Mother's Day 2018

Tribe Recap May 13, 2018 | Lk 1:26-38 | Lk 2:33-52 | Jn 2:1-11 | Jn 19:25-29 | Is 54:1

Mary, the mother of Jesus, may have been deeply honored in her assignment to be Jesus’ mother but that didn’t make her assignment an easy one.  Mary had God’s favor, but in walking out her destiny she also experienced challenges and hardship.

Walking around her village pregnant and not married was not a welcome experience in Jewish culture.  It seems a strange way for the Son of God to enter the world, but this was God’s plan.  The fact about motherhood is this: a mother’s journey and assignment is not an easy one.  There is sacrifice, struggle, weariness, and when all is said and done, only trust in God will give the faith needed to finish the race.

Mothers face many different challenges in doing their great work.  In Luke 2, when Jesus was a young adolescent and his family traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, he chose to stay behind to listen to the teachers in the Temple and ask them questions.  It took three days for his parents to find him!  When they finally tracked him down Mary said, “Son, why have you treated us this way?”

A mother’s struggle to raise kids is normal; even Mary the mother of Jesus wrestled with how to approach it.  Being a mom is hard work even when your son is perfect!  God understands the struggle.

At the end of Jesus life, there was a beautiful moment where Jesus looked down from the cross and charged John to take care of his mother.  Jesus sees mothers; he saw his own mother and provided for her needs. He listened to her when she asked him to make wine at a wedding before his ministry even began.  Mothers have a special place in God’s heart.  God sees moms and listens to moms and takes care of moms.

Mother’s Day can be a holiday that is a painful event.  Some women have not been able to have kids of their own.  Others have lost mothers or had painful upbringings.  Many woman hate being compared to each other; some wish they could just skip the whole ordeal altogether!

Isaiah 54:1 talks about a people dear to God’s heart that is described as a ‘barren one,’ but as the scripture develops, we see God’s people, who were ‘desolate,’ produce sons more numerous than the married woman.  This is how God works.  He takes even the most hopeless situation and redeems it.  He turns things around.

I don’t know how God can possibly redeem some of the pain there is in the world.  How can a barren woman “shout for joy” (Isaiah 54:1)?  How can a mother who lost a child find peace, or one who never new their mother leap for joy? 

I don’t know how the Lord will do it, but I know from scripture that God is the redeemer of all that was lost.  Somehow, he brings a barren situation to the fullness of joy.  God sees the hardships and labor of women.  He sees, he listens, and he knows the challenges faced by mothers and those who don’t have children. 

If he can create a world out of a void and make wine out of water, then he can also create joy out of travail.  He sees, he knows and he cares, and the judge of all the earth will make right the cause of the mother and barren woman in the end.  Though a sword pierced Mary’s heart at Jesus’ death, Jesus death assured in the hope of glorious redemption for all who would believe in him.