Pastor Muri's message from Sunday (part 3)

Like her Son, Mary herself was no stranger to grief. [end of track 2, 5:02] But before we go there, you’ve got to remember something about Mary.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not the consummate mother. She’s a mother like so many of you mothers here today. She is not the mother of all. She is the mother of Jesus. She is a human being who suffered, a human being who understood her need for a savior in the great Magnificat recorded in Luke chapter 1, verse 47, she prays:

My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

She understood her need for a savior. She was a woman of low estate. She was a woman of very common origin and roots. And she was a woman who grieved when she saw her son rejected and killed.

She’s a mother. She’s a woman. She’s all woman. She’s all mother. And she’s there watching her son die.

Luke chapter 1, verses 28 and 29:

And [Gabriel] came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!

And then Luke goes on to record:

29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

This was good news. But it was good news that literally turned -- I’m sorry -- it virtually turned her world upside down. It didn’t literally turn her word upside down or she’d be looking at things this way.

This was good news. It was magnificent news. It was the news that every woman dreamed of hearing. But it was news that actually in some ways inverted her whole life -- turned it inside out, upside down -- just threw everything into an absolute tizzy. And this is just the beginning of troubles and sorrows and anguish.

She was troubled. No doubt. When she and Joseph came to Bethlehem and found that there was no place in town suitable for her to give birth to her son. She was further troubled over the prophecy of Simeon when she went to the temple [Luke 2:34-35]:

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, Behold,

This is, like, important. Listen.

this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also[, Mary]),

“This is great news. I mean, tell me something really good. I mean, here we are celebrating the birth of our young child. We’re so happy. It’s euphoria. Somebody break my bubble.”

Well, Simeon had that ministry. He comes to her in the temple. He takes this child in his arms, realizing this is the Messiah. This is the one that God said, “You aren’t going to die until you get to see the Messiah with your own eyes.”

He holds Him in his arms and he says to the mother of Jesus, “This One is going to be opposed. He’s going to be spoken against. And a sword is going to pierce your soul.”

Is that a literal sword? Literal swords don’t pierce souls. They pierce bodies. This is a sword of sorrow, a sword of anguish, a sword of oppression.

“Mary, you’ve got an interesting life ahead of you. You’ve got a life of trauma. You’ve got a life of sorrow. You’ve got a life of grief. And you’re just a woman. You’re a mother. You’re just a human being.”

She was troubled at that prophecy. She was grieved to hear of Herod’s plan to kill her son. She was grieved to have to flee her roots and her homeland to live in Egypt for years. Her soul was pierced with sorrow when she saw her holy Son despised and rejected by her own neighbors and countrymen.

And what horrific agony now, to see Him, the innocent one, arrested, and now killed by an angry mob, while still not comprehending the hope of the resurrection. She can see this only as a meaningless tragedy, the mother of all tragedies. This is the worst, the darkest moment, in any woman’s life, to be where Mary is right now.

So what did Jesus’ words mean? What meaning do they carry? What message do they have in them for this grieving mother?

Mary, as Jesus looks at her and says, “Woman, behold your son.” [end of track 3, 5:00]

I think they have this message, among other things. I think they have the message that sorrow, even the very bitterest of sorrows, may well become the experience of those who are greatly loved by the Lord. This does not indicate disfavor.

Sorrow is not a package that says to you when it comes with your address on it, “Oh, you have fallen out of favor with God. God no longer loves you. God no longer affirms you. You are no longer on His list of good people.”

Mary was favored. Luke 1:28. In fact there’s another Mary and her sister Martha and her brother Lazarus who suffered through the sickness and the death and even the burial. They went to their brother’s funeral. He was sick. He was dying. And then he died. And they buried him. And for all this time Jesus didn’t come. He didn’t do what they hoped He would do. Not because they fell out of favor with God. Because John 11, verse 2 [sic 3], says:

Lord,

The message had come to Jesus:

Lord, he whom you love is ill.

And verse 5 of that same chapter, John records:

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

Jesus loved His mother. Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But these are part of the Gospel narrative. These individuals are called under the loving superintendence of a sovereign God, who can cause whatever He wants to happen to happen, but in His love and sovereign control, He orchestrates into their lives horrific pain, disappointment, tragedy, sorrow, grief, heartbreak.

And I would say it this way: Sickness and death and the grief that comes with them is not in any way incompatible with divine love. Our deep sorrows and God’s perfect love are frequently mingled in the same cup that we drink.

Are you right now stretched with grief? Are you immersed in a bit of your own sorrow? Your grief alone is no reason to doubt God’s love for you. As the scripture tells us, Paul specifically, “No power in the sky above or in the earth below, in fact, nothing in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 8 and verse 39).

A songwriter wrote it this way. You’re familiar with these words. Let me share them with you again.

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained

Too deeply for mirth or song,

  As the burdens press,

  And the cares distress,

And the way grows weary and long?

Does Jesus care when my way is dark

With a nameless dread and fear?

  As the daylight fades

  Into deep night shades,

Does He care enough to be near?

Every verse ends with a question mark.

Does Jesus care when I've tried and failed

To resist some temptation strong;

  When for my deep grief

  There is no relief,

Though my tears flow all the night long?

Does Jesus care when I've said "goodbye"

To the dearest on earth to me,

  And my sad heart aches

  Till it nearly breaks,

Is it aught to Him? Does He see?

And the answer of the songwriter:

    O yes, He cares, I know He cares,

    His heart is touched with my grief;

      When the days are weary,

      The long night dreary,

      I know my Savior cares.

The songwriter, Frank Graeff, posed the question rather eloquently, I would say. But on what basis does he give this confident answer? “I know my Savior cares?”

I don’t know about you, but I want some evidence. He didn’t give the evidence. But if you read the story of Frank Graeff’s life, you understand that [end of track 4, 4:59] this is a man who is a preacher of the Gospel, called the “sunshine pastor” because He was always filled with hope and joy. But his life on the other hand, behind walls, and unknown to most of the people that saw the sunshine radiating from his face, was a life that was very often racked with sorrow. And there was a time of special grief in his life when he was nearing despair and entertaining doubts and having all kinds of grief upon grief upon grief when he discovered the truth of 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 7, where the Scriptures say, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” And it was on that biblical truth and in response to that truth that he wrote these words.

But more importantly for our text this morning, how does Mary, the mother of Jesus, how does she know that her divine Son understands and cares about her in her climactic moment of grief? How does she deal with this? How does she look up and say, “I know He cares”?

He says to her, “Woman, behold your son.”

I don’t know the inflection. I can’t do the inflection. I can’t even do the Aramaic. But when Jesus spoke to her from the cross and said, “Woman, behold your son,” indicating John somehow.

Now, it’s a tough phrase to translate. To say just, “Woman.” It’s cold. It just doesn’t have a lot of emotion to it. It’s a bit stiff, wouldn’t you say? I don’t think I would address my mother that way today. “Woman, have a chair at the table.”

Okay? But that’s not what Jesus is doing. Some have tried to translate, the NIV and the NLT: “Dear woman.” But maybe that’s too sentimental. I don’t know where we come down on this thing, but understand that when Jesus said to His mother, when He called her woman, both here and earlier in the context, chapter 2, at His first miracle in Cana of Galilee, when Jesus used this word, He was speaking in a Jewish context, in an Aramaic language, and He was speaking to her with respect and tenderness, but not syrupy sentimentality. So I don’t know how you would translate it.

In this awful suffering, Jesus’ awful suffering -- put yourself back into the moment -- in the midst of His awful suffering, sufficient to wring from His tortured soul the agonizing words I referenced this morning already: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” Still Jesus sees, through His own tear-distorted vision, His mother and He empathizes with her in her need. Now what does that tell you? He also sees, perceives down the road, her long-term need. A mother, who’s already bereft of her husband, as we understand from reading the Gospels, and now is bereft of her only Son, who seems to have custodial care of her. He doesn’t give her over to the care of her other sons. It seems as though He’s concerned that there’s nobody in Judea here, in Jerusalem, who’s going to be able to care for her. And if nobody cares for her, a woman in that culture, she was left to fate, she was left to starvation. There was no welfare system. There wasn’t multiple layers of support for a woman who lost her support mechanism. You didn’t just go down to the county office and apply for assistance. There wasn’t any county office and there wasn’t any assistance.

Jesus looks through His grief-distorted vision and sees His mother sitting there at the foot of the cross, agonizing over His sorrow and His suffering, and He says to her, “Mother, John here is going to take care of you.” Not the words He used, but we could maybe translate them: “Mother, [end of track 5, 4:57] I’m giving you over to the nurturing care and the protective custody of my beloved disciple John. He’ll take care of you in my place. Don’t worry. Don’t sorrow overmuch. John will take care of you.”