Good Friday

John 19:26-27 - Tre Ore — Word Three - April 18, 2014
Jesus Honors His Father & Mother

Certain things can cause a man to shift around his priorities.  When I was a kid, I remember experiencing the conscious epiphany that it was time in my life to put away playing with my favorite childhood toys.  I loved them and the times I had with them.  But it was time.  It was kind of sad, when I think about it.  But we all grow up and put away old things that once made our young hearts happy.  Now, I didn’t stop playing with my toys because of some duty to grow up.  No one urged me or hinted that I should begin acting my age.  It wasn’t that at all.  Other things just became more important to me, and I knew that I wanted to pursue those things instead.  It’s like when a man leaves his mother and father to be joined to his wife.  He doesn’t need to be told.  He isn’t forced out of his parents’ home.  His desire for his bride simply renews and shifts his priorities. 

Such is life.  We go through stages, and we make several adjustments to our priorities as we go.  And such is death.  Our stages eventually end.  And when a man lies dying, a much more severe adjustment often takes place than when he came of age or got married.  Suddenly, what seemed important for decades, even those things that defined him to his friends, such as fishing or some sports team or even something nobler like a good political cause, all these are suddenly set aside like childhood toys that aren’t important anymore.  Because they’re not.  There’s no duty that tells a dying man to stop caring so much about earthly things he once loved.  Just the reality of ever after and his eternal soul’s future take sudden precedence over everything else.  It’s natural. 

The fact that Jesus, who in dutiful obedience to his Father in heaven, while pouring himself out as a drink offering for the sins of the world, suffering death and single-mindedly enduring the painful wrath that our transgressions had brought upon him — the fact that even here while the highest priority ever measured on earth was being addressed by God in the flesh — the fact that Jesus still tended to the mother of his childhood speaks volumes about what his priorities really always were.  He cared for his mother.  He loved his friend.  His concern for their eternal salvation did not in his mind make their temporal comfort in life of no importance.  On the contrary, the Church still honors today these words of our Savior from the cross that remind us that we can cast all our burdens on him, because he cares for us. 

When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.

When the Son of God became man, he took the cares and duties of a man and truly made them his own.  He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit in order to win our salvation, and so this divine goal was his delight since childhood even more than toys.  Yet, at the same time, he was incarnate in the womb of Mary, and so honoring her as her human Son was also his delight since childhood.  These two priorities did not conflict.  Mary didn’t stop being his concern just because he was on the cross.  It would have been impossible for him to go about his Father’s business and not at the same time show concern for his mother. 

We saw this in part when Jesus was a boy, and had been in the temple for three days.  He had not been disobedient or uncaring.  Mary should have considered who Jesus’ true Father was.  But Jesus nonetheless went home and subjected himself to her and Joseph.  So likewise, even in his death, when his Father’s business was being completed, it pleased his Father that his Son still tend to his mother’s every need.  Even in the midst of procuring our salvation, our Savior concerns himself with earthly affairs.  Because he loves his own.  He loves them to the end. 

Jesus honored his mother.  He had been perfectly dutiful.  He owed her nothing.  But he loved her.   He went beyond what any commandment could require.  He had not done her wrong by attending to his duty to die anymore than a son does wrong in leaving home to get married.  She would have been provided for by other family.  She was plenty set.  But over and above what the 4^th Commandment required, and even in the midst of death, Jesus tended to his mother’s happiness.  And in the process he cared from the disciple he loved. 

And this is of great comfort to us.  Jesus does not abandon his concern for our temporal wellbeing just because he is more concerned about our spiritual wellbeing.  Although, obviously, our eternal life is more important than this life.  But, no, by giving Mary to John, to be under his filial care, Jesus showed that his thirst for our salvation could in no way conflict with his desire to provide our every need.  And what are those needs?  What grieves you this Good Friday?  What troubles you?  Are you a mother who has not seen her prayers for her children answered like she had hoped?  Are you a father who must see his son or daughter or wife unhappy or sick, and cannot do anything to help?  Do you have money problems?  Is someone dying?  Are you a widow or widower?  Perhaps you have a concern that you can trace to a sin you have committed.  Maybe you don’t readily see a connection.  But whatever cause for concern rises up in this cursed world, know that he who took the curse upon himself, even from the cross takes all your cares upon himself as well – just like he cared for Mary. 

Sometimes it seems like the gospel does not really pertain to what is troubling us at the moment.  We hear the wonderful news that has brought us such joy before, and we feel nothing.  Whatever bothers us won’t stop occupying our mind – and maybe these concerns do indeed remain in our dying hour.  But this does not say anything about the power of the gospel – just because we don’t always see how it speaks to our earthly cares.  It only means that we should listen all the more as we stand beneath the cross, and consider what it was that Jesus was accomplishing there. 

Mary witnessed the crucifixion of her Son.  What did she think it was accomplishing?  The sweetest Boy who had brought joy to her younger years, the kindest Man who brought honor to her home, and the wisest Teacher who gave her knowledge of God – mocked, falsely accused, tortured, and executed before her eyes.  All she could see was the injustice, the pain, and the fact that she was losing him.  This is the trouble that occupied her mind.  And she was helpless.

But Jesus wanted Mary to consider what else was happening on the cross.  He was not up there as her little Boy suffering just to make her sad.  He was up there as the eternal Son of God in the flesh making atonement for the world.  He was up there to bring her great joy in the forgiveness of her sins. 

No mother should have to see what Mary saw.  But for a sinner to see it – ah, there is great blessing in this.  She may have been losing her Son; but she was gaining a Savior.  When Jesus gave John the charge to care for his mother as his own, he was teaching Mary that their relationship to one another was forever changed.  No longer should she regard him as her Child, but as the One who makes her a child of God.  No longer would her yes and no determine what he would do.  No, from here on, his Father in heaven would have the final say.  And what he required was for Mary’s good.  He desired to leave all earthly relationships so that he might be joined to the holy Christian Church in a much more precious union. 

Mary needed more than for Jesus to be her Son.  She needed him to be her Savior.  She needed more than for her family to be intact.  She needed to be a part of a new family.  And that is exactly what Jesus did when he rearranged things.  Mary and John were now mother and son.  But more importantly, they were brother and sister.  Likewise, Jesus creates us to be a new family.  Through Baptism, we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection, and so are made sons and daughters of God.  This means that the faithful Christians sitting here this afternoon are your real family.  God has made them to be your brothers and sisters.  He has called you out of the world, out of your family of the flesh into his family of the Holy Spirit.  As Paul writes, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow-citizen with the saints and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19-20).   

When Jesus was teaching one time, he gave Mary a foretaste of this new reality.  It must have stung a little bit at the time, but it would later bring her immense comfort:

“Look, Your mother and Your brothers are here to speak with You,” somebody said. But Jesus answered, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?”  And pointing to his disciples he said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48-50)

Jesus did the will of his Father.  We do the will of the Father when we believe that he has paid for our sins, and bought us back from sin and death and hell.  By faith we are children of God.  That is what God calls us.  And as surely as Mary went home with John at the word of Jesus, so we go home justified when God says it is so. 

Just as Jesus created a new relationship between John and Mary, he has also created a new relationship between us.  We are to love each other as family, and take care of each other as family.  We are to be to one another more important than anyone else.  Those in your family of the flesh who are not Christians, however dear to you they may be, are not “family” in the truest sense.  If they will be, they must have a relationship not by blood, but by faith in Christ.  They must hear the word that God’s children hold dearer that life itself. 

Mary is blessed, and remains so through all generations, as she herself sang in the Magnificat.  So we can with the woman in the crowd, raise our voice to Jesus and proclaim: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”  But we do well to remember how Jesus responded to this: More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28).  This is what made Mary and what makes us so blessed.  And it is the one hope for our children as well.  It is our priority in life above all earthly cares and in the hour of death it will be our eternal stay. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.