Sunday, March 24, 2019 ~ Lent III
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
Sermon Series on the Seven Last “Words” of Christ
“This Is Your Mother, This Is Your Son” ~ John 19:25-29
© 2019, Dr. Tamilio
Of all the passages that we are studying as part of this series, the seven last “words” of Christ, this one, on the surface, seems the strangest. Jesus is on the cross. He sees his mother standing there. John, the disciple whom he loved, is there as well. To Mary he says, “Woman, here is your son.” To John he says, “Here is your mother.” This would be more confusing if it ended there, but it is followed by this sentence, “From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.” This gives us insight into what Jesus was actually saying here.
In first century Palestine, women had no real status. Violet McDaniel, in her article “A Woman’s Place in the First Century,” writes, “The first century Jewish man [had a prayer in which he] thanked God that he was not born ‘a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.’”[1] Why these three? Being a Gentile would place him outside of the covenant. Being a slave would make him property. Being a woman would give him no social status whatsoever. Women who were married were a bit different. They had the protection of a husband, which is why Jesus told his followers to take up the cause of widows and orphans.
Footnote: we do not know what happened to Jesus’ father at this point in the narrative, but the assumption is that he died. The last time we saw him was when Jesus was twelve years old teaching the elders in the Temple. If he was alive, it would not have been necessary for Jesus to say what he did from the cross. He was Mary’s firstborn son. He would have taken care of her in the event of his father’s death, which is probably what happened. Why the Gospels don’t tell us what happened to Joseph is a mystery.
Anyway, let’s assume that Joseph died. Now that Jesus is about to die, there needs to be someone who will care for Mary. Jesus chooses his beloved disciple. Some wonder why Jesus entrusts the care of his mother to one of the twelve rather than one of his brothers. After all, we are told that he had brothers and sisters. Andreas Köstenberger, building on the work of J. Carl Laney, suggests that this is probably because his brothers weren’t believers as we read earlier in John (7:5): “For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”[2]
Jesus is about to die for the sins of the world, and yet, in his final moments, he makes sure that someone who will be incredibly vulnerable without him (i.e. his mother) is cared for. There are several sermons here, but I am going to go with the one that hits me square in the face. In the very act of his dying, Jesus is caring for all of his followers — not just Mary. He is offering us a gift that we could not attain on our own.
I have said time and time again: the world has a way of giving us its worst. It is like we are adrift in the ocean with no land in sight. The waves batter our rickety dingy to-and-fro. We are at the mercy of a hostile sea. But if we look carefully, we will see the Living Christ stilling the storm, just as he walked on the water and saved the disciples in Matthew’s Gospel. They thought he was a ghost. He immediately assured them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Footnote Number Two: we think Jesus should be saying “It is me” when he corrects the disciples. Technically, both forms are grammatically correct. Jesus using “I,” however, connects him to the very name of God: Yahweh, which means I am who I am. This is the name he gives to Moses when questioned at the burning bush in Exodus 3.
So, Jesus, the one who saves us when we are peril, is God himself, not some representative of God, not some mere prophet. He is God incarnate.
There are many ways that Jesus cares for us, but, as we see in today’s Gospel Lesson, he ensures that those who cannot fend for themselves have companions who will do so. If we read this passage carefully, we see that the care is reciprocal. Jesus not only tells Mary that John is now her son; he also tells John that she is his mother. The passage is not just about John carrying for the widowed mother of Jesus, even though New Testament scholar Colin G. Kruse disagrees, because John took Mary into his home. Kruse claims the relationship is not reciprocal.[3] I disagree to some extent. Mary will now be as a mother to John.
Think of the people in your life who have been like a mother or a son to you, or a brother, father, or sister — people who gave of themselves to you not because they had to, but because they wanted to. It isn’t just DNA that connects us. You can take those tests through 23 and Me or Ancestry.com and they’ll tell you all about your blood: what part of the globe you came from and who your distant relatives are. But they won’t tell you about your heart: the organ that pumps that blood through your veins — giving you life! Who are the people who have been like kin to you? Who loved you when you felt others didn’t? Who loved you unconditionally? Who showed you the loved of Jesus Christ through their deeds as much as their words?
There is a saying: God doesn’t have any grandchildren. That’s because we are all children of God. If that’s true — and I believe it is — we can also say that we are all part of the same family, which is what this (the church) is. Today we welcomed two new people in to this family — two people who (interestingly enough) are related by blood. When we celebrate the sacrament of baptism with infants and children, we are adopting them into our family. We are making promises to love them unconditionally, to support them no matter what unfolds in their futures, and to care for them as if we gave birth to them ourselves. As I have said before, this is not some empty ritual — some cute thing we do for our kids. These are serious promises that parents, God parents, and all of you make together. Just as Jesus trusted his mother into John’s care, he trusts all of us into the care of what some call a mother as well: the mother church.
Here, you will find your mother, and your brother, and your sister, and most importantly, your Father: the God and Savior of us all. Amen.
[1] Victoria McDaniel, “A Woman’s Place in the First Century,” Truth Magazine, XLIV:9 (May 4, 2000): 18.
[2] Andreas J. Köstenberger, John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 549.
[3] Colin G. Kruse, The Gospel According to John: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 368-369.