Church of the Holy City

A Mother and the Child She Has Born

A Mother and the Child She Has Borne
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
May 13, 2012

Isaiah 49:8-18 Luke 2:41-51 Psalm 139

Today we celebrate the special love that mothers have for their children, and we have for our mothers. There is a bond between mother and child that is perhaps the strongest bond of love humanity knows. Our actual body partakes of our mothers’ body as we are being formed in her womb. The Psalmist writes, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). In the miracle of birth, God’s creation is mirrored in the formation of each human in the body of our mother. It is no doubt this intimate and indeed physical connection that mothers have with their children that generates the special love of mothers for their children.
There are not many Bible passages that mention mothers–except in passing. But those in which mothers have significant role are extremely instructive. When God wants to tell us about His boundless love for humanity, He uses the image of mothers and their children–not the image of fathers. In Isaiah, God says, ”
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Isaiah 49:15)
This passage uses hyperbole. No mother can forget her baby. So great is God’s love, even if a mother can forget her baby–which she can never do–God will not forget us. This is the poetic way that Isaiah speaks of God’s infinite love. And the image He uses is the closest thing we can know on earth of God’s love–that love of a mother and her children.
And it is a mother’s love that we see illustrated so well in our story from Luke. On the return home from Passover in Jerusalem, Mary, Joseph, and their friends and family don’t notice at first that Jesus has remained back at the temple. We can imagine a grand company of relatives and close friends who have celebrated this most holy festival together. It would be like a Christmas dinner we might celebrate with our extended family and maybe visits to friends’ homes. But we celebrate Christmas dinners indoors, while for Mary and Joseph, the festival involved a pilgrimage to the sacred city of Jerusalem. It is not implausible that a child could be missed as the friends, relatives and family begin to depart for home in a grand caravan. Well the family only travels a day before they notice that Jesus is missing. We are told that they looked high and low for Jesus for three days in Jerusalem before they find Him in the temple! And we see the most concern and anxiety Jesus expressed by His mother. It is Mary who says,
Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you (Luke 2:48).
This short story tells us a lot. It tells us, first of all, that it was Jesus’ mother who was raising Jesus. She it was, who talks to the young Jesus. She it was who oversaw Jesus’ early development. It was His mother who primarily raised Jesus.
This story tells us, too, that Mary could guide or even shall I say discipline the young Jesus? Was Mary giving Jesus a mild scolding? How are we to read the words, “Why have you treated us this way? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” She was no doubt expressing her love and concern for Jesus, but Luke adds the following words later in the story, “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them” (2:51). If Mary wasn’t scolding Jesus, she was teaching Him about concern for others, especially His parents. Was she teaching Him the respect and manners society would expect of Him?
But there is more still to the story. After Mary’s exclamation to Jesus, Jesus responds,
“Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” We are told that the friends and family of Jesus didn’t understand what He was saying. All except Mary. Luke tells us that, “His mother treasured all these things in her heart.” Jesus’ mother pondered what Jesus said, and meditated on who her son was and would grow up to be. This is the second time that Luke tells us Mary pondered who and what Jesus was and would be. Earlier, after Gabriel announces to Mary that her child will be the Son of God, after the star stops over the manger, and after the shepherds come to the cradle telling tales of a vision of angels, after all this, Luke tells us that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). It is often our mothers who know our dispositions best, who meditate on the kind of person we are, and who guide us as we grow up into our own persons. It is often our mothers who meditate on our talents and nurture our development. These are some of the things Mary pondered, when Jesus said He “must be in His Father’s house.” This is what Mary pondered after the miracles and wonders of Jesus’ birth. Mary and every mother meditates and reflects on her child’s character and guides his or her development.
And it was Mary, Jesus’ mother, who initiated His first recorded miracle. Mary had been raising Jesus. She had been reflecting on who He was. She had observed His nature. She knew Him best, and knew what He could do. Jesus and His disciples were at a wedding feast in Canaan. The host ran out of wine. And it was Mary who knew what Jesus could do to remedy the situation. She goes to Jesus and tells Him, “They have no more wine.” There is a note of humor in this passage, I think, because Jesus appears to try to get out of it. He says, “Dear Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Mary apparently ignores this, and being a bit pushy tells the servants, “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:4-6). So despite Jesus’ protestations, his mother tells Him to go ahead and help out, anyway. This is the occasion when Jesus turns the water into wine, the first miracle credited to Him. And it was His mother who got Him to do it when He apparently didn’t want to. His mother knew Jesus could help out the host, and she urged her Son to do so.
Swedenborg sees mothers as symbolic of the church. For just as a mother nurtures us, raises us, and teaches us right from wrong, so does the church in a spiritual way. This is why we have in our hymnal the song, “O Mother, Dear, Jerusalem.” Learning right from wrong, and learning all about God and His kingdom can all be called truths. These truths are what we learn in church, and so we can say the function of the church is to teach us truths. Truths, then, are what the church is spiritually made of. So the church is truth in an organized form. The church stands for truth, and symbolizes truth when we read about it in the Bible as Jerusalem, or the temple. When we are doing what we know to be true, we are in heaven. For heaven is not a place–it is a state of mind. So heaven also is made of divine truth, and as a place of truth, Heaven is symbolized by mothers. And further, since all Swedenborg’s symbols end up representing God, We have the remarkable symbolism of mothers with the Lord Himself as to Divine Truth. So Swedenborg writes of
the signification of mothers, as truth, and in the supreme sense the Lord as to Divine truth, thus His kingdom, since Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord makes heaven (AC 8897).
In fact, families signify our spirituality and in the highest sense God’s nature. So some of the symbols go as follows: fathers symbolize good and mothers truth. Children and more distant relatives symbolize loves and knowledges in our lower or more external selves. God is both Father and Mother, as divine love and divine wisdom, just as heaven is the union of love and wisdom, or good and truth. And when we have God in us, we are images of God’s nature. So we too, are that marriage of love and wisdom, good and truth.
So it is very clear that for Swedenborg, Motherly imagery is just as appropriate for God as is Fatherly imagery. Christianity is largely dominated by Father imagery–or at least Protestant Christianity is dominated by Father imagery. In Catholicism, Mary has a much more powerful role.
In today’s society, families are made up of various relations. There are adoptions, step-parenting, live-in lovers, and single parent families. In many families we don’t have both father and mother. This means most often that single parent families are single mother families. The burden of work, housekeeping, and raising children all being born by the single mother is tremendous. Society doesn’t seem to care about aid for single mothers, and they are most often left to fend for themselves–often living near or below the poverty line. Even establishing day care for working mothers was a battle hard fought, and still isn’t always available. And the cost of paying day care facilities is again born by the single working mother.
But this is a price that most mothers are willing to pay for the child they love so dearly–since that is the only way to uphold the bond of love between them. The love of mother and child is perhaps the closes image we have for God’s love for us. Recall Isaiah’s words,
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Isaiah 49:15)
God wants to compare Himself to a mother when talking about Divine love. Recall Mary’s solicitude for Jesus, pondering His nature and guiding Him in the manners of home, family, and society. Given all that we have seen from the Bible this morning, I will make the controversial statement that when we pray “Our Father” we may want to add or think “Who loves us as our mother.”