May 8, 2025 • 13 mins
Mother's Day is an emotional holiday for many people for a lot of reasons. Not every woman is wife or a mom, and some persons are approaching this day for the first time since the death of their mom. Yet, it is also a very happy time for moms and families who have good relationships and can be together. The relationship of Jesus and his own mother is a good model for us to consider as we try to understand the meaning of Mother's Day in our familie and churches. Jesus gave attention to his mother with one of his last words from the cross, and these words provide great meaning for us today.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Mother's Day Mother's Day was signed into law in 1914 by
President Woodrow Wilson and it is a holiday that has caught on
and retailers love it. Billions of dollars are spent on
flowers and restaurants. And as an aside, I know making
those reservations for Mother's Day lunch or dinner, please keep
(00:22):
in mind the the servers who willbe greeting you there to be kind
to them and patient with them because the places to eat are
going to be and tip them generously.
But that's my little promotion and emphasis on that.
But also it is the second highest gift giving holiday
behind Christmas. And for pastors and church going
(00:43):
types, it is the second highest attended Sunday behind Easter.
It's a it's a bittersweet day. And again, for me as a pastor,
it's a tough needle to thread asfar as acknowledging and showing
deference to Mother's Day without exclusion people,
because for some people, it's their first Mother's Day without
their mom. And not everyone has a good
(01:05):
relationship with their their mom.
And some women struggle with infertility.
About 10% of Americans do that. And again, not every a woman is
a wife. And, but while that's something
to keep in mind, many embrace the day that are very excited
about it, that have children andgrandchildren and they get to be
with your mom and grandmother. But for others, it's a day of of
(01:28):
grief and, and a reminder of what they don't have any more.
And churches have to decide to deal with this.
And I'm not a lectionary preacher except around Lent or
Advent. But there are those who follow
the lectionary religiously, no pun intended.
And I have some friends who are lectionary preachers.
And there are benefits of that because you're kind of laid out
(01:48):
on your preaching schedule. But it doesn't necessarily give
credence to Mother's Day in the lectionary.
And for those of my friends who do that, they would simply say,
well, I don't spend any time on it.
I simply stay with the lectionary and I don't
acknowledge it because it's not really a Christian holiday.
I remember serving in one of my my prior churches and the
tradition that had already been established was to give out
(02:10):
carnations and you would give out a pink one to all those.
This was really giving attentionto the women.
You would give a pink carnation to all the women whose mother
was alive, and then if your mother had died, then you would
receive a white one. And that, that continued for a
year or two while I was there until I had a conversation with
an older woman in the church andshe came up to me and I could
(02:34):
tell it was difficult for her totell me this, but she says,
Danny, I don't think I can come to church on Mother's Day
anymore. And she explained that her
mother had died and she was receiving that white carnation
and it was too painful to to receive that designation.
And after listening to her, I thought, how could we have been
so insensitive about that? And fortunately, we were able to
(02:56):
change that to where everyone would receive the the same color
flower. What our church does now and and
I find maybe experiences the teacher that's necessary.
But what we do is we light candles to try to honor all the
women in our church, the moms that are living, the women that
don't have any children, and then the mothers who have gone
on to be with the Lord. It's a way of trying to say
(03:17):
there there are families of different shapes and different
sizes and we want to celebrate them all.
Jesus mentions his mother at thecross and and this is 1 of what
is called the the seven last sayings of Jesus from the cross.
And these are not in any these are not in the order, but he
says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. Today you will be with me in
(03:39):
paradise. I thirst my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Into your hands I commit my
spirit. And then it is finished and
folded into those seven is Jesus's addressing his mother
and saying, woman, here is your son.
And then he looks at John and says, here's your, your mother.
The King James has the referenceof behold, behold your son and
(04:02):
behold your mother. And in John chapter 19, which is
where I'm spending a few momentsnow, Jesus is dying and he's on
the cross and there's a lot of grieving that's going on.
His mother and the women are there and they're grieving, but
there's also gambling going on with the soldiers who are trying
to decide who's going to get Jesus's clothing.
(04:24):
And I thought, what an unusual dichotomy that is, that you have
the grief going on and then you have the gambling going on.
And the Scripture indicates thatnear the cross of Jesus stood
his mother, and Jesus had an earthly mother and father.
And we all know this, but I wantto give a little bit of
acknowledgement to Joseph because, and we get into this
(04:46):
especially around the Christmas time with the nativity story,
but Joseph is regulated to secondary status and he doesn't
even have any words that's recorded in the Gospels.
I have to believe that he did speak, but there aren't any
recorded words in the Gospels. And every time that Mary and
Joseph are mentioned, he always comes second.
And we find this situation that we're at the cross and Joseph
(05:09):
has been dead for a while, but Jesus's mother is there.
And in John's Gospel, the way John records it, Mary is with
Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, at a wedding at Cana
of Galilee, when there's kind ofa crisis that's kind of a
hospitality issue, when they're running out of wine.
And Jesus is approached by this,by his mom and gently encouraged
(05:29):
to do something about it. And he does, and he performs his
first miracle there. And now here at the ending of
his ministry, he is hanging on the cross.
And Mary is there too. So he, she is there at the
beginning of his ministry, and she is there at the ending of
his ministry. And while she is standing there,
I was trying trying to imagine what it must have been like for
(05:49):
her to have maybe a flashback about what's happening through
the course of her life. It had to have been an emotional
journey to to go back to how it all began with the visitation of
the Angel saying you're going togive birth to a son.
And she questions how is this possible?
And she receives that information and this dream that
Joseph has, there's no room in the end.
(06:12):
And then the magi show up and they they go to the the temple,
Mary and Joseph to dedicate babyJesus.
And Simeon is thrilled and says my eyes have seen your
salvation, but also to Mary as maybe a foreshadowing of what is
to come of this child is destined to call the falling and
rising of many in Israel. And a sword is going to Pierce
(06:33):
your own soul. And there is the prophetess
Anna, who is in her ace and has served for decades in the temple
to bless them. They obviously couldn't take
photographs, and there's no social media to post all these
things online. But what Mary does, and I love
how the Scripture describes this, she cherishes all of these
(06:55):
things in her heart. Jesus looks at her and says,
behold your Son and to John, behold your mother.
And in thinking about Mary, somepeople almost deify Mary, which
is why historically Baptists have avoided this subject.
I haven't heard a lot of sermonson Mary.
I've tried to remedy that as some of my own preaching, but I
(07:16):
think it has been a mistake for for Baptists and Protestants in
general to to avoid talking about Mary because maybe the
fear primarily of Roman Catholics who focus on the
perpetual virginity of Mary and they they pray to Mary and you
have the the Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you.
Blessed art thou among women to recall what is spelled out in in
(07:38):
the Gospel accounts, and this isa misinterpretation, I believe,
of the angels. Visit The Gospels give a
different perspective on Jesus'srelationship to his mother and
to his family. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter
12, there's a crowd of people gathering outside while Jesus is
(07:58):
speaking. And the Scripture indicates
while Jesus was still talking tothe crowd, his mother and his
brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him.
And someone told him, your mother and brothers are standing
outside. They're waiting to speak to you.
And then Jesus replied and says,who is my mother and who are my
brothers? For whoever he says here, my
(08:19):
mother and my brothers, whoever does the will of my Father in
heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
And then over in the Gospel of Luke, there's a situation where
Jesus is speaking and teaching to the crowd.
And this is Luke 11, verse 27 and 8.
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd
called out. Blessed is the mother who gave
(08:40):
birth to you and nursed you. And Jesus responds.
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and it
Jesus came to establish a spiritual family.
He was Mary's son, but most importantly, he was the Son of
God in Mother's Day. It is a complicated day.
It can be a painful day and trying to find a way to to
(09:03):
acknowledge it and celebrate it without excluding or creating
additional difficulty for peopleis indeed a challenge.
I mentioned infertility a short while ago.
Erica Cooper wrote an article entitled Remember Infertility on
Mother's Day and she says perhaps some Christians will
decide to go to church but sit on the back few so they can duck
(09:24):
out before the roses are handed out.
Or maybe they will only make it to the parking lot, or the
emotions become too much and wander through their weeping if
they made a mistake attempting to come to church on this day.
Infertility is a beast. It is a repulsive, smelly the
leviathan looming in the shadowsbeyond Hope's edge.
This evil monster eagerly waits in the darkness, ready to sink
(09:46):
its venomous teeth into one's joy during the most celebratory
moments of life. A child's birthday party, family
sporting events, Christmas morning baby showers, and of
course, this blasted creature completely rips apart Mother's
Day. My own mother died in June of of
2020. She was 89 years old.
(10:06):
And I recall a year after her death, I was in Walgreens to
pick up a prescription. And this was a few weeks before
Mother's Day and the prescription wasn't ready.
And I, I wandered over to the aisle where all the cars were
and it was Mother's Day and started thumbing through the
cards. And some were humorous and some
were serious and some were religious.
(10:28):
And I was trying to think about,you know, what kind of card
would I get from my mom? And then suddenly, and I vividly
remember this, I had this stock come to my mind.
What are you doing? I mean, she's, she's dead and
she's gone on to be with the Lord.
And that kind of started me for a moment.
For the first time, I wasn't going to be able to call her.
I wasn't going to be able to send her a card.
(10:48):
I was raised by a single mom andI had two siblings, an older
brother and a younger sister. And as I've gotten older, I've
learned more and more about how difficult it was to raise us.
And I remember her funeral. But on a happier note, a few
weeks ago I was at my nephew's wedding in Little Rock and was
(11:09):
able to see my sister and my brother really for the first
time. And then we were talking about
this. This was the first time that we
had been in the same place sincemom's funeral and how good it
was to be together on a happy occasion.
But we mentioning the fact abouthow much mom would enjoy this
moment to celebrate this with with Tyler and his bride.
(11:30):
Lauren, Mother's Day is about memories.
And again, families aren't perfect and churches aren't
perfect. But I found an article by Amy
Heniger pretty helpful. This was on the blog post for
Scott McKnight. He calls it Jesus Creed and she
says there are four things church leaders need to hear
about Mother's Day as soon as possible.
(11:51):
She says Jesus has no patience for idealizing motherhood.
For Jesus, the most important human role is disciple.
Every person is equally responsible to listen to God and
do what God is calling them to do in a change that's never been
accomplished previously in humanhistory.
The Commonwealth of love that Jesus brought is not built on
(12:12):
bloodlines and lineage. This new community is built on
the presence of the indwelling Spirit of God, which unites us.
I'm recording this around Mother's Day, but I think it's
useful at any time because we want to honor our Father and our
mother, but we don't have the same relationships to our
parents or our children. And I don't know how you're
(12:32):
going to to approach Mother's Day or how you did approach it,
whether you acknowledged it and went out to eat and had a great
time, which I hope you were ableto do, or for some who may have
preferred to, to skip over it. Let's remember that there are a
lot of emotions related to this day.
But to go back to the record of John, who said near the cross of
(12:53):
Jesus stood his mother. I think that's a great example
for us because that's where I want to be and I think that's
where we all need to be. And as we approach Mother's Day
and, and really each and every day, I say this to our people a
lot. Let's be kind because everyone
you meet is fighting a secret battle.
Thanks for listening.
Mother's Day Mother's Day was signed into law in 1914 by
President Woodrow Wilson and it is a holiday that has caught on
and retailers love it. Billions of dollars are spent on
flowers and restaurants. And as an aside, I know making
those reservations for Mother's Day lunch or dinner, please keep
(00:22):
in mind the the servers who willbe greeting you there to be kind
to them and patient with them because the places to eat are
going to be and tip them generously.
But that's my little promotion and emphasis on that.
But also it is the second highest gift giving holiday
behind Christmas. And for pastors and church going
(00:43):
types, it is the second highest attended Sunday behind Easter.
It's a it's a bittersweet day. And again, for me as a pastor,
it's a tough needle to thread asfar as acknowledging and showing
deference to Mother's Day without exclusion people,
because for some people, it's their first Mother's Day without
their mom. And not everyone has a good
(01:05):
relationship with their their mom.
And some women struggle with infertility.
About 10% of Americans do that. And again, not every a woman is
a wife. And, but while that's something
to keep in mind, many embrace the day that are very excited
about it, that have children andgrandchildren and they get to be
with your mom and grandmother. But for others, it's a day of of
(01:28):
grief and, and a reminder of what they don't have any more.
And churches have to decide to deal with this.
And I'm not a lectionary preacher except around Lent or
Advent. But there are those who follow
the lectionary religiously, no pun intended.
And I have some friends who are lectionary preachers.
And there are benefits of that because you're kind of laid out
(01:48):
on your preaching schedule. But it doesn't necessarily give
credence to Mother's Day in the lectionary.
And for those of my friends who do that, they would simply say,
well, I don't spend any time on it.
I simply stay with the lectionary and I don't
acknowledge it because it's not really a Christian holiday.
I remember serving in one of my my prior churches and the
tradition that had already been established was to give out
(02:10):
carnations and you would give out a pink one to all those.
This was really giving attentionto the women.
You would give a pink carnation to all the women whose mother
was alive, and then if your mother had died, then you would
receive a white one. And that, that continued for a
year or two while I was there until I had a conversation with
an older woman in the church andshe came up to me and I could
(02:34):
tell it was difficult for her totell me this, but she says,
Danny, I don't think I can come to church on Mother's Day
anymore. And she explained that her
mother had died and she was receiving that white carnation
and it was too painful to to receive that designation.
And after listening to her, I thought, how could we have been
so insensitive about that? And fortunately, we were able to
(02:56):
change that to where everyone would receive the the same color
flower. What our church does now and and
I find maybe experiences the teacher that's necessary.
But what we do is we light candles to try to honor all the
women in our church, the moms that are living, the women that
don't have any children, and then the mothers who have gone
on to be with the Lord. It's a way of trying to say
(03:17):
there there are families of different shapes and different
sizes and we want to celebrate them all.
Jesus mentions his mother at thecross and and this is 1 of what
is called the the seven last sayings of Jesus from the cross.
And these are not in any these are not in the order, but he
says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. Today you will be with me in
(03:39):
paradise. I thirst my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Into your hands I commit my
spirit. And then it is finished and
folded into those seven is Jesus's addressing his mother
and saying, woman, here is your son.
And then he looks at John and says, here's your, your mother.
The King James has the referenceof behold, behold your son and
(04:02):
behold your mother. And in John chapter 19, which is
where I'm spending a few momentsnow, Jesus is dying and he's on
the cross and there's a lot of grieving that's going on.
His mother and the women are there and they're grieving, but
there's also gambling going on with the soldiers who are trying
to decide who's going to get Jesus's clothing.
(04:24):
And I thought, what an unusual dichotomy that is, that you have
the grief going on and then you have the gambling going on.
And the Scripture indicates thatnear the cross of Jesus stood
his mother, and Jesus had an earthly mother and father.
And we all know this, but I wantto give a little bit of
acknowledgement to Joseph because, and we get into this
(04:46):
especially around the Christmas time with the nativity story,
but Joseph is regulated to secondary status and he doesn't
even have any words that's recorded in the Gospels.
I have to believe that he did speak, but there aren't any
recorded words in the Gospels. And every time that Mary and
Joseph are mentioned, he always comes second.
And we find this situation that we're at the cross and Joseph
(05:09):
has been dead for a while, but Jesus's mother is there.
And in John's Gospel, the way John records it, Mary is with
Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, at a wedding at Cana
of Galilee, when there's kind ofa crisis that's kind of a
hospitality issue, when they're running out of wine.
And Jesus is approached by this,by his mom and gently encouraged
(05:29):
to do something about it. And he does, and he performs his
first miracle there. And now here at the ending of
his ministry, he is hanging on the cross.
And Mary is there too. So he, she is there at the
beginning of his ministry, and she is there at the ending of
his ministry. And while she is standing there,
I was trying trying to imagine what it must have been like for
(05:49):
her to have maybe a flashback about what's happening through
the course of her life. It had to have been an emotional
journey to to go back to how it all began with the visitation of
the Angel saying you're going togive birth to a son.
And she questions how is this possible?
And she receives that information and this dream that
Joseph has, there's no room in the end.
(06:12):
And then the magi show up and they they go to the the temple,
Mary and Joseph to dedicate babyJesus.
And Simeon is thrilled and says my eyes have seen your
salvation, but also to Mary as maybe a foreshadowing of what is
to come of this child is destined to call the falling and
rising of many in Israel. And a sword is going to Pierce
(06:33):
your own soul. And there is the prophetess
Anna, who is in her ace and has served for decades in the temple
to bless them. They obviously couldn't take
photographs, and there's no social media to post all these
things online. But what Mary does, and I love
how the Scripture describes this, she cherishes all of these
(06:55):
things in her heart. Jesus looks at her and says,
behold your Son and to John, behold your mother.
And in thinking about Mary, somepeople almost deify Mary, which
is why historically Baptists have avoided this subject.
I haven't heard a lot of sermonson Mary.
I've tried to remedy that as some of my own preaching, but I
(07:16):
think it has been a mistake for for Baptists and Protestants in
general to to avoid talking about Mary because maybe the
fear primarily of Roman Catholics who focus on the
perpetual virginity of Mary and they they pray to Mary and you
have the the Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you.
Blessed art thou among women to recall what is spelled out in in
(07:38):
the Gospel accounts, and this isa misinterpretation, I believe,
of the angels. Visit The Gospels give a
different perspective on Jesus'srelationship to his mother and
to his family. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter
12, there's a crowd of people gathering outside while Jesus is
(07:58):
speaking. And the Scripture indicates
while Jesus was still talking tothe crowd, his mother and his
brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him.
And someone told him, your mother and brothers are standing
outside. They're waiting to speak to you.
And then Jesus replied and says,who is my mother and who are my
brothers? For whoever he says here, my
(08:19):
mother and my brothers, whoever does the will of my Father in
heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
And then over in the Gospel of Luke, there's a situation where
Jesus is speaking and teaching to the crowd.
And this is Luke 11, verse 27 and 8.
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd
called out. Blessed is the mother who gave
(08:40):
birth to you and nursed you. And Jesus responds.
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and it
Jesus came to establish a spiritual family.
He was Mary's son, but most importantly, he was the Son of
God in Mother's Day. It is a complicated day.
It can be a painful day and trying to find a way to to
(09:03):
acknowledge it and celebrate it without excluding or creating
additional difficulty for peopleis indeed a challenge.
I mentioned infertility a short while ago.
Erica Cooper wrote an article entitled Remember Infertility on
Mother's Day and she says perhaps some Christians will
decide to go to church but sit on the back few so they can duck
(09:24):
out before the roses are handed out.
Or maybe they will only make it to the parking lot, or the
emotions become too much and wander through their weeping if
they made a mistake attempting to come to church on this day.
Infertility is a beast. It is a repulsive, smelly the
leviathan looming in the shadowsbeyond Hope's edge.
This evil monster eagerly waits in the darkness, ready to sink
(09:46):
its venomous teeth into one's joy during the most celebratory
moments of life. A child's birthday party, family
sporting events, Christmas morning baby showers, and of
course, this blasted creature completely rips apart Mother's
Day. My own mother died in June of of
2020. She was 89 years old.
(10:06):
And I recall a year after her death, I was in Walgreens to
pick up a prescription. And this was a few weeks before
Mother's Day and the prescription wasn't ready.
And I, I wandered over to the aisle where all the cars were
and it was Mother's Day and started thumbing through the
cards. And some were humorous and some
were serious and some were religious.
(10:28):
And I was trying to think about,you know, what kind of card
would I get from my mom? And then suddenly, and I vividly
remember this, I had this stock come to my mind.
What are you doing? I mean, she's, she's dead and
she's gone on to be with the Lord.
And that kind of started me for a moment.
For the first time, I wasn't going to be able to call her.
I wasn't going to be able to send her a card.
(10:48):
I was raised by a single mom andI had two siblings, an older
brother and a younger sister. And as I've gotten older, I've
learned more and more about how difficult it was to raise us.
And I remember her funeral. But on a happier note, a few
weeks ago I was at my nephew's wedding in Little Rock and was
(11:09):
able to see my sister and my brother really for the first
time. And then we were talking about
this. This was the first time that we
had been in the same place sincemom's funeral and how good it
was to be together on a happy occasion.
But we mentioning the fact abouthow much mom would enjoy this
moment to celebrate this with with Tyler and his bride.
(11:30):
Lauren, Mother's Day is about memories.
And again, families aren't perfect and churches aren't
perfect. But I found an article by Amy
Heniger pretty helpful. This was on the blog post for
Scott McKnight. He calls it Jesus Creed and she
says there are four things church leaders need to hear
about Mother's Day as soon as possible.
(11:51):
She says Jesus has no patience for idealizing motherhood.
For Jesus, the most important human role is disciple.
Every person is equally responsible to listen to God and
do what God is calling them to do in a change that's never been
accomplished previously in humanhistory.
The Commonwealth of love that Jesus brought is not built on
(12:12):
bloodlines and lineage. This new community is built on
the presence of the indwelling Spirit of God, which unites us.
I'm recording this around Mother's Day, but I think it's
useful at any time because we want to honor our Father and our
mother, but we don't have the same relationships to our
parents or our children. And I don't know how you're
(12:32):
going to to approach Mother's Day or how you did approach it,
whether you acknowledged it and went out to eat and had a great
time, which I hope you were ableto do, or for some who may have
preferred to, to skip over it. Let's remember that there are a
lot of emotions related to this day.
But to go back to the record of John, who said near the cross of
(12:53):
Jesus stood his mother. I think that's a great example
for us because that's where I want to be and I think that's
where we all need to be. And as we approach Mother's Day
and, and really each and every day, I say this to our people a
lot. Let's be kind because everyone
you meet is fighting a secret battle.
Thanks for listening.
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