Sunday, March 10, 2024

Mother’s Day

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Today, we celebrate a day that the world calls Mother’s Day. It is a time when we remember to be particularly nice to our mothers. Mother’s Day is good for many but hard for others. Not only are many today isolated from their mothers, but not everyone has a mother they can celebrate. Mother's Day is tough if we have a mother unable to do the things mothers are meant to do. If we have lost our mother or never knew her, then today is painful, but Mother’s Day goes deeper.

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

It takes us beyond individuals' celebrations or regrets and points to the joy and difficulty of human love and the call to love as God loves. It is an exploration of God's love in the face of the human condition. At a time when the human condition is being rather clearly brought home to us, Mother’s Day offers us insight.

The words of a 1987 hit by rock group Heart called “Who will you run to?” go like this: “I’m not going to sing it or play air guitar—I have no desire to become an internet sensation for all the wrong reasons. Who will you run to when it all falls down? Who’s gonna pick your world up off the ground? Who’s gonna take away the tears you cry? Who’s gonna love you, baby, as good as I?"

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

With all our problems, the question is—who will we run to? Will we turn to our own strength, fearfully hoarding stuff out of fear? Will we turn to the Church as we have known it and find it missing, so we lose our faith, or will we run to the Lord and know ourselves protected under the shadow of His wings?

Jesus’ words in the gospel sum up the heartache and pain of love without control. “O Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood together under her wings, and you were not willing!”

These are words of such sadness. Jesus laments that the people of Jerusalem are like chicks that refuse to be cared for, looked after or protected. “You were not willing.”

Our God knows what it is like to love us when we don’t want protection. He knows the pain of realising that He can’t force us to change, He can’t make us choose a different path, and yet He keeps offering shelter and protection. This is our God.

The world turns us away from that which is good and eternal and pulls us toward things that might satisfy us now but do not last. And yet we can and must now choose to run under His wings as a child runs to a parent for comfort.

Running to God doesn’t keep problems from being dangerous, but it keeps them from being what determines how we experience life and offers real comfort. The problem of life is not optional, but fear is, and the antidote to fear is love. Our invitation is to run to Christ in faith because He loves. We must turn to Christ; in Christ, we must remain because His perfect love casts out fear.

Who will you run to? Our God is the God of Comfort. We suffer with Christ, and we find our comfort in and through him. Suffering is part of the journey, but resurrection follows. If we run to God in our tears and our fears when our world falls down, He is with us, for nobody loves us as much as He.

The Bible says, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet I will not forget you". Thankfully, God's love exceeds that of a mother towards those who confess their sins and believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross of Calvary for their sins.

Can a woman's tender care

Cease towards the child she bear?

Yes! She may forgetful be;

Yet will I remember thee.