Woman, behold your son. Son, your mother.

 

 

The Jeremy Kyle programme is now (thankfully) off air – but I wonder how many times Jesus and his friends would have been on it?

As a baby, Jesus’ paternity was in question, his birth an embarrassment for many.  Joseph and Mary on the Jeremy Kyle show wanting answers and DNA testing – is Jesus really Joseph’s son?

As a child – he was a tearaway – running off – once to argue theology at the temple (as you do)!  When he gets a ticking off from his parents – the indignant response ‘didn’t you know I would be about my father’s business’?   Mary asks him ‘why are you treating us so’?   The Jeremy kyle show episode 2 – ‘my teenage son is out of control’!

When Jesus begins his ministry, he thought nothing of breaking up the family businesses – ‘follow me’ – demanding the unschooled fisherman leave their aging father on the boat whilst they go off on a road trip with their new friend.  Jeremy Kyle episode 3 ‘my kids have destroyed the family business’!

A man spoke to Jesus one day, ‘my daddy has died, I will sign up with you after I have attended the funeral’.  ‘Let the dead bury the dead’ Jesus replied (in love!), ‘follow me’.  That Jeremy Kyle episode is entitled, ‘my son refuses to come to his father’s funeral’. 

One day Jesus is teaching a whole load of strangers when one said ‘your mother and brothers are here’…  ‘Who are my mother and brothers?’  The Jeremy kyle episode – our son has publicly disowned us!

 

If there is one thing I have learnt from ministry it is that families bring out the very best and the very worst of human experiences.

On the one hand, you have the celebration of love at a wedding, thanksgiving for the gift of a child, people growing up whole and achieving the most wonderful things.

But on the other - you have the abuse, the fighting, the division… the ones who had favourites – leaving a lifetime of deep searching questions and struggles… 

Family – potentially the best place – and potentially the most difficult.

 

When the shepherds, led by angels knelt at the crib of Jesus the bible tells us ‘Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart’.   Watching Ez mother our kids – I am not sure there has been a better statement for a mother – One who ‘Treasures it all and ponders them in her heart’.

The first smile… The first gurgle… The first word…   The first step…  The first time he sang… The grab of the finger… The first carpentry work… The first friendship… The first time he prayed… The first miracle…  every single time – treasured… and pondered upon in the heart.

But… she would also remember Simeon predicting on the special day of Jesus being presented at the temple he would become ‘a sword that will pierce your heart’.  And though every difficulty was painful – it was now – this moment – staring at her beautiful, beaten, broken first-born boy – hanging from a cross that she felt it… the spear – driven through heart and soul.

Mary, grief stricken, going through the very worst thing a mother could go through – watching her beloved son tortured and left to die slowly and painfully on a cross.

There were others at the cross also.   Also, grief stricken.   Mary of Magdala – devoted to Jesus ever since he had cast out the seven devils from her.

 

And there was John – the only remaining male.   Woman were not seen as such a risk – and were able to mourn in public – for the men – there were crosses waiting for the men that followed Jesus.

 

The fact John was there show’s how young he would have been – too young to grow a proper beard – so with the woman was this brave boy who had given up everything to follow Jesus – and now… his whole world view was destroyed – his rabbi – dying. 

 

Jesus has spoken to the trinity on behalf of the crowd – ‘father forgive’ and he has spoken to the terrorist – today – even here on the cross you will be with me in paradise. And now – with still no words for himself – he speaks to those he can make out in the mob.  His mother – and his beloved disciple – broken…

 

And Jesus, who as we have already seen, has treated conventional family units with a little disdain – does the most incredible thing – he creates a new family from the cross.

 

He looks at his mother – sees the tears – the anguish and the pain… ‘Mother, behold your son’.  And then he sees his disciple – lost, bewildered, broken…  ‘son behold your mother’. 

 

A new family begun that very moment upon the cross – a family for broken mothers, previously demon possessed ladies of the night, for frightened young disciples, for tax collectors and sinners… (and you and me!) A new family – not joined by ancestral blood but by the blood of Jesus.

 

In Jesus time – in the middle east – the family was everything.  The family you were born into determined your entire life.  Your complete identity.  Your entire future.  So, one of the most countercultural things Jesus did was challenge the traditional understanding of family.    

 

Today – where too often we pride ourselves on family values – we still seem to see family as only the nuclear family and the most important part of life – and too often – working class kids get working class jobs…  our prospects are decided on where we are born or whom we are born too… 

 

Jesus begins a new family – and if we dare to look around – it is filled with the people on this screen tonight.  It is filled with the people attending all sorts of different services in town – it is filled with all sorts of cultural backgrounds – Chinese, African, American to name a few…

 

And they are our new family…

 

We are heroes in our family.  I am a pacifist – but if anything would make me fight it would be risk to my family.   I am too often filled with scarcity when it comes to money – but the moment I spend it all – is if somebody is desperate and in need in my family. 

 

Jesus loves this – but sees our concept of family as too narrow. 

 

Jesus has saved us from our families and bought us into a big one joined by his blood.

 

It’s a family that looks after the broken and lost.

 

It’s a family that welcomes the widow and the orphan

 

The married and the single

 

Black and white. 

 

Straight and gay

 

It’s a family where we attempt to do great things for each other and for the world.

 

It’s a place where we share bread – eat together – laugh together – cry together – share resources – live life together

 

And the way those lives are shared – good news to the society around us – desperate for safe places to learn who they are – and their divine purpose… 

 

The name of this beautiful new family…  My friends it is the church! 

 

May you find your family – here at the cross – find your family - with the wondrous third word…

 

‘Mother behold your Son and Son this is your mother’.