Mother’s Day Sermon for CATM – May 11, 2008
Mom stories. We all have them. My first memory is my mom…yelling…but not as you might expect. It was a yell that saved my life. I was three years old and I had been a passenger in one of those old Volkswagon vans from the sixties on a lengthy journey from Toronto to Mexico.
We must have been driving for a great many hours in the interior of Mexico and we were to stop in an area well outside the city. As soon as the van stopped and the side door opened, I jumped out and started running. All that pent-up kid energy just begging to be released. So I ran and ran and ran…and then I heard the piercing cry: “MATTHEW!!!” I still remember the way that shriek ran up my spine. I stopped in my tracks and turned around.
My mom ran up to me from some distance. I had no idea what was wrong. My mom took my hand firmly and walked me a few feet from where I had stopped, up over a slight rise in the landscape.
On the other side, just a few feet away from where I stopped, was a massive chasm…a deep gorge that had no bottom. A couple of more seconds of running and I would have been free-falling to my death…at the age of three. That’s my earliest memory.
So, you might imagine. I REALLY appreciate my mom. Moms. Wow…are they important. Sometimes our moms are why we are still alive. Of course, our moms are why we’re here in the first place. And you know, moms are from God.
There’s a reason that moms know how or learn how to be moms. Some of that may be from how moms remember how they were raised. But a big part of it is that a mother’s love ideally is a lot like God’s love, a mother’s heart toward her children is a lot like God’s heart toward His children…towards you and toward me.
I recognize that mother’s day and father’s day brings mixed emotions to many, or perhaps one or both of those days is only a source of painful memories.
I recognize that and I get how deep that hurt goes. So you may be hearing or watching the message today while seeing red.
I just want to say that I understand and appreciate that. Nevertheless I feel that celebrating motherhood today is an important thing, not the least because we can get a glimpse into the mother-heart of God that I believe we need in order to balance what for many of us is, with good biblical reason a “Father” orientation when we think of God
The first thing I want to say is that, like God’s love, a mother’s love is a birthing love.
No matter how sensitive and understanding a guy tries to be, he, or I, will never understand from a place of experience the travail that a woman goes through to give birth. Reka, a former YSM staff member, just had her baby just the other day…
baby Leya I think is her name…and Maryellen, who was with her for most of the birthing process, was reveling at Reka’s strength and just how much incredibly hard work she put into delivering the baby.
It boggles the mind…and I’ve heard from more than one husband and father how their respect for the mother of their children became infinite once they had witnessed them giving birth.
God’s love is a birthing love too…you see, love is creative. Love creates. Love multiplies. Love blossoms. From the DNA of the man and the woman, God brings forth new life.
Love is creative…therefore love births. God, of course, is the author of our creation, the One who creates the conditions under which new life can spring forth.
But he is also the one who forms us in our mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13-16 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body”.
You are a God-created person. Wonderfully made. Now
Could a mother ever forget her child? The prophet Isaiah asks that. God says: "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands”. [Isaiah 49:15-16]
Could God never fail to remember us, either when we’re in the womb, or when we’re in some other stage of life? We may feel forgotten. I remember as a teenager feeling very much forgotten and alone and irrelevant.
We may feel that God is absent, but just because we feel it, that doesn’t make it so. God always wants to reach us with the knowledge that we matter; that our lives count.
That’s where Christian parenting comes in. That’s where we, church, come in. To remind our children that no matter what they may think, God remembers them…and He values lives and He wants everyone to come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
That’s how I found out that God loves me. That God is. A few people who loved Jesus dared to tell me the truth.
The truth that God made the world, that He made me, and that He wanted to do for me spiritually what He had for me physically.
I was created physically; now God wanted to recreate me spiritually, to give me new birth…that is like the love of a mother…to give the best of everything…to open up every possibility to her child. To want fullness of life for her children.
Have you ever seen this word: El Shaddai? This is one of many names for God found in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament that is normally translated into the English with the phrase, “God Almighty”.
So El-Shaddai means God Almighty. Now, the “El” points to the power of God Himself. “Shaddai” is derived from another word meaning breast, which implies that Shaddai is one who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies. It is God as El who helps, but it is God as Shaddai who abundantly blesses with all manner of blessings.
God wants to bless us and provide in abundance all of our needs. Only an all powerful God can bless all mankind with all manner of blessings.
Sometimes the feminine aspects of God are often understated in churches. Let’s look at some key scriptures to show what I mean. Just think of these scriptures: [Lk 13:34] “…How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” This is a profoundly female image.
God’s mother-love for his child is faithful and unconditional. God knows what it is to carry a child in the womb, to cry out in labor, to give birth. (Dt. 32:18 “You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth”
God’s yearning for humanity in our lostness is expressed in feminine imagery: Is. 42:14 "For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant”.
God’s attachment to his child is just as strong as any nursing mother’s: Jer. 31:20 Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him," declares the LORD.”
God gives motherly comfort: Is. 66:12-13 For this is what the LORD says: "I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."
Now someone said this: “The mother’s heart is the child’s classroom”. [Henry Ward Beecher] There are so many ways in which a mother nurtures a child. From moments after a child is born when the child can be feeding from the mother, to a thousand other opportunities in a child’s development.
A recent study in the U.S. asked Christian teenagers and people in their 20’s for whom personal faith in Christ was central…the study asked them why they were people of faith. Many said it was due to the influence of their fathers. Many, many more said that the primary means of the transmission of faith was their mothers.
Four scholars were arguing over Bible translations. One said he preferred the King James Version because of its beauty and eloquent old English. Another said he liked the New American Standard Version for its literalism and how it moves the reader from passage to passage with confident feelings of accuracy from the original text.
The third scholar was sold on the New Living Translation for its use of contemporary phrases and idioms that capture the meaning of difficult ideas.
After being quiet for a moment, the fourth scholar admitted: “I have personally preferred my mother’s translation.” When the other scholars started laughing, he said, “Yes, she translated the Scriptures. My mom translated each page of the Bible into life. It is the most convincing translation I have ever read.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, “Men are what their mothers make them” and an old Spanish proverb says, “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.”
I close with a story Erma Bombeck tells of God in the act of creating mothers. She says that on the day God created mothers He had already worked long overtime. And an angel said to Him, "Lord, you sure are spending a lot of time on this one."
The Lord turned & said, "Have you read the specs on this model? She is supposed to be completely washable, but not plastic. She is to have 180 moving parts, all of them replaceable. She is to have a kiss that will heal everything from a broken leg to a broken heart. She is to have a lap that will disappear whenever she stands up. She is to be able to function on black coffee & leftovers. And she is supposed to have six pairs of hands."
"Six pairs of hands," said the angel, "that’s impossible." "It’s not the six pairs of hands that bother me." said the Lord, "It’s the three pairs of eyes. She is supposed to have one pair that sees through closed doors so that whenever she says, `What are you kids doing in there?’ she already knows what they’re doing in there."
"She has another pair in the back of her head to see all the things she is not supposed to see but must see. And then she has one pair right in front that can look at a child that just goofed & communicate love & understanding without saying a word."
"That’s too much." said the angel, "You can’t put that much in one model. Why don’t you rest for a while & resume your creating tomorrow?"
"No, I can’t," said the Lord. "I’m close to creating someone very much like myself. I’ve already come up with a model who can heal herself when she is sick - who can feed a family of six with one pound of hamburger - & who can persuade a nine year old to take a shower."
Then the angel looked at the model of motherhood a little more closely & said, "She’s too soft." "Oh, but she is tough," said the Lord. "You’d be surprised at how much this mother can do."
"Can she think?" asked the angel. "Not only can she think," said the Lord, "but she can reason & compromise & persuade."
Then the angel reached over & touched her cheek. "This one has a leak," he said. "I told you that you couldn’t put that much in one model." "That’s not a leak," said the Lord. "That’s a tear."
"What’s a tear for?" asked the angel. "Well it’s for joy, for sadness, for sorrow, for disappointment, for pride." "You’re a genius," said the angel. The Lord looked somber and said, "Oh, but I didn’t put it there."
Mothers are our nurses & doctors & psychologists & counselors, our chauffeurs & coaches. Mothers are developers of personalities, molders of vocabularies, & shapers of attitudes. Mothers are soft voices saying, "I love you." And mothers are a link to God, a child’s first impression of God’s love. What an amazing gift. What an intimidating responsibility. That’s why we really do need to pray for our moms. That’s why we need to do as individuals what we did earlier today by praying for our moms.
As Proverbs 31:28 says, “Her children arise and call her blessed…” If you are a mom, I invite you to remain seated. Everyone else, please stand.
So, Moms gathered here, we stand this morning and call you blessed.¬ Thank you for pouring your lives into ours. [Have everyone, but mothers, stand and say, “You are blessed” to the mothers seated around you]
Let’s pray. God, we do bless the moms here today and we do thank you for them…for their love for you, for their love and care for their children. God, we ask you to be with the moms here today. Strengthen them to be the kind of moms they need to be, to balance the pressures of life, to mother their kids through childhood and into the adult years. And may each one look to you, Holy God, who made us in your image, male and female. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
