A Great Mother (Mother’s Day)

Why?

For the same reason you spend a great deal of time searching through the Hallmark Cards trying to find the perfect card that will begin to convey how deeply you feel about your mother.

If that is a strain on us consider the strain that puts on us preachers trying to preach a message that will convey love, and express appreciation for all the good things our mothers have done for us.

The founder of Mother’s Day is Anna Jarvis who spent forty years developing the concept. Her drive to create the holiday reached fulfillment in 1914 with a presidential proclamation by Woodrow Wilson.

Anna had two fears, both of them well-founded.

She was afraid that her effort to honor mothers would be exploited by:

• The florist industry. (And They Have!)

• The greeting card industry. (And They Have!)

• The restaurant industry. (And They Have!)

• The telephone industry. (And They Have!)

However, we accept these exploitations because we want to use flowers, greetings cards, restaurant and the telephone and every other way we know to convey how we feel about our mothers.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Anna Jarvis who came up with the idea of Mother’s day.

Today I would like to preach about a GREAT MOTHER in the scriptures that every mother can relate to.

Look at Matthew 15:21-28. We read, “Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

Notice, in this passage, how any mother can relate to the mother of our text.

Let’s take a few minutes and see what the scriptures say about this Canaanite mother…

I. SHE HAD A PROBLEM.

In verse 21, we read, “Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.”

Do you know what the Lord found in Tyre and Sidon?

He found the same thing He found everywhere He went. He found a mother with some serious problems.

Illus: You could open a phone book and call any mother, at random, and you will probably talk to a mother who has some severe problems.

Illus. A mother that had three children gave her a lot of problems.

• She was asked, "If you had it all to do over again, would you still want children?"

• "Yes, she replied, but not the same ones."

Mothers are very special people in our lives

Illus: A Junior High science teacher lectured on the properties of magnets for an entire class.

• The next day he gave his students a quiz.

• The first question read like this: “My name begins with an “M,” has six letters, and I pick things up. What am I?”

• Half the kids in the class wrote, “Mother.”

Illus: That reminds me of the father who was trying to explain the concept of marriage to his 4-year-old daughter.

• He got out their wedding album, thinking visual images would help, and explained the entire wedding service to her.

• When he was finished, he asked if she had any questions.

• She pointed to a picture of the wedding party and asked, “Daddy is that when mommy came to work for us?”

Illus: I read about a woman who telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling. “Terrible,” came the reply over the wire.

• “My head’s splitting.

• My back and legs are killing me.

• The house is a mess.

• And the children are simply driving me crazy.”

• Very sympathetically the caller said, “Listen, go and lie down: I’ll come over right away and cook and clean up for you while you get some rest. By the way, how is your husband Sam?”

• The complaining housewife gasped, “I do not have a husband named Sam.”

• “My heavens,” exclaimed the first woman, “I must have dialed the wrong number!”