross that forgiveness is found. It is only in the cross that fellowship is enjoyed. The nature of what it means to be in Christ is not based upon natural relationships. It’s not even based upon friendships. It’s not based upon a common or a shared outlook on the material things of life. It is based on the fact that those who are gathered under that cross are able to say,

My faith has found a resting place
Not in device or creed.
I trust the ever-living one;
His wounds for me [must] plead.[7]

The writer to the Hebrews helps us with this when in chapter 4 he gives us this wonderful description of Jesus as our Great High Priest. Let me just read it to you: “Since then,” he says, “we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.” Well, isn’t that the truth? Dying on the cross, he looks to see his mother. What kind of priest? And he “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” And then “let us … with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”[8] What Jesus is doing is actually creating a fellowship of the redeemed. He’s uniting men and women to one another by virtue of uniting them to himself.

There is actually no real, valid basis for turning this into a sentimental tale. It is only the theology, the reality, the historicity, the fact of it that can mean anything. And I say to some who are here on Mother’s Day because somebody said, “Well, you could go to church, and we could go to lunch; I’m sure there’ll be something nice and maybe a flower or two,” and you say to yourself, “I don’t know how I got in here; this isn’t what I thought Mother’s Day was”—well, are you annoyed that we would think about the best-known mother in the entire world?

What Jesus is doing is actually creating a fellowship of the redeemed. He’s uniting men and women to one another by virtue of uniting them to himself.

I wish that just as we have Alana here, I could have Mary here. I’d say to her, “Hey, you want to sing a song for us? Do you want to sing the poem you wrote?”

She said, “No. I like one of the newer ones:

“My Jesus, my Savior,
Lord, there is none like you.
All of my days I want to praise
The wonders of your mighty love.
[You’re] my comfort, my shelter,
Tower of refuge and strength.
Let every breath, all that I am,
never cease to worship you.[9]

“My Jesus, my Savior…”

I wonder: Is that the declaration that you can make from your lips because it expresses the reality of your hearts? We’re not going to sing that song, but after I pause and pray, we will sing a closing song.

Let us pray:

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in—
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.[10]

We thank you, Father, for sending Jesus. We thank you, Jesus, that you came. We thank you that you save all who come to you in childlike trust and believing faith. And we thank you that it is in you that we find our family—our forever family. Thank you. Amen.

[1] Luke 23:34 (KJV).

[2] Luke 23:43 (ESV).

[3] Luke 1:28 (paraphrased).

[4] Anne Ross Cousin, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking” (1857).

[5] Exodus 20:12 (ESV).

[6] Hebrews 9:28 (ESV).

[7] Eliza Edmunds Hewitt, “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place” (1891).

[8] Hebrews 4:14–16 (ESV).

[9] Darlene Zschech, “Shout to the Lord” (1993).

[10] Carl Boberg, trans. Stuart Keen Hine, “How Great Thou Art” (1885, 1949).