A Servant Mother Series

One of the paradoxes of life is the many famous people we don't even know, and many of

them are mothers. F.W. Boreham, the great Australian preacher, tells of the English

mother Mrs. Trollope who saw her husband and children dying of consumption under

her very eyes. She nursed them and supported them by writing novels. She had a life of

awful burdens, yet she wrote with such liveliness. When her books were successful she

inspired her children to write as well. They wrote more books than was ever produced

by a single family in England. This mother watched her husband, two sons, and her

daughter die, yet she made it a home of cheer and success.

History is full of great mothers like this that we will never know about, and the fact is

there are even famous mothers right in the Bible we know little or nothing about. If it

was not for Mother's Day that sends preachers searching the Bible for a different mother

to study each year, many of these mothers would be ignored forever. One of the most

famous mothers in the New Testament is the mother of Zebedee's sons James and John.

Mark tells us her name was Salome. She was a very famous person in the New

Testament, and she played a major role in the life of Jesus, but since we seldom put all

the pieces together she is an obscure person to most Christians. I hardly knew she

existed, but now I see her as one of the most marvelous mothers in the Bible.

Her husband Zebedee was a very successful and well known businessman with a large

fishing company. He had two sons working for him, and Peter and Andrew worked for

the company as well, and he had other hired hands besides. Salome was the mother of a

fairly wealthy family. She was upper middle class at least, and this explains her desire for

her two boys to be number one and two in the Master's kingdom. This text alone could

lead us to think of her as a spoiled rich mother who expected the best to be just handed to

her children, but the whole story demands that we look at a bigger picture of this mother.

She was one of the women who followed Jesus and who, because of her wealth,

supported Jesus and his disciples while they ministered to people. Matt. 27:56 lists her as

one of the women who followed Jesus and cared for his needs. She was one of the group

of women who stood at the cross in Mark 15, and she was one of three women who came

with spices to anoint the body of Jesus on the first Easter in Mark 16. In other words,

Salome was not a rich snob who thought she was better than anyone else. She was a loyal

servant of Jesus who followed him all the way when others forsook him. She used her

wealth right to the end in buying spices for the body of Jesus. She was a truly

remarkable disciple and one faithful to the end.

She is the only mother of the twelve that is referred to in the New Testament, and she

is the mother of two of the twelve that Jesus picked for his disciples, and these two were

in the inner circle with Peter. This tells you something about the character and quality of

Salome. She was one of Jesus' favorite mothers, and favorite people, so let's not be quick

to judge this lady, but learn from her as we examine her most motherly role in the life of

her sons. The first thing we note is-

I. HER REVERENCE.

The NIV is weak here and says she came to Jesus and kneeling down asked a favor.

This could be seen as some sort of courtesy. The KJV is really more accurate, for its says

she came worshipping him. The Greek word here is proskunew and is translated 59

times as worship in the New Testament. A few examples will show just how weak the

word kneeling is to describe it. It is the word for the wise men who came from the East to

worship him. It is the word Jesus used to respond to the devil's temptation when he said,

"Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God." It is the word Jesus used to say, "We must

worship the Father in spirit and in truth." It is the word in Heb. 1:6, "Let all the angels

of God worship him." It is the word for all the worship around the throne of God in heaven.

My point is, all the evidence makes it clear that Salome was a deeply committed godly

mother who acknowledged the Lordship of Jesus. We see here a sincere recognition of