Scripture Passage – Luke 2:51
Description – 2012 Mother’s Day Sermon
I asked on my Facebook wall this week “In what ways has motherhood changed since your childhood? And in what ways has motherhood stayed the same since your childhood?”
I received two very specific responses. One mother noted “Then: Homemade meals every evening and a family around the table. Mom was home full time until I turned 15. When it was time to learn the “facts of life” my Mom handed me a plain brown envelope with a little booklet in it and said in a quiet voice — “Here, read this.”
“Now: Most Moms I know (including me) have to or choose to be professional women who work at least a part time job. For me, this translates into a more confident Mom. We don’t eat a home-cooked meal every evening, but I do play video games with the kids, go to Chick-fil-a with them after school activities are over, and talk openly and honestly about almost everything, including faith, relationships and life choices to name a few.”
Another mom said, “Then: Not much different than today for me – my mom worked and I was responsible for babysitting for my little brother and preparing meals, etc.
Today, unfortunately in a lot of families mom still works but the kids are not required to help out, or they refuse to. Work ethic has really changed, and not for the better. Also then most babies had both a mom and dad – a lot more single moms out there today than there were when I was little.
It has stayed the same in the fact that moms are required to wear many, many hats! Moms are still the organizers in the majority of families and the ones who are responsible to keep the household going, being the one to be sure that everyone is where they need to be when they need to be. Moms still are the ones who make the sacrifices of their own time and health to be sure everyone else is taken care of.”
One of the interesting things that I have noticed about our congregation in the nearly twelve years that I have been here is that I believe there are fewer and fewer stay-at-home moms than there were when I came in 2000.
Now this does not mean stay-at-home mothers are not important. They are! The last segment of the second mother’s quote is worth noting again: Moms are still the organizers in the majority of families and the ones who are responsible to keep the household going, being the one to be sure that everyone is where they need to be when they need to be. Moms still are the ones who make the sacrifices of their own time and health to be sure everyone else is taken care of.
It’s true! Mom is not allowed to get sick. Not when everybody else gets sick! It just cannot be! Sickness messes up mom’s schedule! That’s why when you get sick mom gets that look in her eye when she hears the words, ‘sore throat,’ or ‘I don’t feel well’ or hears a sneeze or a cough during the time of year when such sounds are not supposed to happen! And of course when she hears you say ‘I just threw up!’ (or actually hears you doing it) then the look gets deeper and more exasperated. You know why? It messes her schedule up!
When these things happen, and there are cold germs starting to make their final assault on her nasal passages, she orders them back to where ever they came from! “Sorry boys, not now, I don’t have time!”
Motherhood is vital, unpredictable, and magnificent all at the same time. Just ask any mom.
This time seventeen years ago my wife and I were anticipating the start of a new chapter in life called parenthood. Visits to the doctor were common as we anticipated the arrival of our first born.
Now I cannot speak for my wife, nor any mother here (nor father either!) as I reflect on the past seventeen years. But I can say it is has been a good journey so far and it has been an interesting journey so far.
And we are aware today that the journey of motherhood for some mothers has been filled with joy and pain; hope and sorrow; life and death. And we acknowledge this reality this morning as well.
As I turned to the Bible for this morning’s message, my thoughts were drawn to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary had no idea of what lied before her as a mother when she gave birth to Jesus. But, she was an obedient mother. Obedient to God. And this morning I want to take a few moments and journey through the gospel accounts and note her obedience as a reminder to all of us whither or not we are moms as example of faith and obedience in all the seasons of life.
We begin with Luke 1:26-38 from the New Living Translation:
“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israelforever; his Kingdom will never end!”
Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”
Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Notice the progression from confusion when she first encounters the angel Gabriel to simple obedience though acceptance when she hears the whole story.
I cannot begin to imagine what Mary was feeling. She is told that she is to give birth to both an ancestor of King David, the most revered and honored king in the History of Israel and a divine being, the Son of God! It sounds like science fiction. But it is not! Mary does not deny nor reject Gabriel’s words. She believes and she obeys.
There is a phrase, ‘the fog of war,’ that is used to describe situations in the midst of war when errors in judgment and command are likely because of uncertainty and lack of information. Life has an element of fog in it as well. Moments come when all the information we need to make a decision… is not there.
And when an angel shows up to this young woman (and some have suggested she was around 16 at this point) and says, “God likes you and He has chosen you to carry His divine son for nine months,” talk about a fog inducing moment! But obedience, the kind which I believe Mary shows us here, does not let the fog of doubt and uncertainty get in her way of belief. She believes what Gabriel says to her and she obeys. “May everything you have said about me come true.” This is not arrogance.
Listen to her a few verses later “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl…” She is not bragging, she is rejoicing and she is honored that God would choose her to accomplish His great task of deliverance.
To obey is to choose to do so especially when it is not easy or fully known. Such obedience requires faith and so to walk by faith and not by sight is an exercise in obedience.
Now let’s go to Luke 2 and verses 41-52 and look at another well known passage involving Mary:
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.
When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”
“But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”But they didn’t understand what he meant. Then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. And his mother stored all these things in her heart.
Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.
Mary was a typical mother! Her franticness is evident her rebuke of him, “Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”
Not finding Jesus for at least four days in today’s environment would be considered a fatal thing. Tragically today we read of mother’s who physically abandon their children instead of being responsible for them. Mary took responsibility for her role as a mother and she did the right thing in going back and looking for Him.
But find him they did in an unlikely place – the Temple. They did not understand what He meant and why He was there but Luke notes “His mother stored all these things in her heart.” This was something extraordinary that Mary takes note of to remember.
Now the record of Jesus’ next 18 years is unknown as we move from the end of chapter 2 to the beginning of chapter 3. Little is known about what Jesus did until he turned thirty as noted in Luke 3:23 when He began His public ministry.
Now the next time we read of Mary (and I could be wrong here but I don’t think so) is John 2 at the scene of his first miracle, a wedding. The wedding wine has run out and Mary says to Jesus, “They have no more wine.”
And Jesus responds “Dear woman, that’s not our problem.” “My time has not yet come.” But his mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Now, how many here have said to their mother, and lived to tell about it, “Dear woman, that’s not our problem.” My friend Meredith Gould has said, “The real miracle was that Mary did not smack Jesus for talking back when she told him to handle the situation.” “My mother,” she writes (she was raised Jewish), “would have made Jesus perform the miracle and then go wait by the camels until we were ready to leave!”
John gives us a glimpse of a very real and human exchange between Jesus and His mom.
I don’t think that Jesus is being disrespectful to her at all. He is 30 years old and He is an adult. And He is also the Son of God as well!
But Mary does not listen to Him. Well she does but, I think she also knows who He really is by this time. And she ignores His protest and with great confidence and faith says to the servants, “Do what He tells you to do.”
I think that she walks away with a sly smile on her face. She knows who He is and what He can do…
Then sometime later (one source places it at about a year and a half later) she shows up in Capernaum in a memorable passage in Matthew 12.
“As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.”
Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”
Well, what did mom think of her son then? Was she angry? Did she resent what Jesus said? And, perhaps this is the most important question, why did she show up in the first place and what did they want to talk to Jesus about?
Some believe that Joseph was dead by this point. Were they coming to tell Him that Joseph was dead? Or, did they want Him to come home and stop all of this nonsense?
Then there is the cross as we read in John 19 and beginning with verse 25. “Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.” And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home.
I wonder what went through Mary’s mind that day. I cannot imagine the pain and agony of watching your son being publically executed. Did she think about Gabriel’s words of over three decades earlier? Was this what it meant to be on David’s throne? Did she recall her terrified anxiety of trying to find him in the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem? When she saw the sponge filled with a bitter wine raised to his lips in those moments, did she recall that first miracle?
Finally, and it is the last time we read of Mary in the Bible, we find her in awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit along with many others in Acts 1:14 “They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus.” And so she was present with the remaining disciples when the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost.
What went through her mind on that day? Was she remembering all that had taken place in the past 33 years? Did she and Jesus ever talk after His resurrection and before His return to heaven?
There are lots of questions that people have asked about Mary over the centuries. And in some parts of the Christian faith she has been give a high place.
But what I want us to take away from these remarks this morning is that there is a steady obedience and commitment to God’s plans and purposes in Mary’s life. At numerous points she could have really began to whine and complain about what He was doing and why He was doing it. Maybe she came close at the wedding in Cana and then at Capernaum. But within the written record of scripture she did not.
She was obedient and faithful.
A mother’s faith is a vital thing. I know that one of the things that I am grateful for is my mother’s faith… not just in me but more importantly in the Lord.
I do not think that it is a stretch to suggest that Jesus learned much from Mary. It is a unique relationship to be sure but Jesus obeyed His mother and Joseph.
Moms, your faith in Christ is vital and important. Your influence is stronger. You are faith shapers.
Be encouraged today, no matter what season of motherhood you are in, in your faith and in your mothering.
Amen.