Behold Your Mother
by
How Jesus Honored Her at the Cross
by David Mathis
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing
nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said
to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26–27)
Has anyone ever done more for mothers than Jesus?
Not only did he, as God, come and dwell among us, as man, to live and
die to make wives and mothers coheirs with their husbands of the grace
of life (1 Peter 3:7). Not only did he pour out his Spirit to empower
Christian mothers as they fulfill the highest calling in the world.
Not only did he treat women differently than the rabbis of his
generation, who wouldn’t speak to women in public. To his disciples’
amazement (John 4:27), he talked with the Samaritan woman, with Mary
Magdalene, with the Syrophoenician woman, with his dearly loved
friends Mary and Martha, setting in motion a healing of sins against
women. As John Piper has said, “Wherever Christianity has become
deeply rooted, the treatment of women has improved manifestly.”
Yet to those glories, Jesus added this particular honor to mothers
even as he hung from nails in agony, staked to the cross. In the very
midst of being publicly tortured to death, he paused to honor his
mother.
He Beholds Her
First, he saw her. What horror did he see on the face of his mother as
she looked upon her crucified son? And not only did he behold her, but
he gave his attention to her, and his words — in one of only seven
recorded sayings from the cross — made provision for her after his
death. And not just any provision, but he entrusted her to “the
disciple whom he loved.”
“In the very midst of being publicly tortured to death, Jesus paused
to honor his mother.”
Have more sanctifying words ever been uttered over the institution of
motherhood than these from the tree at Calvary? The God who himself
took on our human flesh, and took up residence in a woman’s womb for
nine months, nursed at her breasts, heard the Scriptures from her
mouth, and learned the fundamentals of human life under her care — the
very life of Christ testifies to the sanctity of motherhood.
And then, here at his death, he goes even further.
Even Through Agony
The pain at the cross in his own physical body alone would have been
enough to occupy his full consciousness without excuse. It would have
been no sin to bear the agony in silence. Then, more than that, came
the utter anguish of his soul as he drew near to the precipice of
sensing separation from his eternal Father. Such suffering of soul was
the soul of his sufferings, with attendant sweat drops, like blood, in
the garden.
Beyond this unspeakable agony came the taunts and jeers. The snake’s
venom spewed from the mouths of his own kinsmen — not just his own
nation, but their leaders: chief priests and elders, scribes and
Pharisees.
“He saved others; he cannot save himself . . . . Let him come down now
from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God
deliver him now, if he desires him. . . .” And the robbers who were
crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. (Matthew 27:42–
44)
And yet in the midst of such unequaled duress and rejection — as his
own people stand against him unjustly and as he prepares to meet his
own Father, not this time as a beloved Son wrapped in filial
affection, but as sin itself crushed by omnipotent, holy wrath — he
has the wherewithal to consider her. To honor his mother.
He Honors Her
More than thirty years before, the angel Gabriel had greeted her, “O
favored one, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). He had indeed been
with her these three decades, and what a striking fulfillment now,
even as he died. Still, he was with her.
Especially in the last three years, she had thought the great angelic
promises were being realized:
He 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 father David, and he will
reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will
be no end. (Luke 1:32–33)
Long ago, she had asked, in faith, “How will this be?” Now, did her
eyes look to heaven and ask again, How will this be? How will he reign
over Jacob’s house forever, with no end to his kingdom, as he dies
here under the hand of Caesar?
“The very life of Christ testifies to the sanctity of motherhood.”
How often had she remembered the words “nothing will be impossible
with God” (Luke 1:37)? Did she have it in her to recall this even as
her firstborn son was publicly crucified before her very eyes? Would
it come to her mind as she tried to sleep that night, or as she
lingered in horror and grief all day Saturday, which must have seemed
like the longest day in history?
He Echoes Her
She had said to the angel, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let
it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And so, like mother,
like son. In the garden, Mary’s son found his own way of echoing the
words of his mother and expressing her submission: “not my will, but
yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Her legacy of glad submission and heartfelt obedience had become his.
First, at age 12, “he went down with [his parents] and came to
Nazareth and was submissive to them” (Luke 2:51). Then, as a man, “he
learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Now, she
watched as “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Soon she would learn
that “by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”
(Romans 5:19). But not yet.
Standing there at the cross, did she remember the words of Simeon that
must have haunted her for all her son’s life? “A sword will pierce
through your own soul also” (Luke 2:35). A sword will pierce me “also”
— meaning, my son will be pierced?
He Cares for Her
Under God, she had raised the man who was God. And even now in his
greatest agony, even as he writhes in this dehumanizing, extended
execution, his soul does not curve inward to nurse his pain, but opens
outward to the one who nursed him.
Here the greatest victim ever of other people’s sin retreats not to
himself and his suffering. He does not sulk or pout. He is not
consumed with his own trauma, but looks beyond himself to make
provision for this woman. His mother. The woman who so humbly and
diligently and ordinarily served the very Son of heaven in the
earthiest of ways, from his conception and birth, to his utter
humiliation and execution. God became human through her — not just
through her womb, but through decades of guidance, nurture, and
prayer.
So, in the moments before he breathes his last, Jesus turns to his
beloved disciple to ensure his mother will have his tangible care even
after he is gone. Never was Jesus more human, and never was he more
divine, than at this moment, in this place, at this time, when he
spoke three simple words: “Behold, your mother!”
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