Jesus and His Mother
Two things first:
You asked for this. Well, 39% of you did. I’m not sure what you voters were expecting, but this probably ain’t it.
I love my mother and my mother loves me. Like, for real. This is in no way about our relationship, or any mother I know for that matter. This is purely my commentary on the biblical text.
This morning, to prepare for this entry, I sat down and read straight through all four Gospels. Matthew 1– John 21. I took note of every mention of Mary the Mother of Jesus, paid extra attention to Jesus’ interactions with her, and noted any other mention of a mother or mothering in general.
I was a little disappointed with what I found.
Take a second to picture adult Jesus and his mother together. What do you imagine? How do they relate?
I have always pictured them warmly affectionate and gentle with one another. I always imagined them to have a close relationship.
But this is not the picture the Gospels paint. In fact, they don’t paint much of a picture at all.
Matthew gives us the annunciation and birth narrative, but that’s it. Mark, the quick-paced gospel, pays Mary no attention at all. Perhaps that is unsurprising, as Mark would rather get straight to the miracles. But maybe trying to mother the Son of God is the most miraculous feat ever attempted.
After Jesus is born and the Holy Family escapes to Egypt when he is two, we are only given one glimpse into the life of Christ before his ministry begins at age thirty. It’s worth noting we miss out on most of the mothering years. It’s also worth noting that I, aged more than thirty, still make my mom do a lot of mothering.
Aside from the birth narratives and mentioning of one to the other, we are only given three real interactions between Jesus and Mary. First, when he’s twelve and stays behind from the caravan in the temple (Luke 2.41–51). He is lost from her for four days. When she finds him, he responds with the “yeah, so?” attitude like you might imagine a normal pre-teen to do.
The next is the wedding at Cana (John 2.1–12). Here Mary tells her grown Son to do something, and he argues with her. She argues back, and he seems to give in to her demands. She wants him to preform what will be his first (public) miracle, and he says his time has not yet come. Maybe this isn’t just about the first of his miracles. There were many prophecies that the messiah would make wine for the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus knows things aren’t ending yet; they’re just getting started. Mary probably knows this, too, but like any good mother, she pushes him to get a taste of the future.
The last instance between Mary and Jesus is when he is on the Cross (John 19.25–27). She is beholding her worst nightmare, and he commends her into the care and keeping of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’
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Aside from these three instance, we are given slim peeks at public appearances concerning the pair, but with no familial context. Luke’s gospel gives us quotes from Jesus, but without explanation on some comments that seem pretty harsh.
In chapter 8, Mary and Jesus’ brothers come to visit when he is in the crowd. They’re trying to get ahold of him, and the disciples tell him they want to see him. Jesus responds, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’ (v.21)
In chapter 9 Jesus criticizes those who cannot immediately leave their families behind for the kingdom of God. (vv.57–62)
In chapter 11, a woman proclaims, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ to which Jesus responds, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."‘ (vv.27–28)
In chapter 12 Jesus says he has come to bring household division. (49–53)
In chapter 14, Jesus says, ‘Whoever does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.’ (v.26) CS Lewis said that those who find this command easy should actually steer clear of it.
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We can talk about a million different things with all of these encounters, but at the end of the day, there is not one tender, kind, or maybe even normal picture of a mother-son relationship. Grant it, how could their relationship be normal? But… what was it like?
We really don’t know much, so let’s point out what the gospels do not portray:
They do not give us a beautiful, idealistic, instagram-worthy family picture. They do not give us anything to be jealous of. How could she not be anxious? How could he not feel expectations? How could there not be tension?
*Okay, what are you trying to say, Casey?
I’m trying to say this: perhaps Jesus isn’t a stranger to personal family friction. Perhaps if you have a troubled relationship with your mom, Jesus knows what that’s like. Maybe if you share in an uncomfortable parent dynamic, our Lord and Savior has first-hand experience. And if so, I hope this is comforting to you. Even the Holy Family wasn’t the perfect family.
We haven’t even said anything of Joseph. We must admit, that man was given a hard road. God must have been so confident in him. We know that Joseph was much older than Mary. It’s odd that he is completely absent from the later life of Christ, most notably at the cross where Mary needs to be taken into the home of another man. Scholars have long suggested that Joseph passed before the crucifixion.
Maybe this means our Lord knows what it’s like to lose a parent, too.
I know your family is messy. How? Because all are, since the very first. Some more so than others, certainly. But at Cana, even with a messy family dynamic, a miracle still occurred. And if Jesus shows us anything about each other, it’s that it is his blood that gives us family.
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If the Lord don’t come and the creek don’t rise,
Casey
