The Third Word from the Cross: "Mother, Behold Your son..."

photo by Georgie Panwelo / flickr

The first Sunday of Lent we began a sermon series on the seven last words that Jesus spoke from the Cross. The first word was a word of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them…” The second word was spoken to a dying thief: “Today you shall be with me in paradise.”

Today’s word is the first of the seven words we find in John’s gospel. It is a powerful word. The scene is the cross. Four women stand there. Mary, Jesus’ mother; her sister Salome; Mary, the wife of Clopas; and Mary Magdalene. Four women. And with them stands one lone disciple: John. One gospel calls him the disciple whom Jesus loved. 

Four out of the five standing there were women. What in the world would we do without the women? Early in the story there is an Elizabeth and a Mary. Both pregnant. There there is that old woman, a prophetess named Anna that we meet in the temple shortly after Jesus’ birth. Of course all twelve of the disciples  were male but on the ledge of a well in a public place he asked water of a woman with a spotty reputation. You weren’t supposed to do that. When they threw a woman at his feet—caught in adultery. Jesus knelt down and wrote in the sand  and lifted her up and sent her on her way singing. Once again our Lord  broke all their rules in a single action.

Before the crucifixion our Lord’s feet were washed by another woman—much to Judas’ horror. The money spent on the perfume poured on Jesus’ feet could have been spent on the Building Program or feeding the hungry. Judas whispered “What a waste!” Right before his crucifixion Jesus stopped at the home of Mary and Martha when they had lost their brother. And the book says Jesus wept. And so at the cross there are four women and one man. If that were not enough—Mary was there to take her boy’s broken body down from the cross. But on Sunday—Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and “other women” the text says—they were there to anoint Jesus’ dead body. Last at the cross—first at the tomb. Wee know how the rest of that story ends Easter. Easter. The first European convert was a wealthy woman named Lydia. But the names geo on and on. Take the women out of the book and it would be poorer indeed.

But take the women out of our lives and where would we be? Florence Nightingale…Dorothy Day…Rose Parks…Mother Theresa…Oprah…Maya Angelou. And to those we might add your mother and mine and those thousands and thousands of others. Why we’d have to fold up the church without the women.

When our church was trying to introduce women deacons for the first time one of our women came up and said, "I'm against this woman deacons thing." "Why?" I asked. "Because we still need to give the men around here a little something to do."

photo by Chema Concellon / flickr

Working on this sermon I remembered there was always a Mary in my life. My own mother working 7:00 to 3:00 in a cotton mill every day until her retirement. Always. In High School I had this Journalism teacher who put up with my adolescent antics. She believed in me and nudged me to write. Nobody in my family had ever been to college and so one day she said, “Roger, I think you ought to go to college.” In the first church I had, next door was yet another Mary. She would knock on our door late in the evening and want to know if she could help with the baby. She knew we had no idea what to do. Her real name was Rosa Claire. And after a stormy business meeting she would come to our house bringing her own special communion:  unfermented grape juice and fruit cake. She would come and stay just long enough to lift us up and tell us it was gonna be all right. Years later the last time I went back there to preach I looked out and there she was. Victim of a stroke. Mouth drawn. She had aged. And shed looked up at me and smiled as best she could.  I could go on and on. And so could you.

photo by nicoreto / flickr

This third word is: Behold. Look. See what is there. Mary, Jesus’ mother needed someone to take care of her. John, his disciples needed somebody to take care of. Sometimes the reverse is true. Mary needed to take care of somebody and John needed to be taken care of. I want you to look closely for around that splintered cross Jesus created a whole new family.

The third word that came down is a command really. “Behold!” Look See. Open your eyes. See beyond the suffering. See beyond the confusion and awfulness of that day. See beyond the soldiers that gambled for his garments. See beyond every diversion of that dark Friday afternoon. Jesus saw his mother. Jesus saw his disciple, John. What would happen to them? “Mother look at your new son, John. John, look at your new mother.” This is a remarkable word. Even dying Jesus transformed every relationship. 

I think we’ve got our eyes closed today. Not much real looking. Little beholding. We’re so busy propping up the NRA we don’t see. What? All those Mamas from Sandy Hook to Parkland, Florida. Politicians don’t see them they see that $178,000 and a free parking place at Reagan National Airport. See. We Democrats and Republicans need to see what ought to be as plain as the nose on our faces. We are to be a United people and all we’re doing today is gouging at each other. Calling students that hid under desks and scared for their lives—actors. God help us when we don’t see. This third word is a word of relationship. We’ve got over 700,000 who think they will be forced to leave college and service and jobs and family and be sent back to a country where many of them cannot even speak the language and never remember living there. Look. These young people called Dreamers are as good as they get. And we are going to throw them away. See. I picked up Time Magazine last week.The editors sent a fine photographer James Nachtwey all over the country to capture pictures of real people caught up in this Opioid crisis. In 2016 alone we had 64,000 people dying every year from drugs. That is more than all these wars we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and the entire Vietnam war. Look.  It’s not pretty. One

Memorial service for seventeen gunned down in Parkland, Florida
photo by SacredHeartPix / flickr

mother said, “The fact that he’s still alive means that there’s hope.” Fifty miles away her 31 years old boy Billy sleep beneath an overpass in Boston. Another mother in that same article talked about her 24-year-old-daughter Michaela who was struggling with and addiction before she died in September. “Even though she was drug-addicted, she was just so alive. She was funny, she was smart. She was a 5-ft.1-in., 103-lb. dynamite.”

I know this is depressing business. But the third word says: “Look.” and maybe if we look long and hard enough we might just begin to do something about what matters most in this country. People. That’s the bottom line. Remember what Jesus said in the last parable he ever gave? Remember? He said, “Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these…you do it unto me.” And they said, “Least? Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?” And Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you as you did not do it to one of the least of these you did not do it to me.” We cannot avert our eyes if we follow this Lord Jesus.And since we’re talking about family he also said, “By this they will know you are my disciples, when you take care of each other.” Another version says: “When you love one another.” It starts right here…and stretches out to wherever you go.

Look around you this morning. Open your eyes, Jesus said. What do you see? Look around you. Look at this choir. We’ve got some kids here—look, really look. And we’ve got some couples and middle-aged people and old folks. Look around you. We have no unearthly idea what some people have been through. You and I have no idea what dangers, toils and snares some of the people in this very boom are sloushing through right now. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old or in between—Conservative or Liberal for rich or poor or scared or self-righteous or mean or kind as can be. This third word says that we are given to each other. Mother, behold your son. John, behold your mother. The only connection we can really claim today is this cross up there—a plus sign—connecting us one and all. With ties that are stronger than blood when properly understood. 

There is a very famous painting in which Mary, the mother stands at the end of Good Friday with all the pathos and sadness etched into her face. In her hand she carries a crown of thorns. John holds her up. The artist, I guess is trying to say that as she stood there to the very end. And as they took the broken body down she said, “Can I have that?” And they gave her his crown. And she kept it. In the painting John leads her away and she holds the crown of thorns in her hand. And the scripture says: “From that hour on, the disciple took her to his own home.” Jesus never wants anyone abandoned. 

This has been a hard sermon to preach. There are so many things out there I would just as soon not see. But we have to put down where we are with what we have beside this word that came down from the cross. It was not only for Mary and John. It is, I believe a word for us.

I think the story I am about to tell says what I am trying to say. It was Christmastime for the Preschoolers. And they had been taking clay and molding it into little bowls to give to their parents for Christmas. They worked for days. Sometimes they messed them up and they would have to start all over again. But they were so excited. They took those little clay bowls and put them in a kiln. On the last day before the Christmas holidays the teacher gave everyone their bowls. The kids had told their parents for weeks that we have a surprise for you for Christmas. Can’t tell you what it is—but it will be a Christmas surprise. So as school let out one little boy ran fast, trying to put on his coat and holds surprise at the same time. And he stumbled and fell down. The bowl slipped out of his hand and broke. No. No. No. He couldn’t believe it. And then he began too cry. His Daddy came over to him, patted him on the shoulder and said, “Son it doesn’t matter.” But the Mama came behind him, took the son in her arms and held him tight. She said, “Oh, but it does matter…it matters a great deal.”

And this is why we have dealt with this hard word. It matters, you see—it matters a great deal.

photo by Chema Concellon / flickr

(This sermon was preached one the third Sunday of Lent, March 4, 2018 at the First Presbyterian Church, 
Pendleton, SC)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com