5/14/23 John 19:19-27 “Here Is Your Son”

07 May 5/14/23 John 19:19-27 “Here Is Your Son”

5/14/23    John 19:19-27          “Here Is Your Son”

Once again, I would like to wish everyone a happy Mother’s Day.  I hope that this will be a day of joy for everyone.  I know that some of us don’t have parents who are still alive.  Some of us may have split parents.  Some of us live with our parents.  Whatever the situation, I pray for your happiness on this day.  I know that this day can be rather a hard one around our family for a couple of reasons but we get through it with the help of God.  About the only thing I regret I have about my parents being home in heaven is that they never got to hear me or see me preach.  But the good news of this is that they will know all about it when I get to join them in heaven.  Now you may be thinking, as I read this passage today, what kind of Mother’s Day reading is this?  The passage is telling us how Jesus died on the cross.  All I can say is stick with me for a few minutes and hopefully you will see.

If you are a mother, you remember when and the circumstances of each of your children when they were born.  I recently read a story that was written by a father who took his wife to the hospital as the baby was coming.  Well, they spent all day at the hospital and there was nothing.  There was no action or anything.  It was almost as if the baby had decided that it wasn’t quite time yet.  Anyway, it was getting to be around 5 PM and the nurse decided that she was going to have some dinner.  She checked her patient before she left.  She suddenly became very excited and said to someone, “Get the doctor now.  The baby is coming!”  Anyway, it wasn’t very long before a healthy baby boy was born and the parents were very proud.  I would guess that we have as many wondrous stories like this as we have children.

The reason I bring this up is that I would like us to think of Mary in that manger so many years ago when Jesus was born.  They did things a little different in those days because there were no doctors, at least not for the common person.  It doesn’t matter about the lack of doctors or lack of good conditions, Joseph and Mary would still be very proud parents.

Now let’s fast forward 33 years.  Jesus is hanging on the cross.  On the one side of the cross we have the soldiers who are gambling for his clothes and on the other side of Jesus we have Mary and the women who would be extremely sad by all the events.  I think that this is a pretty important scene as are similar to scenes are all through the Bible.

One such scene is the story of Noah.  Noah and his family faithfully went about their business of building the ark and all the people around them laughed and made fun of them.  This is the same thing.  We have the bad people on one side of the cross profiting and having a good old time at the expense of the faithful.

Has anything changed at all in our modern times?  If you are a faithful follower of Jesus Christ, then you have people who are faithful followers of the devil who make fun of you or they try to discredit you.  If you don’t believe me then take a look at some of the common-sense things that we are forced to vote upon in the elections of the last few years.  Or some of the laws that are passed that we shouldn’t need because it is just common sense.  Many of these things are just basically wrong according to the Bible.  However, many people don’t want to follow God so we have to vote on some of our basic beliefs.  Anyway, I just wanted to point out to you the very definite distinction here between good and evil.

One of the women at the cross is Mary, the mother of Jesus.  This has to be absolutely heartbreaking for her.  Her son is dying and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it.  This is pure anguish.  I don’t know how many of you have experienced deep anguish like this or how many of you have witnessed it.  I have seen it enough to last me for the rest of my life.  I know I will see it again but I would rather not.  Also, I am someone who has had a couple in incidents of pure anguish in my personal life.  But today I praise the Lord because when these times come, Jesus is always there to help me through it.  But it is hard, very hard.

At the cross Mary is surrounded by her sister and 2 other Mary’s.  The only one we really know anything about is Mary Magdalene from whom Jesus had driven out demons.  The Apostle John was also there.  We also have to remember that Jesus is on the cross dying.  This was not easy and it was very painful.  But Jesus will not think about the pain.  He will not think about himself.  Instead, he thinks of his mother and us.

There is a little sidebar I would like to mention before we move on.  Have you ever noticed that Jesus never refers to his mother as mother?  Instead, he says woman.  The original word here for woman is term of endearment and it has a nice meaning but He doesn’t say ‘Mother.’  There are several theories on this but this is the one that I favor.  I think that in this case Jesus is referring to something far bigger than just his mother.

He does tell Mary that John is her son and that Mary is John’s mother.  On the surface it seems that Jesus wants John to take care of his mother.  Most experts believe that the father, Joseph, has been dead for quite some time.  We don’t have any mention of Joseph in the New Testament other than when Jesus was young.  Therefore, if Mary is a widow, she is going to need someone to take care of her.  If you remember all the laws of those days regarding inheritance, the widow would get nothing unless the eldest son was alive or something like similar.  Now Jesus will be dead and Mary will have no one to help her.  So, on the surface, this makes sense.  It makes sense except that Jesus is saying this during his time of excruciating pain.

So, what else might Jesus be saying here?  Let’s pretend that we are in this situation.  Suppose you wanted someone to take care of your mother.  I think it would be natural to say, “so and so or so and so, would you take care of my mother?”  It would be natural for us to ask the person who is going to be responsible for our mother first to see if they will take care of her, right?  That is not what Jesus did.  The first thing He does is tell Mary that John is now her son.  Then he tells John that Mary is his mother.  It is all backwards so it doesn’t make sense if this is really what Jesus is saying.

I think that one of the main points here is that no matter where you are or who you are, you are not done serving God.  Jesus is dying on the cross and He is trying to give a message to His followers.  By telling Mary that John is her son, He is in effect saying that all followers are her sons and daughters.  We could even extend this a little farther and say that all people were her family.  Mary is crying and in deep, deep grief and Jesus is telling her that her job wasn’t done yet.  It just goes to show that God has a plan and it will be completed.

And this has a lot of meaning for us also.  I could have stayed at the Post Office and I would be retired for about 10 years now and only thing I would have to look forward to would be having morning and afternoon coffee.  I could have stayed there and kept a small ministry going in our federal government.  But God had other plans for a man who was 55 years old and near the end of his career.  He brought me out to Kindred and Colfax/Walcott ND to do something that I had never done before.  Our lives have been very exciting ever since we started by moving out there.  And the great part of this is that God isn’t done with Sharon and me yet.  If I someday retire from being a pastor, I know that I will not retire from God.  He always has a plan for us.

The same thing is true about all of you.  We have some people who are close to or are retired.  Is God done with you?  Of course not!  There is visiting to be done.  There is sick that need attention.  I think that we could do a much better job of visiting and taking care of some of our people when they need it.  I love doing these things but it would mean so much more if all, all of you would do the same.  And if we get to the point in our lives where it is hard to get around or hard to drive, then we really need more prayer warriors.  Dear people, here is your son.

We also have people who are in the midst of life.  You are working and taking care of the family.  If I’m not mistaken, Satan has many of you running here and running there and you don’t have much time for God.  No matter how busy you get, God wants you to follow Him.  You do this by acting like Jesus at all times.  You have time to act like Jesus.  When you get to running here and running there, often times you forget to model Jesus.  You need to understand that there are many eyes watching you at all times.  My dear people, here is your son.

I don’t want to forget our young people.  We have people who are graduating from college and high school.  We have confirmation classes in the area that are being confirmed.  Many of the people in our area will quit going to church after these events.  Satan has so many parties and events lined up for them that they don’t have time for church or God.  This is a theme that is repeated all over the country.  I think that many of our young people from our churches do continue attending and loving Jesus but we also have people who just quit.  What I’m trying to say here is that if God is inside of you then you can’t quit.  No matter what you do or where you go, wear Jesus proudly.  Show Him off in all situations and you will be more popular than you ever dreamed.  If you keep Jesus in your heart, He will open many doors to many good things.  You will soon be helping others to have what you have and that is Jesus.  Dear young people, here is your son.

Then Jesus tells the disciple John, “Here is your mother.”  We have already talked of this a little but I think that Jesus is being a little generic here also.  Jesus wants John to take care of his mother but He also wants John to treat everyone as if they were his mother.  In those days unlike today, mothers and fathers were respected by their children.  Children honored their fathers and mothers.  Now I’m sure there were problems with this and we can find many places in the Bible where this didn’t happen and the consequences were not so good.

One of the subtle things that Jesus is trying to tell us is that we are to treat all people like they are our mothers.  So, in one way we are to treat people like our sons and daughters and train them up well and in another way, we are to treat people like they are our mothers.

This means that when we come across poor people, we are to treat them better than we would treat ourselves.  When we come across people who have had a tough time in life, we are to be like Jesus and raise them up to better than ourselves.  There are so many things in this world that leave people beat up or run down.  These things could happen to any of us.  So, the thing to remember is to be nice to everyone.  Treat everyone as Jesus would treat them.  Then good things will happen.  Finally, we read that John took Mary into his home so she had a home and shelter after Jesus left.

This is Mother’s Day and I think that this is a message that all mothers would want, be like Jesus and make your mother proud.  Now I would like to leave you with a little quiz.  See if you can come up with the answer.  No cheating!   Who is the person who has been taking care of you long before you even understood who this person was. This person has endured many sleepless nights because of you. When you were hungry, this person fed you. When you got hurt, this person did everything possible to make you feel better. When you were far from home, this person was thinking of you. This person has made more sacrifices for you than you’ll ever know. This person is even willing to die for you. And, on days like today, this person appreciates it when you acknowledge everything this person has done for you.

Who is the person I am talking about?  Many of you might think that the answer is your mother.  This is a pretty good answer but it is not the one that I am thinking about.  The answer is Jesus Christ.  Mothers love us but Jesus can love you far more and in the most perfect way.  As a matter of fact, He is the model for all mothers.  He is the model for all fathers. He is the model for all people.

This is a special day when we celebrate our mothers.  All of us have had one.  We didn’t get here without a mother.  But more importantly, we have Jesus Christ.  Whether you like it or not, no one would be here without Jesus.  He is the creator of everything including us and our mothers.  As important as our mothers are, Jesus is far more important.  Please remember this as you go about your day and week.  Jesus loves you so much that He has given you all you have and this includes your family, friends and neighbors.  Take some time to thank Him for first loving us.  It is really quite remarkable when you think about it.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.