Tag Archives: mother

MARY, MOTHER OF JESUS

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Luke 1:26-30 NLT
[26] “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, [27] to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. [28] Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” [29]
Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. [30] “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God!”

The Bible tells us very little about Mary’s credentials. We know only that she was a young village girl, probably a teenager, no details given about her parents or her life,
that she was engaged to Joseph, whose genealogy is provided, that she was a chaste young girl, and that God had a special purpose for her.

God had singled her out from among all the young virgins in Israel to be the earthly mother of
Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. This child she would bear was to take the role of the Son of God for a special purpose.

To be truly man, God’s Son would need to begin His life on earth inside the womb of an earthly mother. He would be supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit but He would develop and grow as a normal foetus and come into the world through the normal process of birth.

Did Mary understand the enormity of the task ahead of her? Her young body must take the strain of pregnancy and childbirth. She must also carry the stigma of “unmarried mother” despite her innocence. In a small village community, she would be ridiculed and ostracised except for her loyal husband’s protection.

Did all these considerations race through her mind at Gabriel’s announcement? Only one question, “How will this happen?” Gabriel’s explanation was mind-boggling. Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit! Would she know how and when this would happen? What does it feel like to be pregnant, and that without human involvement?

Satisfied with the angel’s unembellshed intervention, no if’s or but’s, Mary bowed in submission to her Lord.

What was it in Mary’s life and character that earned God’s favour? Since Scripture does not expand on this, we can only speculate from the evidence we have in the Word.

Luke 1:38 NLT
[38] “Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.”

Trust, submission, worship! Great qualities that find favour with God! Peter expands on the attitude of a woman that gives Him pleasure.

1 Peter 3:3-5 NLT
[3]”Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. [4] You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. [5] This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They put their trust in God and accepted the authority of their husbands.”

Mary must surely have displayed these qualities in her young life to have found favour with God.

As we trace Mary’s story through the gospel record, she emerges as a normal Jewish mother with an unusual son who baffled her at times, who caused her great delight in His growing up years for love, submission, and His obedience to His parents. He not only honed her trust in Israel’s God, but also frustrated her with His insights and understanding of the things of God way beyond her own. Young as Jesus was, He was often her mentor and model.

Mary had to face a challenge far greater than any other mother on earth. She knew who Jesus was, the Son of God, born of her own body. She could never doubt that truth but, Jesus was also her earthly son. How was she to relate to Him, and how was she to transition in her relationship to Him from her son to her Lord?

His earthly ministry confused her. Although they grew up with Him, His brothers rejected His claims. She and her offspring thought He was crazy. They tried to intervene to save Him from His own madness, but He cut all ties with them and their responsibility to Him by identifying His true family as all those who believed in Him.

Matthew 12:46-50 NLT
[46] “As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. [47] Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to speak to you.” [48] Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” [49] Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. [50] Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”

Mary trusted Jesus. At the wedding in Cana, when they ran out of wine, she encouraged the servants to do what He said, regardless of how strange His instruction might be. They did just that and water became wine at His word!

Mary was warned that her unique role would bring her great heartache! Simeon prophesied this part of her maternal role soon after His birth. She would process more emotional pain than many other mothers.

Our pain as mothers is often connected to the waywardness of our children. Mary suffered the terrible anguish of losing her Son because of His obedience to His heavenly Father.

John 19:25-27 NLT
[25] “Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene. [26] When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.” [27] And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home.”

Comforted by Jesus’ care for her with His final breaths, she carried forever in her heart the thoughtfulness of a perfect son.

The crowning moment came when Mary finally transitioned from mother of her son, Jesus, to worshipper of Jesus, Son of God and Lord.

Mary’s memories were indelible. They would be with her until the end of her days. Mary’s place in history can never erased. She will forever be remembered as the mother of the earthly Man but, she will never be anything else…not the mother of God, not our intercessor, not immaculately conceived, not divinely protected from sin…just Mary, the village maid who was favoured to bear a son who would be the Saviour of sinners.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – GREATER THAN HUMAN TIES

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GREATER THAN HUMAN TIES

31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Mark 3:31-35

There is a relationship that supersedes even the closest of family ties. It’s difficult to pick up the mood of Jesus’ human family in this short record. Why were they here, as a family, to see Jesus? Were they on some kind of rescue mission, seeing that they had all come together? Did they think He needed protection from Himself because His popularity was getting out of hand?

Once again Jesus emerges as the sanest of all the people in this scene. His agenda was long term. This earthly life was only a passing phase in the scheme of things, and He knew it. His mission was to restore and rebuild His Father’s family – those who would reconnect with God by faith through His redeeming sacrifice. He would have to endure this early paranoia in His ministry because there would come a time when people would either become offended by Him because of the cost of following Him, or they would go on seeing and believing who He really was and become connected to Him regardless of the cost, because they understood His long-term mission to reunite them with the Father.

Hence Jesus did not set as much store on the relationship He had with His natural family as He did on His passion to win back God’s forever family. It may have initially seemed like rejection but, in the long term, every one of His natural family members had the same invitation and the same opportunity to become even more intimate members of His faith family.

Paul declared that, when we are “in Christ”, everything changes. The old scheme of things is replaced by the new. Old family ties are replaced by new ones; our old nature with its bent towards independence, is replaced by a restored connection with God as our Father and its accompanying sense of identity and security because we now belong to a universal family forever under the benevolent control of our eternal Father.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE FAMILY REDEFINED

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THE FAMILY REDEFINED

“His mother and brothers showed up but couldn’t get through to Him because of the crowd. He was given the message, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.’ He replied, ‘My mother and brothers are the ones who hear and do God’s Word. Obedience is thicker than blood.'” Luke 8:19-21.

Jesus’ relationship with His human family was unique. No other family on earth had a sibling who was both God and man. Mary knew that, but she still had difficulty in realising that, once He had left her home, she had not more claim to Him. He still acknowledged her as His earthly mother – at the cross He placed her in John’s care – but He embraced a much bigger and closer family than His blood family.

It must have been difficult for Mary to cut the ties of motherhood with Him and make the transition from Jesus, her son to Jesus, her Lord. At some time during her son’s public ministry or perhaps after the resurrection she must have finally made the transition. She was among the one hundred and twenty worshippers who were gathered together on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came and the church was born.

Like many Jewish families, Jesus was the first of a large number of siblings. He had four brothers, according to the mention of their names, and at least two sisters, perhaps more, although unnamed but, to His brothers He was just Jesus, their eldest brother and Mary’s firstborn and heir. They resented Him. They neither recognised Him as the Messiah nor even treated Him with respect until after the resurrection.

His brothers had been sceptical and positively rude to Him. On one occasion, before the Feast of Tabernacles, they taunted Him. “‘Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.’ For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.” John 7:3, 4 (NIV).

Jesus was not fazed by their cruel taunts, but He must have been saddened by their unbelief. Yet it must have been difficult for them to realise that their own brother was the Son of God. It took the horrifying and shocking events of His crucifixion and resurrection to shake their scepticism and bring them to faith in Him as Messiah and Lord.

Other gospel writers reveal the reason for His family’s coming on this occasion. Things had hotted up so much around him – His popularity with the crowd on the one hand, and His conflict with the religious leaders on the other – that they thought they needed to rescue Him because He had lost it! But He made is clear that He was very sane. Some of those who followed Him were learning and forging a loyalty with Him that ran much deeper than human family bonds and they needed to understand that.

Was Jesus implying that there is no such thing as second-generation faith? Every person has to believe and take responsibility for his or her own connection to Him. Each one who hears and responds in obedience to the Word of God becomes a part of the family of God and lives under His rule.

Perhaps this is also an answer to the “once saved, always saved” question. We have to move away from the idea that “salvation” is a passport that we carry to give us access to heaven when we die. That is far from the Biblical concept of salvation. It is the process by which we are being restored to “shalom” – wholeness – so that we can fit in in God’s kingdom where there is no imperfection of any kind.

Those who think that salvation is a passport that they will produce at the pearly gates may get a shock when they are told, ‘I never knew you.’ To be saved, in Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3, is to receive the supernatural grace of the Holy Spirit to enter the kingdom of God, to submit to His rule and obey His Word so that He can transform us into true sons and daughters.

Have you done that?

Who Are My Mother And Brothers?

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WHO ARE MY MOTHER AND BROTHERS?

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.’ ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around Him and said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark3: 31-35).

That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Especially since they came all the way from Nazareth to see Him.

As we travel through the Gospel of Mark, we will learn something about Jesus that we should never forget and that it would do well for us to apply in our own lives as well. Jesus always viewed life from the perspective of the Father and never from an earthly viewpoint. As far as He was concerned, the kingdom of God took precedence over earthly considerations.

What was He saying? That He didn’t care about His family or even that He repudiated them, that He did not acknowledge that He had a blood family at all? Had He cut Himself completely loose from them so that they no longer mattered to Him? I don’t think that He meant that at all.

We have to ask, first of all, why they were there. A few verses back we learned that they thought He was crazy. They had come to get Him to take Him home. Why? Was it to protect Him from Himself or to protect Him from the crowd? Perhaps one or both. Why did He need to be protected? Obviously, because He could not look after Himself. He had lost it, so they thought.

What did Jesus mean by His question, ‘Who are my mother and brothers’? He looked beyond mere family ties to a family that He had come to redeem and restore to the Father that was far more important and of lasting value than the ties of human families. Although He belonged to a human family, they had to learn that in the end He headed up a family of people more closely bound together than blood ties because they would become His true “blood” brothers through the shedding of His own blood for them.

His brothers rejected Him and His claims to be the Son of God until after the resurrection. They refused to believe in Him and even taunted Him (John 7: 2-5). The same once-unbelieving family members were together with the other believers when the Holy Spirit fell on the day of Pentecost. Letters from His brothers, James and Jude, were included in the inspired Scriptures. Their faith in Him promoted them from being part of His earthly family to being members of God’s forever family.

How do we know this is so? Mary Magdalene, according to John’s report, was the first to meet Jesus after His resurrection. She was so overjoyed that she wanted to take hold of Him and never let Him go. He remonstrated with her.

Jesus said, ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.’ (John 20:17-18).

Did you get that? He called His disciples, ‘My brothers.’ He had called them servants and friends but never brothers. He put them on the same level as Himself – calling God “my Father and your Father, my God and you God.” Did you get the significance of what He said? Those who sat around Him listening and hanging onto every word that came from His mouth were potentially part of the family of God which spans time and eternity. His death and resurrection sealed the reality of that family.

It was God’s intention, from the beginning, to have a family of sons and daughters who were exactly like His Son. Sin interrupted His plan but He never gave up on it. He sent His Son to reveal His true self to people whose understanding of Him was distorted by the devil’s deception, and to redeem and reconcile mankind to Himself. Through faith in Jesus and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, He works in us to restore and recreate His image in us.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Rom. 8: 28-29).

Can you see, now, why Jesus was not willing that His human family lay exclusive claim to Him? Family He might be, but that was earthly and temporary. His intention to rebuild God’s forever family overshadowed any earthly ties. It was imperative that His mother and brothers get the message as quickly as possible and release Him to fulfil the will of the Father of all fathers.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

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A Tender Moment

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A TENDER MOMENT 

“Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, the disciple took her into his home.” John 19:25-27 NIV.

A little group of women, alone and vulnerable in a crowd of abusive men and Roman soldiers. Did they care? They cared enough about Jesus to ignore the hostile mob around them. They stood near the cross, near enough to hear His laboured breathing and to watch the pool of blood spreading on the ground beneath the cross. They clung to one another for support and comfort in their grief. The one who was suffering the agony of hell, innocent as He was, was dearer to them than any other person on earth.

As much as He needed His disciples at that moment, (and only His beloved disciple was near enough to talk to), Jesus needed the women. They loved Him. They believed in Him, no matter what the religious authorities and the Roman government had done to Him. They wept for Him and for themselves for their loss. He was beyond their touch and their help. They would no longer be able to care for Him, prepare food, mend His garments, listen to His gracious teaching and be close to Him.

Mary, His mother felt it the most. Did she not carry Him in her womb for nine precious months as she pondered on the angel’s message and felt His tiny life stirring within her? Had she not borne the pain of His birth, and known the joy of holding the soft bundle in her arms? Had she not suckled Him and watched Him grow sturdy and strong?

Did she not lovingly nurture Him to robust young adulthood and then have to let Him go after thirty years of His being there in her home caring for her as her first-born son? Did she not often hold His strong hands, calloused from the hard work which her beloved Joseph had taught Him to do?

She felt as though her heart was being ripped from her chest. Although He had been long gone from her home, she knew He was still there somewhere, alive and available from time to time as He moved around the country. Now she could only watch helplessly as His life slipped away. He was so young, too young to die. All she would have left would be her precious memories.

John also stood nearby. Many thoughts flooded his mind as he watched the gruesome scene with horror. He had only know Jesus for just over three years, but they were three action-packed years, full of never-to-be forgotten miracles and riveting new ideas in the company of a man who was like no one he had ever known. He had watched and listened, and had eventually been convinced and embraced Jesus as the Son of God.

Jesus’ love was gentle, tender and all-encompassing. He cared about the throw-away people, who lived on the fringe of society, whom everyone else considered trash. He was bold and courageous in the face of open hostility from the powerful religious leaders. He spoke the truth in the face of criticism, anger and abuse and was unfazed by the threat of death because He knew who He was and why He had come. He almost seemed to invite arrest and the possibility of execution because He fearlessly exposed their hypocrisy and refused to back down on His claims.

Listen to Him in His dying moments. As awful as His agony was at that moment, He saw His mother and felt her sorrow. With painful gasps He entrusted her to His beloved friend, John, and John to her. She would have a new son, and John a new mother, united in their grief and in their love for Jesus.

As we inch our way through these terrible hours, six long hours of unspeakable suffering, we see a naked man, clothed in His own blood and the spittle of those who despised Him, wearing His royal robe with dignity and honour because it represented victory over prejudice, bigotry, and irrational hatred; His tender love for those who loved Him and forgiveness for those who hated Him and tortured Him to death. His final, rasping words were words of compassion for those who suffered with Him, always forgetting Himself in the face of the needs of others.

His plight at that moment was His response to the greatest need of all, the need of all mankind to be reconciled to the Father and to come back home. He paid the debt so that we can be forgiven and accepted into God’s forever family.