Behold, Thy Mother

Ne of the words from the cross was “Behold, thy mother! “The word was spoken to John, the beloved disciple. Mary was standing near the cross. The sword was slowly piercing through her soul, as Simeon had foretold that day when the mother was giving her child to God in the temple. Think of the anguish of her heart. Yet she was silent — the deepest grief is always most quiet. She could do nothing to soothe or help. She stood by his cross, watching. Oh, friendship, constant, faithful, undying! But what of the love of the dying Son for his mother.’’ His own ang-uish was unspeakable those hours. Did he think of her then.’*, Or was his pain so absorbing that he forgot her? She was standing near his cross — did he notice her.’’ Here is the answer:” When Jesus

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therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother. Woman, behold, thy son! Then saith he to the disciple. Behold, thy mother!” Jesus had always cared for his mother. She was the first friend he ever had. The mother is always her child’s first friend. Only a few times is the veil lifted to give us glimpses of this mother and her child. We know that Jesus was the ideal son in his love and faithfulness. Few things in this world are more beautiful than such friendships as one sometimes sees between mother and son. The two enter into the closest friendship. A sacred and inviolable intimacy is formed between them. The boy opens all his heart io his mother, telling her everything; and she, blessed woman, knows how to be a boy’s mother, and how to keep a mother’s place without ever startling or checking the boy’s confidences, or causing him to want to hide anything from her. It is almost certain that sorrow entered the Nazareth home while Jesus was only a boy. Joseph is not mentioned after the visit to [106]

Jerusalem, when Jesus was twelve, and it is supposed that he died soon after that, leaving Mary a widow. No doubt Jesus became his mother’s caretaker. He was the eldest son. He had learned the carpenter’s trade, and day after day, early and late, he wrought with his hands to provide for her wants. The thirty silent years of preparation closed, and Jesus went forth to begin his public ministry. The Father’s business now filled his hands — he was the Messiah — but we are sure that his love for his mother never failed. Love for God does not keep us from loving our mothers and friends — it makes us love them all the more. Doing the Father’s work does not make us less interested in the duties of earthly life — it teaches us to do all duty better. It is beautiful to see this love manifesting itself in his dying hours. His heart was full of love and sympathy as he saw his mother so stricken with grief, and then thought of her as she would be when he was gone, desolate and bereft. Thus far, he himself had been near her in all her need; now, when the burden [107 1

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grew heavy, he would not be with her. One of the bitterest elements in the experience of death is the thought of those who will be left behind when we are gone. One tells of a man, a happy Christian, with wife and children in his home, who lay very sick. The doctors said he could scarcely recover. When they told him so, he showed no fear of death, but there was his young and tender wife, who had leaned on him in loving trust, and there were his children, who needed a father’s care. He looked into the eyes of the woman who sat beside his bed, and said, “Ah, the outlook is very bright, very bright, only — how will it fare with you and the boys?” It was a feeling much like this that was in the heart of Jesus that morning on the cross, when he saw his mother standing close by. He had a vision of her loneliness when he would be gone. He knew how she would miss him. Before he went away, he must provide a shelter for her. So he committed her to John, who was standing by her, asking him to be a son to her henceforth. He thought not only [108] of his mother’s physical needs, but of her heart’s longings as well. She would find love and all gentleness in John’s home. It would not be merely a boarding house, where daily food would be given to her, and where she could sleep at nights. It would be a home in which there would be sympathy and tenderness. He knew his mother would be reverently cherished in John’s house as long as she lived. “Woman, behold thy son!” Part of the anguish of dying was now gone from the heart of Jesus; his mother would have shelter and most tender care.

While this picture of Jesus and his mother is before us, it is natural that we should think of our mothers, too, and of our duty to give them love and thought and gentle cherishing. “Behold, thy mother!” When Jesus spoke these words to John, he was giving him another mother to care for, to watch over, to shelter, to comfort. To be a friend of Christ is to stand ready to use all we are and all we have to help his friends. It was a most sacred honor to John to be chosen from all the [109]

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Master’s friends to be intrusted with the care of Christ’s own very mother. “Behold, thy mother!” Think what we owe to our mothers. They tell us that into the strings of some old Cremona violin, the life of the master who has played upon it for years has passed, so that it is as if his very soul breathed out at every skillful touch of the instrument. This is only a poet’s fancy; but when a child in a mother’s bosom is loved, nursed, caressed, held close to her heart, prayed over, wept over, talked with, days, weeks, months and years, it is no mere fancy to say that the mother’s life has indeed passed into the child’s soul and breathes out in the child’s life.

We grown-up people do not begin to know what our mothers have done for us, how they have given their lives to us and for us. The debt of a child to a mother is one that never can be fully discharged. It dates from the first moment of being; it accumulates as the days go on. There are the years of iniaaPy with their sgligiiades, their broken nights and [1101 fi

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toilsome days, their unsleeping watchfulness, their patient nursing. There are the years of trgLining and J^aching — think how much a child has to be taught in its first five years. There are the times of skkness when the lamp never goes out and the pale, weary watcher accepts no relief till the danger is past. There is a story of an artist who wanted to freshen the old mother’s photograph, taking out the lines and wrinkles, to make it look brighter and younger. “No, no,” said the son. “Leave it just as it is, lines and all.” Then he explained how the lines and traces of age in his mother were the most sacred things in the picture. They were the etchings of suffering and endurance, the grave records of love’s cost, when the woman was mothering her children. Not a line or a mark must be taken from the old photograph. It would not be a true picture of the mother if these traces of pain were washed out. The son was right. Old age, with its decrepitude, its bent form, its faded, shrunken cheeks, is not dishonorable when the years have been

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filled with love. Wrinkles and lines made by care and self-denial are honorable’ credentials, records of holy serdce of love. Perhaps your mother is prematurely gray, has lost somewhat of the freshness of her earlier years — is crippled, partly paralyzed, her hands feeble and trembling, her speech uncertain; have you ever thought that these physical effects are the results of her toil, loss of rest, self-denial for you?

“Behold, thy mother!” Look at her if she is living, think of her reverently if she is gone. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes one hears of men and women even forgetting their mothers, leaving them uncared for, to suffer want, while they themselves have plenty, and could easily supply their simple needs. Then sometimes mothers are well enough cared for so far as earthly comforts are concerned and yet neglected, starved, so far as love is concerned. We sometimes hear of people setting apart a day in the year when they wear a white flower as a mark of honor for a mother. That is well. But while your mother lived, did you strew [112] the path of her feet with flowers? If she still lives, do 3’ou honor her with flowers of love? Do 3’ou show her kindness? Do you speak gently to her, and make her glad with your love?

The white flower is an emblem of her purity. That is well. A true mother is like an angel of God in the whiteness and luster of her life. In the schoolroom of the little Princes of Germany, it is said this incident occurred: The teacher was saying that all people are sinners. The little Crown Prince wanted to know if this was true of people of royal rank, or only of the lowly. “Of all,” said the teacher. “Well,” said the little Prince, speaking slowly but very positively, “my father may be a sinner, but I know my mother is not.” God bless the true mothers, with their white lives. Wear the white flower in honor of your mother’s purity of soul.

But the white flower you wear ought also to be an emblem of your own life. In no other way can you honor your mother so well as by a spotless character. There are too many chil- [1131

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dren who are kind to their mothers in a way, doing many things for them, giving them presents, then breaking their hearts by lives of sin. The mother of Jesus had poignant sorrow that day when she stood near the cross and beheld her son in anguish there. But there were no bitter drops in her grief. His life had been all holy and pure. He had never done an unkindness. He had never spoken a harsh word.

If boys and young men would honor their mothers in the true way, they must do more than wear a white carnation on their breast one day in the year. They must wear the white flower of a blameless life all the days of all the years. A mother said the other day to a friend, “I would rather a hundred times he had been brought home to me dead.” Her boy of seventeen had been brought home the night before, drunk. A boy who loves his mother should never give her such grief as that to bear. The boys do not know how proud their mothers are of them, what brilliant dreams they dream for them as they [114] f(

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think of their future, how they pray for them, how they love them. They must not disappoint their mothers.

Perhaps your mother is gone. She cannot see how you live: At least so far as you know she cannot see. One friend asked another, “Do you think our mothers in heaven see us here, and know how we live.’’” The friend replied thoughtfully, “I do not know. But let us live always as if we knew they did.” That is a safe rule of life.

“Behold, thy mother!” One of the great things Jesus did that day when redeeming the world was to think of his mother, and provide that the cold storms should not blow sharply upon her frail, sorrowful life. If this was a fit thing for Jesus to do for his mother, it is a fit thing for us to do for our mothers, if we have them yet with us. Then, if your mother is in heaven, and you cannot go to her with any fresh honor, find some other one to whom you can show kindness for your mother’s sake.

Jesus asked John to take his place, and love [115]

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and honor his mother for him. There may be somewhere an aged mother, or a mother feeble and lonely, who has no child of her own to show the kindness of God to her. Jesus says to you, “Behold, thy mother!”

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[117],
‘God reads — and very truly reads — Our motives under all our deeds:
And if, with purpose pure, to-day
I seek — but seem to miss ?ny way,
Yet am I, in the courts above,
Judged by the perfect law of love,”*