One of the difficult things about becoming older is that our children have grown older too! That’s just great if they follow reasonably well the path we had envisioned for them. It can be tough if we see them making decisions that don’t seem wise, or choices that we think are big mistakes. We are not alone. Mary is another Bible woman whose life inspires and instructs me. She had Jesus Himself for a son, but she may have had some of the same adjustment problems we do.
He was only twelve—still her “baby”—when He first seemed to reject her. After worshipping in Jerusalem, she and Joseph had traveled a whole day’s journey toward home when they realized Jesus was not with any of their relatives or acquaintances. They returned to the City and after three days of searching they found Him in the Temple with the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. Did Mary scold as we probably would have? “Jesus! Where have you been? We have been frantic, looking everywhere for you. How could you do this to us?”
“You shouldn’t have worried about me,” Jesus had answered. “Don’t you know that I have to be about my Father’s business?”
His Father’s business? What can so young a lad know of God’s will? True, he is considered a man now, but to suppose that he understands the ways of the Most High? Mary must have wondered . . . And even though He returned to Nazareth with them that very day, and was—as He had always been—an obedient and loving son with obvious endowments of gentleness, wisdom, and the grace of God, perhaps Mary carried in her heart from that time onward the secret knowledge: I will not always be able to hold this son. Someday I will have to learn to trust him to know what God wants for his life. I will have to release him, eventually, to do his Father’s will.
Years later, Mary had attended a wedding of family friends in Cana. Jesus had demonstrated then also where His deepest allegiance lay. Several days into celebrating the young couple’s new life together, the unthinkable happened. The hosts ran out of wine! They were greatly embarrassed, and Mary felt sorry for them in their predicament. She turned to Jesus; surely He would know what to say or do to help their friends. “Son,” she said to Him that day, “they have no wine.”
“Yes, my good woman,” He had answered, respectfully but still not acknowledging Mary as His mother to those around Him. “I know, and I can appreciate your concern. But please don’t ask me for anything just to honor family ties. Let me do what it’s time in God’s plan for me to do.” Mary must have realized: Jesus will do what needs to be done. Not necessarily what a sympathetic onlooker thinks best. Perhaps not even what a mother-heart desires. He will act in accord with the Heavenly Father’s will. I must yield to that. Ah, but it isn’t easy to let go! I am his mother! Surely it’s not wrong to want a few special favors?
And finally, as Jesus was teaching one day in a home, Mary and Jesus’ brothers arrived to visit Him. The place was already packed, and they found they could not even get near Him. So they just stood outside, and sent someone in to call Him. Some in the crowd near Jesus told Him, “Your mother and brothers are outside wanting to see you.”
"Who are my mother and my brothers?" He asked. Then looking at those seated in a circle around Him, He said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever hears God’s Word and puts it into practice is my brother and sister and mother. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my family."
What must Mary have thought when someone reported to her that Jesus was not responding to her request? How could Jesus disown us, his own family? Is he suddenly too good to associate with us? He is just Jesus, my oldest boy. Why can’t I see him, speak to him, touch him? Why did he—how did he—escape the closest of human ties, that with his own mother?
So here we have Mary’s dilemma, much like our own as our children change quickly from toddlers into teens and then adulthood. We must accept that each of them has to follow God and the yearning in his/her own heart. Every mother loses her sons and daughters, because babies grow up. They marry, they work long hours, they move away to other cities or even other countries. Or sometimes they don’t grow and they die as children; for others, life is cut short at some point. Whatever the case, these sons and daughters loosen the ties that keep them close to their mothers and, one by one, they slip away. All of us have to say “Goodbye.”
Although that centuries-old contraction of “God be with you,” means letting go, it does not mean a final loss. As we hear the Word of God and obey it, we are joined in an added way to our loved ones. On the day Mary learned that Jesus was claiming as family all those who do the Heavenly Father’s will, she must have known that included her. And today it includes us and our families. I may have to let them go, but I will never lose them. As together we hear the Word of God and obey it, we will be joined forever with Jesus in the family which nothing can alter—not distance, not even death. This dear son, this dear daughter, will never be farther away than a heartbeat of submission to God’s will.
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment