Family Goes to Church                                                         5/12/46

 

Scripture:  Deuteronomy 29: 9-15; 18-20; 29.

 

This day in 1946 has a particular significance quite apart from the unseasonable appearance of snow on May 12th.  It is a day to be marked in millions of families all over the nation for another, happy reason.  Mother’s Day, this year, is a day of reunited families, as we could only hope they would be reunited a year ago.  A year ago, the European phase of conflict in globe-encircling warfare came to an end.  Millions of the sons, husbands and fathers of our families were in the armed services in distant places.

 

Now most of them are back at home, reunited with their families, going ahead with the pursuits of peace time - old or new jobs, more schooling, or plans for either or both.  Our own church has listed 136 names of those who have served the United States in uniform during the war.  Of these, only 30 are still in uniform.  Six gave their lives, and exactly 100 have by now returned to civilian life.

 

This means that the family circle may be complete on this Mother’s day in hundreds of thousands of homes torn by separation and anxiety a year or two ago.  And so it is a day of satisfaction and rejoicing.

 

Numerous households will be at worship in their churches today reunited in quiet joy and thanksgiving.  Of course some will still look forward to another day when the family circle will be completed again by the return of their own, too.  And some, we remember in humility, are united only in eternity.

 

This is a day for special remembrance of mothers.  There is usually an over-abundance of sentimentality on the subject.  But in the main it is a good thing, if the mothers can endure it as it is, for sons and daughters, children and adults, to pay special attention to their mothers.

 

It is no accident that motherhood plays so important a part in human life as to be much of the time overlooked like other things that are so close to us as to be taken for granted.  Motherhood seems to be a part of the divine will and order and we just accept it.  That is all right, but it is well to think of it also from time to time.

 

Our Lord appeared upon earth in the arms of a mother and was nurtured in family life as all other children are supposed to be nurtured.  To be his mother must have tested the soul of Mary.  She had to shield him from violence and brutal death, fleeing to a foreign land while he was yet an infant.  She had to be patient with what must have seemed to others his genius and individuality.  It was not easy to understand and deal gently with a child who could get himself lost from the family for several days as he became absorbed in learned discussions among the wise men of the church.

 

Mary achieved the triumph of freeing her son, in his adult maturity, from every restraint, except the awareness of her abiding love.  She and the rest of the family did not always understand or agree with his use of his freedom.  But she always stood by him.

 

It was so to the end of his life.  And his affection for her was not denied, forgotten or neglected.  As she followed him, in agony of soul, to the scene of crucifixion, he remembered her.  And out of the midst of seemingly unbearable agony, he remembered her loneliness and need in heart.  As if to commend her to the care of his beloved disciple, Jesus spoke:  “Woman, behold thy son.” and “Son, behold thy mother” as if to say to his mother, “look now to John for comfort and care,” and to John, “You will look after Mother, won’t you?”

 

Roy Linden Minch remarks that “There are some privileges which parents must surrender; there  are some obligations which children dare not forget.”  Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in the life of our Lord, which in innocence and purity, in righteous conviction and action, in spirit and in truth, should be the example and spiritual model for us all.

 

Now of course there is no such thing as a mother without children.  And, more than incidentally, there is no such thing as a father without children.  Neither is there mother without father or father without mother sometime in the picture and usually for a long time.  In other words, if there is a mother, there is a family, whose members are presently living, or beyond, but contributing to the life and experience of each member of the family.  And so it is entirely appropriate - almost necessary - to broaden our thing of “Mother’s Day” into a recognition of family importance.

 

It is becoming more and more apparent that the real battleground for preservation of the moral life of the nation and civilization is the family.  It is past time that we recognize that what this country will amount to will depend on what happens in our families.

 

Part of the integrity and survival during three thousands years of the Jewish faith - a most important part - is to be found in the integrity of Jewish families from ancient times.  Early in the life of these people, to whom

 

[Here I am missing pages 6 through 13 of the original handwritten manuscript; the transcript begins again with p.14]

 

displayed about this time of year, they will buckle down to the tasks of training their children well, in the fundamentals of their faith, lest all too soon their offspring are turned loose from the parental home to face life without religious foundations, spiritually illiterate and morally unprepared!

 

To the family that goes to church - regularly as a habitual practice, as surely as they take rest and food and seek learning; to the family where gratitude is expressed in grace at meals; where the Bible is read regularly aloud or privately or both; where loyalty to church is keener than to any other human association beyond the family - to that family will every son and daughter look with more cause to give thanks for mother, for father and  household on this and every day.  If there is hope that the lamp of faith shall be polished brighter for another generation it lies in what parents are doing about it right now.

 

Mothers and fathers of Christian families, there is nothing more important than to be just that - families.  And may your children not only remember their mothers, but thank God for you!

 

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            Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 12, 1946.