(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Born, and Born Again”, originally shared on May 5, 2022. It was the 212th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Do you remember when you were born? Does it matter if you remember,
given that you are alive and healthy? Do you remember when you were born again?
Does it matter if you remember, given that you are a child of God, spiritually
alive and healthy? Today, we’re going to talk about what is important.
This
coming Sunday is Mother’s Day. I mention this as a public service. Do not
forget. I repeat. Do not forget. She’s your mother. Honor her.
Don’t be like the family that saw their mother get up from dinner, pick
up some plates, and head right to the kitchen sink.
“Oh, no, no,” they said. “Don’t do that. This is your day, mom. Relax.
Take it easy.” they said. “Just leave them there. You can do them tomorrow.”
Don’t do that. Honor your mother. It’s a commandment.
If you’ve ever looked closely at the traditional art showing Moses with
the 10 commandments, you might have noticed something odd. God gave the
commandments on two stone tablets, but the commandments are not represented
with five on each tablet.
Instead, you’ll usually see the numbers 1-3 on the tablet to the left,
and the numbers 4-10 on the tablet to the right.
Why? Because the first three commandments have to do with our
relationship with God, and the remaining seven have to do with our
relationships with one another.
And The Fourth Commandment, the very first commandment in that second
group is:
“Honor your father and your mother.”
Martin Luther, the 16th century Church reformer, describes
the meaning of this commandment in this way, “We are to fear (note: respect)
and love God, so that we neither despise nor anger our parents and others in
authority, but instead honor, serve, obey, love, and respect them.”
When one of my aunts died (she
was my mother’s sister) one of her sons, a cousin, was going through her papers
and he found something that he thought I would like. It was a letter from my
mom to her sister, my aunt, that started “Great news!” The great news in that
letter was of her happiness that she was expecting her first child. Me. Can you
imagine what a great gift that was to me?
I’ll be thinking about the love of my mother for all her children this
Mother’s Day, but I’ll be thinking in particular about my mother’s bedroom set
fund.
My mom had a beautiful coloratura soprano voice. She sang regularly at
church.
She was also one of the go-to soloists in our town for weddings and
funerals. Whenever she received an honorarium for singing, the money went into her
bedroom set fund. She taught voice lessons in our home. Everything she received
for teaching went into that bedroom set fund, too. Her goal, her dream, was to
buy a new bedroom set for her and our dad.
But, whenever any of us kids had some need that wasn’t in the budget, from
jeans to college tuition, it came out of that fund. No questions and without
hesitation.
She finally was able to buy that bedroom set, but it wasn’t until I was
in college. I learned a lot about love and sacrifice from my mother.
My wife, Rev. Sally Welch has been a wonderful mother to our son and has
made innumerable sacrifices out of love along the way. I have learned a lot
about love and sacrifice from her, too.
In addition, our mothers are often our first teachers and, in many
places, are the first evangelists we know in life.
Paul writes to Timothy, a young pastor, about Timothy’s mother and
grandmother in his second letter to him, in 2 Timothy 1:5,
5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that
lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure,
lives in you.
He spells out how Timothy has experienced the witness of his mother and
grandmother a couple of chapters later in 2 Timothy 3:14-15,
14 But as for you, continue in what you
have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15 and
how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct
you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Many of us could tell similar stories about the mothers in our lives,
but not everyone. And, for some of us, this is a painful day. Some of us
grew-up without a mother, but who had people who served as mothers and
sometimes that was their fathers. Some had mothers who were not so loving. Some
of us desperately wanted to be mothers but couldn’t. Some of us no longer have
their mothers and miss them.
All those feelings about Mother’s Day are an expression of a deeply
meaningful relationship.
Jesus had a mother, and he loved her and provided for her. We don’t hear
about his “step-father” Joseph after approximately Jesus’13th
birthday. But when Jesus was on the cross, about 20 years later, in
unbelievable agony, his thoughts turn to his mother, in John 19:26-27,
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the
disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here
is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple,
“Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own
home.
In this third of his seven last statements from the cross, Jesus
expresses care for his mother, as her first-born son, and he entrusts her to
one of his disciples out of concern for her spiritual care, as well as for her
material security.
We love our mothers out of gratitude for all they have done for us, but
most especially because of the deeply bonded relationship we share, both
physically and spiritually.
Last time, we talked about John 10:22-29,
and we saw that the essence of Christianity is the cross. The Christian life is lived in response to that sacrifice and because
of that sacrifice we are reconciled to God, we are a new creation. We are born again. Because of the cross, Jesus is our Lord and our
Savior! Why does that happen in people’s lives, in all who repent and believe?
That passage from John about
what a Christian is ends with a statement about why the cross of Jesus can
reconcile us to God. Jesus said in John 10:30,
30 The Father and I are one.”
Jesus is speaking of God. There
is only one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All are present in
Creation, and all are One. All are present at the cross, and all are One. All
are present in the work of the Holy Spirit, and all are One.
What does this mean for us in
the work of Jesus on the cross? John describes what this means in the very
first chapter of his Gospel, in John 1:12-13,
12 But to all who received him, who
believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who
were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but
of God.
It means that we are born
separated from God by sin. And then we are born again, reconciled because of
the mighty acts of God’s grace through our repentance and in the gift of faith,
in a living relationship with the one true living God.
I’ve heard it proposed that our
mothers should be celebrated on Mother’s Day, but that they should also be
celebrated on our birthday.
When a woman is expecting the
birth of a child it’s fashionable for a couple to say, “We’re pregnant”. Well,
OK, it encourages the dad to feel involved in the process, but, “Really?”. You
know who is going to be going through what here.
So, it’s been proposed that
birthdays should primarily be a celebration for the mother. I mean, she did do
the work, or should I say “labor”. There is nothing that we did to get
born. 😊 And, there is nothing that we did or can do to be reconciled to God.
We thank God each day for our
mothers and that we were born. We thank God each day for himself, for Jesus
Christ our Savior, who gave his life to put us right with God, who said “The
Father and I are one,” that we, mothers and children together, can be born
again, made a new creation, given the gift to all who receive Him, who believe
in his name!
By the sacrificial love of God,
we are made children of God, forever!
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