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Jesus' Mother: Part 2
Allen Webster
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She must have felt pain when Jesus preached His first sermon in His home church (Luke 4:16-29). The whole family was doubt-less in the synagogue that morning, eager for their Kinsman to make a good impression. Both their family name and their faith were involved. When, therefore, they heard “the gracious words” that Jesus spoke, their hearts must have been lifted. But soon the music was changed into discord. As if seeking to be offensive, the preacher told His congregation that in the long ago when God needed a boarding place for one of His greatest prophets He could not find one among the Jews, but had to go to a woman who lived in the land of Jezebel. He told them that though God was able to heal lepers, the only man in the days of Elisha who had faith to be healed was an outsider named Naaman. At this affront the congregation was changed into an angry mob and the preacher into a fugitive.1
She must have been deeply cut by the persistent rumor that many found credible was that Jesus was really crazy (Matthew 12:24; Luke 11:15-20). The family seems to have been embarrassed by it and on one occasion tried to take Him home (Matthew 12:46-47). They felt there was nothing for them to do but to go and bring Him home, and thus spare Him and them further shame. They had no trouble locating Him. He was at the center of a great multitude. Being unable to get near Him because of the crowd, they sent word that they with His mother and brothers were waiting for Him. Instead of coming out, He refused even to see them (Mark 3:22-32). This may have been “the last straw” with His brothers.
At the cross, she suffered because of the way He died. She took her stand by the cross, though she may have had to break with her other children in order to be there (none of them were there). What was that like as a mother? Her Son died in public, crucified between two thieves, treated like a criminal.
Every mother is concerned about her son’s clothes, especially when he goes out in public. Clothes in Jewish culture not only carried the usual purposes of comfort and modesty, but were of-ten symbolic. Barclay explains that Jewish men usually wore five garments: a headpiece, shoes, a robe, a girdle, and an undergarment. The headpiece was a turban-like cloth that kept the hair out of the face. Shoes were usually sandals. The ankle-length outer robe had slits up both sides and one in the top. The “girdle” was a belt that kept the outer robe close to the body. The undergarment was a soft, knee-length tunic worn next to the skin. John calls it a “Khiton” which was the tunic of a High Priest and it was seamless—made from one piece (John 19:23).2
It is possible that Mary made this robe for Jesus. Someone had taken pains to weave it and it makes sense that it was Mary. Customarily mothers hand-made tunics for sons which were presented when they left home. This robe in a way symbolized a mother’s hopes and dreams for her son.
One of the benefits of being assigned “crucifixion duty” to a Roman soldier was that they got to keep the executed man’s be-longings. Normally, they split everything equally, which would mean in this case that Jesus’ outer robe would be cut into quarters. But this time, each soldier agreed to “all of it or none of it.” The soldier who won the “coin toss” for it had no idea how truly precious that robe was. Perhaps Mary wiped a tear away as he walked away with a garment she took months to weave with her own hands.
Many walked by to insult Jesus. He wasn’t crucified on a side
street, but outside the main city gate where vast Passover crowds
were passing by. Imagine the horror of Mary standing by the cross
and looking up at her Son, naked (or nearly so) before the whole
world (John 19:26). How the insults must have stung her heart. She
must have bit her tongue to keep from answering them back and
defending her Son. As Jesus hung there, and she watched, both their
hearts must have broken in unison.
Perhaps her mind drifted back to that night in a stable three
decades before. She had such great hopes for this Son of miraculous
birth. Even before His birth she “treasured up all these things and
pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She must have rehearsed a
thousand times the words of shepherds, the prophecies in the temple,
and the words of the wise men. She must have lain awake at night
replaying Him confounding the Jewish scholars as a twelve-year-old,
His wedding miracle, and His synagogue prophecy that “The Spirit of
the Lord God is upon me . . .” (Luke 4:18-19). How many sermons had
she heard Him preach with her own ears? How many of His mighty works
had her eyes seen?
Now it all came down to this. Beaten. Hated. Victim. His last possession on earth just a trophy to a gambler. As the minutes ticked by that Friday morning Simeon’s prophetic words about the Jesus came true as they had never before (Luke 2:33-35).
A MOTHER’S PERSEVERANCE. In the December 31, 1989 Chicago Tribune, the editors printed their photos of the decade. One of them, by Michael Fryer, captured a grim fireman and paramedic carrying a fire victim away from the scene. The blaze in Chicago in December 1984 at first seemed routine. Later firefighters discovered the bodies of a mother and five children huddled in the kitchen of an apartment. Fryer said the firefighters surmised, “She could have escaped with two or three of the children but couldn’t decide whom to pick. She chose to wait with all of them for the firefighters to arrive. All of them died of smoke inhalation. There are times when you just don’t leave those you love.”
Mothers are there when no one else is (cf. Isaiah 40:30-31). At the Pan American Games, champion United States diver Greg Louganis was asked how he coped with the stress of international diving competition. He replied that he climbs to the board, takes a deep breath, and thinks, “Even if I blow this dive, my mother will still love me.”
Footnotes