Sermonmay132007
Hillsborough Reformed Church
May 13, 2007
Mothers Day
“Bible Moms”
Bible moms did not have it easy.
Once upon a time, the Hebrews lived in the land of Egypt. They had a good life there and were favored by the Egyptians. An ancestor of theirs, Joseph, had saved the empire when a terrible famine struck. Joseph was able to foresee the coming of this famine, and helped the Egyptians store up food in the good years, so that when the famine struck, Egypt had more than enough food. Not only did the Egyptians eat well because of the planning of Joseph, they had abundant food and could sell it to the desperately hungry people who came to Egypt to buy food. Egypt grew richer and richer.
But as time went by, the Egyptians forgot about Joseph and all he had done for them. The Hebrew people were having many children and the Hebrews were growing stronger and stronger. Articles began appearing in the Cairo Times, forecasting the day when the Hebrews would outnumber the Egyptians. This scared the Egyptians. “What if they turn against us?” they said. “What if one of our enemies makes an alliance with them?
So Pharaoh ordered that all male babies born to the Hebrews should be put to death and the Hebrews were enslaved.
One Hebrew mother, knew the Egyptians were going to come for her baby boy sooner or later. So she did something desperate. She made a basket for him, a tiny basket-like boat. She made it out of the long, strong papyrus reeds that grow on the banks of the Nile River. This young mom coated the basket of reeds with pitch, and set it afloat off the river bank.
The woman’s daughter, an older girl, watched to see what would become of her brother. What a sad and desperate time this was. How hard for a mother to set her baby afloat in the powerful Nile River. What if the basket tipped over and the baby drowned? What if he simply floated there for days on end and die of exposure to the sun and heat? Even more horrible, what if one of the many crocodiles living in Nile and sunning along the bank sniffed out this morsel in a basket and ripped him up and ate him? But the baby boy’s mother had no choice. If she kept him at home, Pharaoh’s soldiers would come for sure and execute her precious baby.
As the baby’s sister watched the little basket bobbing by the river bank, an amazing thing happened….Pharaoh’s own DAUGHTER came along, saw the basket and brought it ashore. Imagine how surprised she was to find a baby in it! Pharaoh’s daughter realized this must be a Hebrew baby. The baby cried and that made Pharaoh’s daughter compassionate. The sister of the baby approached Pharaoh’s daughter and asked if she could help by finding a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. “Yes!” And the incredible thing is the girl ran to get her mother, and brought her to nurse the baby – thus the baby’s wet nurse, now living in the palace, was the boy’s own mother!
Bible moms did not have an easy time of it.
Remember Hannah. Her husband Elkenah had two wives. One had no problem getting pregnant and gave birth to many children. Hannah could not have children. She would go to the Temple to pray, but nothing happened. Once she was so distraught the priest, Eli, accused her of being drunk!
Remember Mary, mother of Jesus. It had been foretold to her that a sword would pierce her heart. And indeed, she was devastated when her dear son, who was such a good man, was arrested on trumped up charges by people who hated him, beaten and humiliated, and finally crucified like a common criminal.
Bible moms did not have an easy time of it.
I read this past week of a woman in her fifties who lives in an age restricted community. Her husband was a laborer who never made much money, and who was now unable to work at all due to a disabling illness. This woman stilled worked. They had just enough to pay a mortgage on a very modest home in the age restricted community and they would probably be able to make it the rest of their lives on their meager resources. But there was a problem. The problem was their five year old granddaughter. The woman’s daughter was a drug abuser and had deserted her daughter, leaving her to her mother and father, who now cared for their five-year-old granddaughter in their tiny home. But the home is in an age restricted community. No kids allowed – period. So they were being forced to sell by the association. But the market has declined and they cannot get for their house what they owe in the mortgage for it. Too bad. They must move out.
It isn’t easy being a mom today either.
I have little doubt that if it wasn’t for devoted moms, our species would vanish after one generation. All of the care and sacrifice and hard work! It’s amazing.
Here in our church we have mom’s doing miracles – working full time, raising kids, keeping a home and going to school on top of it all! And it doesn’t stop there – they serve in the school as volunteers, in the community and are church leaders! We have grand-moms who spend a whole work week, each week, caring for grandkids, so their sons and daughters can get a start in life.
I ask some of these moms sometimes what we can do to help. Not much, since part of the problem is that they are already committed for almost every minute of every day.
I wish I could lift your burden, but in fact, I am going to add something this morning!
Many of the moms of the Bible had a hard time because they lived counter-cultural lives. That is, they did not go along with the mainstream around them, and they stood for something different and something better.
That certainly applies to the women in Jesus’ life! It also applies to some of the women in Moses’ life. It applies to Hannah. When God at last gave her a son, little Samuel, she did not keep him, but dedicated him to the Lord and gave him away to the Temple for a lifetime of service to God.
And that’s the same thing I am asking you moms to do today.
Be counter cultural – stand for Jesus. Our culture and our country are not the kingdom of God. Jesus brings us into the kingdom of God. God has made us holy people. That word, “holy,” means “different.”
We are called to live a different way.
You have heard the old cliché that the “hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” There is much, much truth in that. Our children become, in large measure what we try to form them to be. Not always. There are families faithful to Jesus in the church whose children reject the church. It happens. I don’t know why, but it does. But generally speaking, our children will value the things we have instilled in them as valuable.
And much of that falls on moms, because moms are the better and more frequently nurturers of children.
You can instill in your child your love for Jesus Christ. You can instill in your child a hunger for and knowledge of the Bible. You can have the awesome privilege of teaching your child to pray. You can celebrate with your child an active church life. You can give you child Christ-like values – values that lay self aside and stand with the needy and weak and powerless.
Will you have an easy time of it? No. It has never been easy. Did you read in the paper a few weeks ago the calculation of what a mom’s salary would be for all she does? Over $132,000 per year! Now don’t get excited mom’s because most of you don’t have a husband who could PAY you that! But it shows the hard work you do, as chauffeur, coach, mentor, cook, organizer, planner, financier, and psychiatrist! It has never been easy. The culture will fight you – the culture will be teaching your child to get ahead, to think about himself, to watch out for number one, that what matters in life is what you get, not what you give, that the Christian faith is a waste of time, that God isn’t REALLY watching, that it’s okay to bend the rules as long as you don’t get caught, the great people are the popular people, or the powerful people, or the wealthy people. The culture will try to take your child away, just lie Pharaoh did. And as if that isn’t enough, your own child will make it hard for you. Sunday School is boring. I don’t want to go to church. Your child will be drawn to the less savory attractions of our culture. There is music that is unsavory, there are things on the TV that are offensive to anything godly, there are authors and leaders and celebrities who will fight for the allegiance of your child. Don’t give in to them. Several decades back, the Boy Scouts ran a campaign looking to recruit more volunteer leaders. The ad showed the picture of boy obviously looking for help or direction. The caption read, “If you don’t have the time to teach a boy the right way, don’t worry. Someone will be glad to teach him the wrong way.” Amen to that. Don’t underestimate the forces of our culture that contradict our God.
Yesterday I was reading a piece from a relationship coach (Andra Medea) about how to deal with unpleasant situations when you go to visit mother on Mothers’ Day. This coach advises you to learn from the primates from which we have evolved. She shows that primates use three responses – authority, belligerence or submission. She teaches her clients how to learn from primates how to deal with family members.
I’m sorry, instead of looking back at apes and chimps, why don’t we look ahead and learn from the Master – Jesus – how to solve our relationship problems? Jesus teaches us using another tool – the tool is love – Andra the relationship coach pulls from her tool box ways to make people to conform to your will. Jesus pulls from his tool box godly skills – love, mercy, compassion, kindness. Which world do you want? A world where you get your way by staring down others, or a world where people grow together in love? It is a major choice and makes all the difference.
Don’t underestimate the forces in our culture that contradict God and don’t underestimate the damage they do.
Take a page from some of the Bible moms, like Hannah and Mary, who lived with faith in God. They continued praying, worshiping, serving, no matter what idiocy raged around them. And the world has been changed by their faithfulness.
Mom’s what you are doing is holy, when you are leading your children to Jesus. Don’t cave! As if you didn’t have enough to do already, on Sunday, your one morning to sleep in and do something for yourself, it’s up, getting breakfast, pushing the kids to get dressed and into the min-van, listening to the arguments. Settling a spat between sibs in the back seat, carting them off to church, and yourself singing in the choir, helping out, running a program, teaching a class, or just chatting with your sisters and brothers in Christ.
There is nothing you are doing more important than that. What is at stake is eternity for our kids. What is at stake is letting Jesus give them the best.
Be good to yourself and let Jesus shine on your children. As it says in the Bible, “They will rise up and call you blessed.” Maybe not this morning, but someday, they will drop to their knees and say, “Thank you, Lord, for giving me a godly mom.”
Fred D. Mueller
Exodus 2
1Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
John 19:23-27
23When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. 24So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says,
“They divided my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.”
25And that is what the soldiers did.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
