"Behold Your Son… Behold Your Mother." | Famous Last Words

Hello and welcome today to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we're

a church where we want to love Jesus, live like Jesus and lead others to Jesus. Thanks

so much for listening to our sermon podcast today. Today we are going to be continuing

our sermon series where we have been reviewing Jesus' famous last words and we are going

to be hearing about the time where Jesus on the cross speaks to his mother and says,

Behold your son and speaks to his beloved disciple and says, Behold your mother. We

hope you enjoy the sermon today and find it interesting and inspiring. God bless.

A reading from the Gospel of John chapter 19 verses 25 to 27. Near the cross of Jesus

John 19:25–27

stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When

Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to

her, Woman, here is your son. And to the disciple, here is your mother. From that time on, the

disciple took her into his home. The word of the Lord.

I'm pretty sure that all of us at one time or another have uttered these three little

words. They're three little words that just come off of our tongue so, so easily. And

yet they really are. They can be quite hurtful words. And those words, of course, are the

words I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Now, of course, on the one hand, they

sound like, you know, kind of harmless words. But when you think about it, you know, I don't

care what she thinks. I don't care what he says. I don't care about you. I mean, they're

some of the most hurtful words you could ever imagine. People can even text these words

to each other. They just use the letters I, D, C to say, I don't care. And although we

might use these words all the time, we have to realize that they're hurtful because as

human beings, we relationships are so, so important to us. And if someone says that

they don't care, I mean, we need the care of other human beings, right? We need people

who care about us. So that's why saying I don't care is so extraordinarily hurtful.

You know, it signifies a sense of rejection, right? If someone says, I don't care to you,

it's a way of saying, you know, I don't value you. I don't value you as a person. I don't

put a lot of worth in who you are. I just don't care. You're kind of like useless to

me. It makes you feel unimportant and unwanted. But it's also, it leads to this sense of feeling

disconnected, right? We have this innate need to be connected to community. And if someone

says, I don't care for you anymore, especially if it was someone who you thought did care

for you, man, you could feel isolated and alone. And then of course, thirdly, when someone

says I don't care, there's a kind of a hopelessness that comes along with that because you might

really want that relationship to work or you may really want to fix that relationship.

But when someone says, I don't care, it means they're not into it. And their heart isn't

into the relationship like yours is. I just don't care. I'm going to let it go. Now, if

saying I don't care to someone actually hurts so much, then I think the opposite is also

true. Some of the most life-giving and transformative words we can say to another person is I do

care. And one of the most important actions we can take in our relationships is to do

things that show people how much we care. You know, Margaret Mead had this very famous

quote where she said, never believe that a few caring people can't change the world,

for indeed, that's all who ever have changed the world. Caring for each other can change

your life. Caring for each other can change the world. Now, I want to suggest to you,

I think you'd agree, Jesus was the most caring person who ever walked this earth. And yet,

people still looked at him and said, I don't care for this Jesus fellow. And today we see

a situation where Jesus is in a place where I think he's probably feeling the least cared

for as anybody possibly could. He is totally rejected. He is totally disconnected from

his community, totally hopelessly hanging from the cross. And yet, even in that moment,

we hear Jesus utter some of the most famous last words anyone has ever spoken. If we look

at that scene, you will see that Jesus, even now, is so full of care for other people,

compassion and concern for others. You know, very few people seem to care about Jesus in

this moment. And yet, Jesus was still caring for others, which is actually amazing because

if we found ourselves in Jesus' situation, probably the only person we'd be caring about

is ourselves. And yet, here is Jesus still reaching out, still extending care and concern

to those who need it most. And today, I want to suggest to you, as we look at these famous

last words of Jesus, we see Jesus urging us to care and to extend care to three groups

in particular. And I'll suggest to you that today I want to look at how Jesus urges us

to care for women in particular, to care for mothers. And when he gets around to it, what

he's really challenging us to do is to find a brand new way to care for everyone and to

care for each other. There's a lot in these famous last words. Let's begin by taking a

look at Jesus' care for women. You know, women were some of the most marginalized people

in Jesus' day. I mean, if a woman had something to say, if a woman walked into a room, if

she had an opinion, a lot of people in those days would just say, I don't care what you

have to say. You don't belong here. And yet, women were so drawn to Jesus because Jesus

clearly cared for them. Even in this scene when the men had fled for their lives and

they were hiding out to make sure they didn't end up on a cross as well, who was it that

pushed through the crowd to the foot of the cross to be with Jesus as he was crucified

in his last moments? It was women, brave, courageous women. Let's take a look at who

these women are. Who were these brave women? It's a little confusing because they all have

the same name. There were three women there that day. There was a man, John the disciple,

but there were three women and they all have the same name, Mary. Well, first, the first

Mary, let's call her Mary number one, was Jesus's mother, Mary. And this is the Mary

that we know the best, that she was the one who said to the angel, yes, here I am. Let

it be to me according to your word. And she gave her life. She sacrificed everything to

bear the son of God, to give birth to Jesus, to raise him, to bring him to adulthood. She

is probably the most favored human being in all of human history, with the exception of

Jesus himself. So Mary, we know that's Mary number one. She was there at the foot of the

cross that day. But there was another Mary there that day. Her name was Mary of Magdala

or Mary Magdalene. And she, we know, Mary number two, she was one of the women who traveled

around and followed Jesus throughout his ministry. Now, over time, this rumor got associated

with Mary that she was somehow a prostitute, but that is almost certainly not true. What

we do know about Mary Magdalene is that she was healed by Jesus of some diseases and that

she then followed him with the rest of her life right up into the end of Jesus's life,

as we can see. So that was Mary number two. But then there's a third Mary there at the

foot of the cross that day. And that is Mary, the wife of Clopas. Now this one's a little

harder. Maybe we haven't heard of this Mary before, but what you need to know is that

Clopas was the brother of Joseph, Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, Joseph, who took

Mary to be his wife, that Joseph. He had a brother named Clopas. And what we can probably

think happened is that eventually Joseph died, probably when Jesus was a young man. And as

a result, Clopas then stepped in to take care of his sister-in-law, Mary, and Jesus, and

the other children. And you can imagine then that these two women became very close, right?

Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, became very tightly connected through

that relationship. And so there you have it. You've got Mary number one, Mary number two,

and Mary number three standing there in this hostile crowd. And when they're all standing

there together, I think it's a good moment for us just to take a look at how important

women were to the ministry and in the ministry of Jesus Christ. I mean, the place of women

in the first century, first century Rome, and even first century Judaism was not great.

You know, often women were regarded as second class citizens. It was a patriarchal society.

So women were often seen to be the property, the possession of either their fathers or

their husbands. They were marginalized. They were restricted in all sorts of ways, in social

ways, in political ways, even in religious ways. They were restricted. Karen Armstrong

writes that the cultural norms of Jesus's era relegated women to roles of domesticity

and subservience, denying them access to education, leadership positions, and public influence.

But here's the thing. Jesus's regard for women was so, so different. Jesus's care for women

was so radical. You could even say that the way Jesus treated women in his day was revolutionary

compared to how the society at large regarded women. I'm reminded there was a time when

Jesus in doing some teaching and talking to some of his opponents, he said, Hey, hey,

do you remember that in the beginning God made them male and female? That's from Matthew

19. But, but in that little phrase, what Jesus is kind of saying, Hey, do you not remember

that both men and women are made in the image of God? And for that reason, Jesus saw women

as co-image bearers equal with men. And in fact, Jesus treated women the same that he

treated men. I want to give you kind of a top 10 list of, I just did a little summary,

a little scan. Where do we see Jesus in his relationship with women being elevated? Let

me give you 10 quick examples. One, we are told that many women traveled around with

Jesus, which is important and kind of scandalous because these women were not, it's not like

these were the wives of his disciples. These were, these were other women, women who were

independently going around with him, learning from him like the men did. Secondly, we know

that Hebrew men at the time of Christ were not to speak to women, especially strange

women they didn't know in public directly. And yet Jesus was constantly speaking to women

directly and in public. In fact, one of the longest conversations we have of Jesus having

a conversation with anybody is found in John chapter four, where, where Jesus has this

extended conversation with a woman at a well in Samaria. Thirdly, that woman at the well

actually becomes the very first missionary, if you will, because she gets sent off back

to her people to tell them about what she just experienced hearing from Jesus. Fourth,

in Luke chapter eight, we're also told that women supported Jesus ministry financially.

We don't hear a lot about that, that Jesus ministry had a financial cost to it and he

was funded by many, many women. Five, this is interesting, our fourth person named Mary,

Mary number four, somewhere in the gospels in the gospel of John, we read that this Mary

was found sitting down and listening to Jesus taking on the posture of a student as if she

too were a emerging disciple of Jesus. That was unheard of in those days when Mary sat

at Jesus feet. Six, Jesus was often using women in his illustrations and in his parables

to make points about the kingdom of God, you know, the persistent widow or the woman who

had a lost coin and so on like that. Seven, it was women, a woman rather, who anointed

Jesus feet in preparation for his death. Eight, it was the women as we saw today who were

the ones who were most present at Jesus's crucifixion. Nine, a woman was the first one

at the tomb of Jesus on Easter morning and 10, and this I think is the most important

one. It was a woman who was the first to see the risen Christ and the first to tell others,

which means the first person who ever preached the gospel, whoever preached that Jesus Christ

is risen from the dead was not a man. It was a woman. All this and much, much more leads

us to believe as Amy, Jill Levine says here that Jesus interaction with women demonstrate

a radical inclusivity and a concern for social justice. He elevated their status. He affirmed

their dignity and challenged societal norms that marginalized them. I have to tell you

as a father of four daughters, I like this Jesus. I really like this Jesus to know that

that God and Christ have this care and inclusion of women. You know, one of the guys I listen

to a lot, Andy Stanley, he once said he says he thinks every woman should be a Christian

because of the radical compassion and inclusion that Jesus showed to the women of his own

day of his own day, which was very restrictive. You know, there are studies that show how

in most churches there are more women than men and people try to figure out why this

gender gap exists and so on and so forth. But I just wonder if part of it is still that

women feel affirmed and they feel elevated in the presence of Jesus in ways that they

don't feel in their homes or in their workplaces. Perhaps now is a good moment to say I give

thanks to all the women in this church from the youngest of you to the oldest for the

way that like these women you serve and give and faithfully just contribute to the life

of this church. And I also give thanks for all the women on our staff team who week in

and week out. We all benefit from their gifts and their energy and their talents. It is

true. And some of you will say, but Rob, all of Jesus disciples were men. Absolutely. It

was true. Jesus was still in some ways a product of his time. You know, in those days only

men could be rabbis in that way. And so yet Jesus, some of what he did was a sign of the

times. But you've got to see the way he was pushing against the grain and how he recognized

the giftedness and courage and the commitment of women. And I am very thankful that at least

in the Anglican Church, I'm very thankful we live in a day where those kind of cultural

norms are no longer in place today. Some of the most effective preachers and some of the

most effective teachers and some of the most effective leaders in the church are women

and we should rejoice in that because these women, like the women of this church are following

in the footsteps of these biblical women who stood with Jesus during the final hours of

his life. So that is the first thing I think that we see in these famous last words is

in this moment that Jesus is elevating the care that is needed to be given to women.

Now, the second thing I want to say that you can't read this story and not also see the

care that Jesus is giving to his mother. And I think by extension to all mothers, which

are a another group of people who in Jesus day and in our own day need special care and

concern. Now I know that mothers are kind of like a subset of women, but I still, I

want to just say a couple of things. Just this, it's really important to know that as

Jesus hung on the cross, dying in pain, he was concerned and he was caring for his mother.

Even as his life was ebbing away, he wanted to ensure that she was going to be looked

after once he was gone. And so then he said, that's why he turns to John. He encourages

John to take his mother into his care and he encourages his mother to allow John to

provide that care to him, to her. How did this happen? Did it work? Did John take Mary

into his care? The answer I think is yes. We don't really know what that looks like,

but there was this ancient document from the year 431 from the city of Ephesus, where it

was said that the city of the Ephesians, where John the theologian and the virgin mother

of God, St. Mary lived and are buried, which means it is possible that Mary may have lived

out her days with John in a place called Ephesus, a city called Ephesus, which is in present

day Turkey. In fact, if you go to Ephesus today, there's even a house there that pilgrims visit,

which is said to be the house that John built for Mary and the place where she lived until

the end of her life. So it's interesting. I don't know if it's legit or not, but whatever

was going on, Jesus was clearly trying to live out the fifth commandment of the Ten

Commandments, the fifth commandment, which says you should honor your father and your

mother and surely honoring our mothers and fathers. It means taking care of them in their

old age. You know, Sally and I, we talk about caring for our own parents when they get into

old age. They already are in old age and are they going to need financial help? Will they

need companionship? Will they need medical care? You know, those are some important questions

people ask, especially in Canada. Right now we live in what is called the sandwich generation,

which is where you have an aging population on the one hand, where life spans are increasing.

And yet these very same people with aging parents also have children that they need

to take care of. And so they're sandwiched between these two important relationships

in their lives and they want to care for both sides of it. And managing that care, having

that dual role actually creates some pretty big challenges, relational challenges, financial

challenges. I'm probably preaching to the choir. You guys probably know this better

than I do. You may be living through this right now where you're trying to balance the

care for your parents with the care for your children. Our parents need help when they

get older. That's just the truth of it. Let me show you, for example, there's some studies

recently, just past week, CIBC did a poll that found that 32% of Canadians nearing retirement

have nothing saved for retirement, nothing. How are they going to survive? H&R Block did

another study a little earlier and they found that 52% of Canadians are unprepared for retirement.

So how will our aging parents make ends meet? Many of them will be fine, but there are others.

Today, I was not today. What am I saying? This past week I went for a dentist appointment,

no cavities. Thank you very much. But the dental hygienist who was cleaning my teeth,

she was a retired lady who had come out of retirement and she was taking all the shifts

she could get because she couldn't make ends meet. All that's to say, Jesus is modeling

something for us here. I think that we need to care for our parents. This is something

that has occurred throughout most of human history. Perhaps recent generations have kind

of started to forget about this, but caring for our parents, caring for our mothers, we'll

care for our fathers too. Sure, whatever. But it's really, it's about our mothers, right?

John was asking, Jesus was asking John to care for his mother. All right. So these famous last

words, they impress upon us two things so far. One, the care Jesus had for women. Secondly,

the care Jesus had for his own mother, both of things we have to kind of think learn from,

but many people believe, and this is where we're going to enter. Many people leave that though

the point of these words that are written for us. So the reason they were passed down to us,

the reason we have them is not just to give us a simple instruction about how to care for your

parents or even how to care for women. But what it actually Jesus is doing here is something far

more radical. He's actually trying to teach us a brand new way to care for everyone, a brand new

way to care for each person, pretty radical stuff. But to understand this, you're going to have to

kind of read between the lines of the text. So let me just show you a couple interesting things.

First of all, I don't know if you know this, but in the gospel of John, John never calls Mary by

name. He never uses Mary's name, which is very interesting. The other gospel writers will use

the name of Mary, but not John. You probably noticed this in the reading. There's Jesus said to her,

woman, here is your son. And you might think that's a strange way to address a woman. It's actually

not a strange way to address a woman, right? You could speak that way to a woman. It was totally

acceptable, but that's not the way you would speak to your mom, right? If you were really going to

speak to your mother and if Jesus primarily was trying to say something to his mother, he would

have used a more intimate word that the Greek word or the Aramaic word for mother. But actually

he uses this word woman. And that is because the word woman is kind of expanding who it is we're

talking. We're not just, we're not just talking about Mary. Now we're not just talking about

mothers. Now John is using Mary almost as a symbol, a symbol that's not just about one person. This

is not just about one woman. There's something bigger going on here. He's, he's using her as a

symbol for something bigger. What is the bigger thing? We're going to get to that, right? And then,

and then consider this that we just heard that John took Mary into his own home. But actually,

if you read the Greek, I've told that what he's really saying there is he brought Mary to his own,

to his own, not his own home, but to his own. If I take you into my home, then yes, I'm going to care

for you. But if I take you to my own, well, now it's not just about me being nice to you. I am

actually taking you to my own. I'm creating a new community with you, a new, I'm actually kind of

merging you in with my family, my own life. Now I'm sharing that with you, my own family, my own.

You see what Jesus is doing in these famous last words. He's connecting. He's taking Mary over here.

He's taking John over here and he's connecting them in a new way that they were not connected

before. Jesus is creating a new kind of family. Right now he is. He's creating a new kind of

community. It's a community based on care, right? I found this great quote from Fleming Rutledge.

Fleming Rutledge. This says it all, right? The disciple, John, and the woman, Mary, again,

neither one of them are named. They're symbols kind of something big. They are not just individual

people here. They are symbolic. They represent the way that family ties now are being transcended

by the ties of the spirit, the ties of the spirit. He's creating something new. When a church is

working the way that it should, when Trinity Church is working the way that it should, when life groups

are working the way they should, when youth group, when Sunday school, and all these things are

working the way that they should, then what's happening is people who aren't related to each

other, people who have nothing in common with each other, people who may have very different

beliefs from each other in many ways, they're being connected. They're being given to each other.

And the result is Christ is making a new family, a family of care, a community of compassion.

I mean, in our culture, we talk, we talk a lot about independence and autonomy, but in the church,

we're connected. We're connected in a way that's different from the other groups you belong to in

the community, even different from the blood relationships that you have out there. That's

why Jesus calls Mary woman and not mom, because he's setting aside his blood relationship in order

to create a wider family of care, a new family, family that transcends race and transcends,

you know, class and gender and theology and all that stuff. In Trinity, we have this saying,

we say here, we want to be where the whole church is caring for the whole church. You see,

Trinity has these care ministries. Yes, we have a care fund. Yes, we have a care coordinator,

Eric and Elijah, Eric and amazing care coordinator. But the kind of care that we see happening here

or the kind of care where the whole church is caring for the whole church is not when you,

you get to care for your favorite people, but it's when you care for all people. It's not when you

just care for some and say, I don't care for those other people. No, no, no. It's when everyone

is caring for everyone because we're connected through the blood of Jesus. So you see,

these last words, man, they have so much there for us. They're just overflowing with care and

concern as Jesus was in life. So in death, he's caring. And let's just recap. First of all,

he's showing us how to care and have concern for women because in Jesus time, as in our own time,

in many places and situations, women were rejected and they were excluded. And Jesus in both his life

and death shows this amazing care and concern for women. And secondly, in these famous last words,

Jesus is showing care and concern for mothers and parents because in his time, and as I've said,

in our time too, aging parents need special care from their children. And then finally,

and most importantly, in these famous last words, we see Jesus calling into being a new spiritual

family, the church, if you will, where people take each other to their own. And this means as you look

around this room today, you don't just see strangers, you see mothers and fathers,

brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, people we've taken into our own. And as such, we're a

family, a family that has been called to care for each other. And that's what Jesus is trying to

press upon us in these famous last words. So thanks be to God. Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to our sermon today, and we hope that you found it inspiring. Make sure

to come back next week as we hear yet another message from the sermon series, Famous Last Words.

Today's sermon was taken from the March 3rd, 2024 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville,

in Mississauga, Ontario.