Sermon by Anne K. MyersApril 6, 2007 John 19: 25b-27
Good Friday, Tenebrae
CROSS WORDS
Surely his vision must have been blurry. After all, he had suffered a great loss of blood, endured staggering amounts of pain, and been forced to undergo considerable physical exertion. Besides this, the beads of perspiration on his brow and the blood from the imprint of the crown of thorns were running down his face and dripping into his eyes. And yet, through all of this, Jesus is able to make out two figures at the foot of the cross—his mother Mary and his Beloved Disciple. It was then, according to the Gospel of John, that he utter these cross words: "Woman, here is your son" and to the beloved disciple he said, "Here is your mother" (John 19: 26-27).
We can only imagine what it was like for Mary to see her son hanging on the cross just a few feet away. What was going through her mind?
Perhaps she was thinking of his birth. How thirty-two years earlier she gave birth to him in a stable not far from where he was now hanging.
Perhaps she was thinking of him as a small boy. Mary did for him as all mothers do for their children. She changed his diapers, she stayed up the whole night when he was sick, and she comforted him when was hurt.
Or perhaps she was thinking of some of the more painful encounters she had with Jesus when he was a young man. There was the time when she told him that the wine had run out at the wedding in Cana, and he said to her (rather curtly): "Woman, what have you to do with me?" (John 2:4). This wasn’t exactly a reprimand, be he was rather abrupt with her.
And there was the other time she went to visit Jesus and instead of seeing her he made some kind of remark like, "Who is my mother?" (Matt. 12:48), and he went on to say that his mother was anybody who did God’s will (Matt. 12:50).
Prior to the cross, there had been some painful moments with her son. Surely those words, "Who is my mother" made her wince.
Perhaps she really didn’t understand him. But you would think that she should have understood him. After all, prior to his birth the angel said to her,
"[Your son] will be great, and will be called the Son
of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him
the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
will be no end" (Lk. 1: 32-33)
But perhaps she just didn’t fully understand what all these lofty words meant.
There was the time that she went out to try to keep him from preaching and teaching to the rowdy crowds, because others were saying of him, "he has gone out of his mind" (Mark 3: 32-21). She just didn’t seem to understand that he had a world to save, a death to die. She didn’t seem to understand that he couldn’t truly belong to her, because somehow he belonged equally to everyone (Frederick Buechner).
But perhaps she was thinking of the incident in the Jerusalem Temple when Jesus was only twelve years old. Mary and Joseph were returning to Nazareth after visiting Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. On their way home they discovered that Jesus was not traveling in their company. Frantically, they returned to Jerusalem and searched for him. Finally, they found him in the Temple teaching the elders and scribes. Upon finding him, Mary said, "…your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety" (Lk. 2: 48). The King James version translates her words as, "Behold, your father and I have sought you sorrowing." And now, as she stood at the foot of the cross, she realized that the incident in Jerusalem was not the last time that she would seek him sorrowing. She was sorrowing again. She was sorrowing now.
Though there were times when his words to her were not the kindest of words, perhaps she found comfort in the fact that some of his last words and thoughts were for her. "Here is your son," he said.
In the midst of his own suffering and agony Jesus is thinking about her. He doesn’t burden her with any lengthy description of the pain he is enduring or the shame he feels being naked and exposed for all the world to see. Surely she, as his mother, would want to know these things—would want to take his pain and degradation upon herself. But he won’t have it. Jesus knows how difficult it is to go on living after the death of a loved one. And so he says, "here is your son," which means that life for her must not be over. Her life must go on. [This, I believe, is the spoken or unspoken wish of all dying children for their parents.]
Mary may not have fully understood her son or known exactly why he was now hanging on a cross like a common criminal. But then this son was never really hers alone; he belonged to the whole world. Maybe that’s why Jesus introduced her to another one who might be able to be the son she had always needed. He looked to the Beloved Disciple and said, "Here is your mother."
I suspect that the Beloved Disciple earned this title because he, of all the disciples, excelled at giving and receiving love. Perhaps he was the one who was the most at ease in showing affection. Maybe the Beloved Disciple was the kind of person who put others at ease and with whom everyone wanted to be. And so it is to this lovable and warm disciple that Jesus entrusts his mother.
Jesus, the only begotten son, was given so that the world might have life through him, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). But that life came at a great personal cost. Jesus died so that we might live. Our life cost him his. And on this night we remember with gratitude and humility the price that Jesus was willing to pay for us. As Jesus told his disciples, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends" (John 15:13).
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