Honoring Mom Series

Honoring Mom!

John 2:1-11 / May 13, 2013

Hello, my name is Marty Baker and I want to welcome to the Creek. Today is “the day”. It’s Mothers Day and we are here to celebrate.

Did you know that Mother's Day is the third most celebrated holiday of the year after Christmas and Easter? In fact, over 145 million cards are sent, $14.6 billion spent on gifts and dinners, 69% of those gifts are flowers, and more long distance calls will be made today than any other day of the year. So I begin this talk by saying, “Happy Mothers Day.” I hope that your day is special.

There’s no doubt that mothering is the toughest job that you will ever have and you love almost every minute of it. Today, we pause and say “thanks” for all of your hard work throughout the year. We probably don’t say “thanks” enough.

I read of a husband who was feeling guilty because he had not been very attentive to his wife. He decided to change. On his way home from work he bought a box of candy and some flowers to surprise his wife.

He walks up to the door and rings the doorbell. She opens it, and there he stands, candy in one hand, flowers in the other, singing, "Have I told you lately that I love you?"

Instantly she starts crying, big old tears just gushing out of her eyes. She sobs, "Oh, Harry! Everything went wrong today. We had a leak in the plumbing. The kids were terrible. The house is a wreck. And now you come home drunk!"

Hopefully that’s not the case today. Today we are here to celebrate motherhood, but I realize that some of you come into this auditorium with mixed emotions because you are carrying the pain of not being able to have children or the grief of a recent loss. It is my prayer that God will give you grace and will give you strength as you walk through this difficult season.

Over the past few years, I have used Mother’s Day as an opportunity to talk about famous women from the Bible. Today, I want to share a story about the most famous woman in the Bible, Mary, the mother of Jesus.

In John chapter two, we see an interesting story about Jesus and his mother at a family wedding. We don’t know exactly which member of his family was getting married, but we know that his Mother Mary felt somewhat responsible for the reception. In those days, the groom’s family bore the responsibility for the wedding celebrations. Let’s pick up the story in John 2.

John 2:1-2

1 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there,

2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

Now, let’s pause there for just a second. Weddings are a big deal. Girls start planning their weddings at what? Age three. At three years old, you were already thinking about it. There are some of you here today that are in the middle of wedding plans and you are starting to feel the pressure of it. How many episodes of “Say Yes to the Dress” have you watched? As a pastor, I take weddings pretty seriously. Now, I have been pretty fortunate. I haven’t goofed up too many weddings.

Not too long ago, however, I did have one little slip up. I came to the point when the groom was supposed to kiss his bride, but I forgot. In fact, I announced the new couple to the audience and was preparing to walk off the stage when I had this thought, “Something is missing.” Oh yea, the couple was supposed to kiss and seal the deal.

That’s bad, but not as bad as the pastor who was marrying a couple, and it was the guy’s second marriage. The pastor had married him and his first wife, as well, and about half way through this ceremony, the pastor looks right at the bride, and he calls her by the guy’s first wife’s name. When you make a mistake like that you are looking for a hole to crawl into at that moment.

Wedding Days are huge and in Jesus’ day they were a big deal as well. As a matter of fact, this chapter starts out, it says, “On the third day.” Well, what the third day meant was that Jesus and His disciples had been traveling for three days to get to this wedding.

Back in those days, it was common for people to travel by foot, by camel, by cart, whatever, and they would come from all over the region to a wedding. A wedding was not a one or two hour event. It was a week-long event. It was a huge celebration that involved a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, a lot of dancing, and good times in general. Verse three.