Loving And Celebrating Your Mom Jesus' Way Series

A poll was recently conducted to discover the top 5 things Mom’s say on a daily basis. Here’s the top 5.

#5- “Don’t make me turn this car around.”

#4- “ Hey, take it down a notch.”

#3- “How many times do I have to tell you”

#2- (It’s a tie) “Because I said so” and “Go back to bed.”

#1- “I love you.”

Being a parent is a God-sized task. LR Knost said: “We are imperfect human’s, raising imperfect humans in an imperfect world and that’s perfectly o.k.”

Yet, there was once exception to that statement and Mary, the mother of Jesus knew it because she actually raised the only perfect child.

Sometimes kids can be hard on the imperfect parent. Alden Nowlan said: “ The day the child realizes that his parents are not perfect he becomes an adolescent. The day he forgives them, he becomes an adult, the day he forgives himself he finally becomes wise.”

The interesting thing about Jesus was that not only did He forgive Mary for the unwritten Parenthood mistakes that don’t appear in the Bible; He became her forgiveness on the cross as He died for her and all the rest of us who were desperate for forgiveness.

Today, that’s where we find Jesus. We find Him on the cross. In John 19, we read about one of the tenderest moments in Jesus life. Here we get a glimpse of the heart of Jesus.

As he is gasping for His final breaths, and as utters his final seven statements from the cross, one statement includes a statement about the care for his Mother.

In this statement we discover how to love Mom’s Jesus’ way.

Transitional Sentence: To love our Moms like Jesus where do we start? We start by:

I. Honoring Her Sacrifice

vs. 26- “But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother.....

Explanation:

As we meet Mary at the foot of the cross, we see her sacrifice go full circle. Can you imagine what life was like for Mary?

She was espoused to a highly respected man. Mary and Joseph’s marriage, according to Jewish custom, would have been arranged. The whole family would have been involved in the agreement. This would have been a happy time for Mary.

Yet, imagine as a 13-year-old Middle Eastern girl suddenly experiencing a visit from an angel dispatched from heaven to bring you a message.

Now, she’s heard about angels from her parents and from services in the synagogue. She knows that angels are messengers from God. She’s heard about Abraham and the three messengers (Genesis 18). She knows that angels bring news of new life (Genesis 18:10) and of destruction (Genesis 18:20). What will this angel tell her?

The angel says, “Hail! The Lord is with you!”

The Lord is with you, what is that supposed to mean?

“Don’t be afraid,” the angel adds, “you have found favor with God. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary had heard of the Lord opening wombs that are barren (Genesis 18:10, Genesis 25:21, Genesis 29:31, Genesis 30:22, Judges 13:3, 1 Samuel 1:19), but to make a virgin pregnant? She asks, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Do you realize how disruptive and disturbing this would have been for Mary? To be found pregnant out of wedlock in those days had a sentence: The sentence was death.

Furthermore, Nazareth was a very small village that had a mixture of Jews common laborers. Outside of Nazareth is a stone quarry that has been recently discovered that dates back to Jesus day. Without a doubt, this was the place where Joseph got stones for his work.

His title was “Tekton” which means: “Stone worker, construction worker, worker with tools.” Massive towns nearby were being built. Joseph would have steady income for a longtime. Yet, straight out of childhood; God called her to carry His child, the Messiah, born to be the Savior of the world.

From the beginning God defined motherhood for Mary with one word: Sacrifice. Her first sacrifice started with the call to a cradle.

Throughout Jesus life and ministry she was sacrificing. When the enemies of Jesus spoke of Him they would say things like: “We were not born of fornication.” John 8:41