The Royal Baby
A Son like No other
Mark 1:21-34
Friends, welcome to Trinity Church on Mother’s day.
If you have come particularly this morning because it is Mother’s Day, can I especially welcome you?
There have been some funny stories going around this week as people relate stories about their mother and remember things from the past.
One lady spoke of the day when she bought her mother an iPhone to stay in contact. When she brought it to her mother she said, there is also an application called SIRI. You can ask SIRI anything by saying “Hey SIRI” and your questions and she will answer.
She then demonstrated, she said, “Hey SIRI what is the weather today?” SIRI replied. “It will be warm mostly sunny and 27 degrees”.
Well her mother was impressed and wanted to try and said, “Hey SIRI, how is Aunty Helen feeling today?”
To which SIRI replied, “I’d rather not say”
Another man wrote of the time he and his brother broke one of the blades on the decorative windmill in the backyard, which caused it to be unbalanced and shake violently. When they confessed to their mother, who was busy washing, she stormed outside and snapped off the opposing blade to rebalance the windmill and then when back to washing. The man said his brother turned to him and said, “I hope I never break a leg”.
Mother’s day is such a significant day in many parts of the world so much so that the FBI claim that even the Mafia close for business on mother’s day. Can you believe that?
No vendettas, no breaking of fingers no sub-machinegun slaying allowed on Mother’s Day.
Today is a very safe day if the Mafia is after you.
Now it is important to say I think that Mother’s Day is a day that is mixed isn’t it. It can be full of joy for some and it can be full of sadness for some and it can be a real mix of both for some.
Mother's Day may come as yet another reminder to women everywhere that they don't have something they desire. Another year of miscarriages, infertility or singleness
Whatever the unfulfilled desire, it tugs at your heart on mother’s day in big ways.
Some mothers have lost children, and that will weigh heavy on your heart today, maybe more than other days if that is possible.
Some here will have bad memories of their mother that outweigh any good memories.
Some here will be sadden as they remember how badly they themselves mothered.
Of course mixed in with all of that, there will be many will have wonderful memories and experiences of your mother and of being a mother.
So it is a mixed day and it is important to say that right at the beginning, and I certainly want to be sensitive to that this morning.
What I do want to do this morning is speak about a mother. Not just any mother, but Mary the mother of Jesus Christ.
I want to speak to you about the way in which Jesus changed her life.
Children do change parent’s lives, and I am not just talking about sleeping habits.
Jesus changed Mary’s life in quite profound ways. More than any of her other children.
I want to look this morning at three snap shot of Jesus life, and how they affected Mary.
So let’s start at the beginning, let’s start with his Birth.
Jesus Birth
There is so much that happened around the birth of Jesus, it makes you wonder what Mary thought about it all. There is one thing that happened that left the biggest and most lasting impact on her.
It is not the difficulty that Mary and Joseph had in finding a place for her to give birth. That was a big deal.
I personally found the birth of my children traumatic enough and they were all born in a hospital … although the last one cut it close.
I can’t imagine an animal shelter being the place.
Mind you it was more than that wasn’t it? It also included the traveling of 130km to Bethlehem because of a government census. I know she travels on a Donkey in all the movies, but the Bible doesn’t mention any donkey … so she may well have walked the distance. Or waddled.
It is not those things that leave the biggest impact I think.
The big one I think is mentioned right at the beginning of the story of the birth of Jesus.
This is how Matthew records it.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(Which means, God with us).
This child was conceived miraculously and he was to be called Immanuel which means God with us.
I don’t think Mary fully understood at the start, the child she carried was God. The eternal Son of God was coming into the world.
He was fully God and at the same time became fully man. Every time she fed him, she was feeding the Son of God Every time she kissed him and changed his nappy and rocked him to sleep. She was doing it to the Son of God.
You can’t get your mind around that can you?
That is a big deal isn’t it.
It is hard to get past something as big as that I think. If you have ever doubted that there is a God … here is God in the flesh.
If you have ever asked the question, “How could I know if God is there?” Here is the answer.
He came into the world as a baby, fully God, fully man.
And that is a big deal.
And I think it had a big affect on Mary.
And we ought not to ignore it either.
Well that is the first snap shot. His birth.
The second snap shot comes when he is an Adult
Jesus as an Adult
There are lots of things to say about Jesus as an Adult. One thing that is made clear over and over again is that he is a person of enormous power.
The first part of Mark’s gospel, the passage that was read to us begins with a day in the life of Jesus. It starts in the synagogue at Nazareth where a demon-possessed lunatic man is yelling out, and with a word Jesus commands the demon to leave and heals the man.
I would give anything to be able to do that. I have counselled people with mental disease, and I have seen doctors care for people with mental illness. I know people who despite the best help we can give have committed suicide.
I am enormously impressed with the man who with a word, can restore a person. This man had a demon, which I imagine is worse than a mental illness. Don’t let what Jesus does just pass through your mind as if it is not very impressive.
They go home to Simon’s mother in law, she is sick and he heals her and she feels so different she can serve them. When you’re really sick you can hardly get out of bed from exhaustion
At the end of that day everyone in the village with any illness came and they were all healed, they didn’t need a specialist for each ailments, Jesus appeared to be multi skilled at this work.
When I read the life of Jesus, I find myself thinking, I wish I could have done that, I wish I could have thought to say that, I wish I could do that.
Do you know the story of Jairus, just a few chapters further on?
The little girl Jairus’s daughter is 12, the only child of Jairus and his wife. They would have doted on her. Not like middle child … we just get ignored … if you can help it don’t be a middle child.
She was the only child … she was very precious to them. When she is close to death, in desperation Jairus finds himself at Jesus side saying come down to my little girl, she is at the point of death.
On the way, a messenger comes and say, she is dead it is too late. Jesus says to Jairus, who must have been beside himself at this stage, trust me.
He takes the little girl by the hand sand say, “little girl, I say to you get up” … and dead lives.
I have been with people when their loved ones are dying, and you are so helpless to do anything.
I was at the bed side of a young man with a brain tumour, and his young wife and family … al weeping as he died in front of us.
There is nothing you can do to change it, you wish like mad that you could say something … but there is nothing you can say.
Jesus however reverses the program. He just says trust me.
He is a person of enormous power and he went around telling people to follow after him as their God and King. That is what he tells you to do.
What of his Mother do you think?
What do you think her response to all this was?
Mark gospel in chapter 3 we are told
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
They think he is mad. That is what his family thought, was Mary a part of that? Probably.
His mother and his family believed him to be mad – their response.
Only a mad man would say to people follow me, I am God.
Let me ask, have I got this right … Don’t we all start off by pushing him aside something like that?
For my part I was a complete fist shaker in the face of God. I would have said, I am not going to do what you ask me to do. You are not my God. I am going to run my own life my own way. I was in my full flush of my 14th year. Can you believe that?
I am now 48 and I would think it equally childish for me to tell God how life ought to be lived.
He who made it all. He who tells death what to do.
But I had no difficulty in doing that when I was 14, it was just what I did. My friends around me were exactly the same as me, they were totally careless as to whether God existed or not.
You know what I laboured under the misapprehension that all would be well for me. I had nothing to be concerned about. That was such foolishness don’t you think?
What was I going to say on the Day Jesus returns in judgement and asks we why I had spent my life ignoring him. What was I going to say to him when he said, I made it clear I was the Son of God, why did you ignore me?
Can I just point out something that is worth taking note of at this point?
Although Jesus has enormous power, he is also very good.
Who was it who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I agree, but not with Jesus
Well that is the second snapshot. The life of Jesus as an adult.
The third snap shot comes at the end of his life. His death and resurrection, and it is the one that has the biggest impact of all.
Jesus Death and Resurrection.
Mary was there when Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. Can you imagine that mothers?
We see her at the cross, where Jesus is gasping for his last breath, she was there when he took his first breath and there when he took his last one.
Can you imagine watching that?
But Jesus didn’t just die.
Here is the big thing.
Three days later he rose from the dead.
Now I know there are people who claim to have a near death experience, they are somehow technically dead but they come back to life again … mind you they are not dead for three days … and they all die again later… Jesus resurrection is nothing like that.
Jesus bounced out of the grave the great conquer of death because he is God’s king forever. He has been raised from the dead as the king of this world
King of death, king of you, king of me.
Do you know who was there with the disciples when Jesus died and rose again.
Mary. Whenever it was, she was now convinced that Jesus was God the Son, her King and her saviour.
The picture painted by the artists are of Mary the mother and child.
Have you seen them … always with a little halo … nothing like motherhood?
But the final Mary is not the Mother Mary.
As good as it was to be a Mother that was not the big thing or the final thing.
The final Mary is the Mary who follows Jesus as her God and King. It is a happy ending.
She has misunderstood her own son but not at the end.
What about you?
When Jesus was on earth he continually called on people to stop ignoring him and follow him as their God and king.
Let me tell you something. He is still doing that today. He calls you today to trust him with your life, he says don’t push me aside. Welcome me in.
I can tell you, there is forgiveness for all who do that, even if you have ignored him all your life to this point. There is a right way to treat royalty and a wrong way.
Rico Tice is and Englishman, and he has written a few books I have read. He tells the story of being invited out to lunch one afternoon and because he was a little early he waited on the stair well just outside the main dining room.
Standing opposite him was another man who he vaguely recognised but thought nothing of it, and so as English people often do, they gave each other a sheepish node and stood awkwardly for 5 minutes in total silent.
Eventually a man came from around the corner and said to the other man, William, there you are, we are in the private dining room.
It turns out it was Prince William, I had been standing next to him for 5 whole minutes and we had nothing better to do than talk to each other and I hadn’t uttered a single word.
In the case of Prince William, it is not all that big of a deal, although he had missed out on a once in a life time opportunity. In the case of Jesus … ignoring him is so much more serious.
Is it time to stop pretending that Jesus isn’t immensely powerful?
Is it time to stop pretending that he isn’t God?
Is it time to stop pretending that you won’t stand before him when your die to give an account for what you did with him in this life?
Why not come to him today? Things could be different today.
Let me finish.
Now my guess is that we are all at different stages here this morning in terms of relationship with God.
You might be wondering if God is there or not, and nothing I have said has convinced you today that there is.
You might believe Jesus is the Son of God, and have said yes to that idea and live with him as their king, and have been forgiven.
You might be in the middle … and if you are I want to talk to you now.
I think the midpoint is the person who says.
I think Jesus really is in charge, but I have never done anything about it. I think he is God, and I will give an account to him. It is just you have never done anything about it.
If that is where you are, do you think it might be a good idea do something today?
What might you do?
I am going to pray a prayer now that would be
perfect for you to pray.
I am going to start off by saying
“God I have ignored you as a person and haven’t related to you as my God. I have ignore Jesus right to rule my life. I am sorry about that, but from today onwards I will seek to serve you as God.
Jesus please forgive me and take over the running of my life.
If that is where you are up to, why no pray this pray inside your head to God as I pray it out loud.
You may want to read Mark’s Gospel – part of the Bible about the life of Jesus.
Christianity explored …
Friends it really is too important to do nothing.
Can I urge you this morning to consider who Jesus is?
If he is the Son of God, isn’t it about time you sort his forgives and followed him as your king.
A Son like No other
Mark 1:21-34
Friends, welcome to Trinity Church on Mother’s day.
If you have come particularly this morning because it is Mother’s Day, can I especially welcome you?
There have been some funny stories going around this week as people relate stories about their mother and remember things from the past.
One lady spoke of the day when she bought her mother an iPhone to stay in contact. When she brought it to her mother she said, there is also an application called SIRI. You can ask SIRI anything by saying “Hey SIRI” and your questions and she will answer.
She then demonstrated, she said, “Hey SIRI what is the weather today?” SIRI replied. “It will be warm mostly sunny and 27 degrees”.
Well her mother was impressed and wanted to try and said, “Hey SIRI, how is Aunty Helen feeling today?”
To which SIRI replied, “I’d rather not say”
Another man wrote of the time he and his brother broke one of the blades on the decorative windmill in the backyard, which caused it to be unbalanced and shake violently. When they confessed to their mother, who was busy washing, she stormed outside and snapped off the opposing blade to rebalance the windmill and then when back to washing. The man said his brother turned to him and said, “I hope I never break a leg”.
Mother’s day is such a significant day in many parts of the world so much so that the FBI claim that even the Mafia close for business on mother’s day. Can you believe that?
No vendettas, no breaking of fingers no sub-machinegun slaying allowed on Mother’s Day.
Today is a very safe day if the Mafia is after you.
Now it is important to say I think that Mother’s Day is a day that is mixed isn’t it. It can be full of joy for some and it can be full of sadness for some and it can be a real mix of both for some.
Mother's Day may come as yet another reminder to women everywhere that they don't have something they desire. Another year of miscarriages, infertility or singleness
Whatever the unfulfilled desire, it tugs at your heart on mother’s day in big ways.
Some mothers have lost children, and that will weigh heavy on your heart today, maybe more than other days if that is possible.
Some here will have bad memories of their mother that outweigh any good memories.
Some here will be sadden as they remember how badly they themselves mothered.
Of course mixed in with all of that, there will be many will have wonderful memories and experiences of your mother and of being a mother.
So it is a mixed day and it is important to say that right at the beginning, and I certainly want to be sensitive to that this morning.
What I do want to do this morning is speak about a mother. Not just any mother, but Mary the mother of Jesus Christ.
I want to speak to you about the way in which Jesus changed her life.
Children do change parent’s lives, and I am not just talking about sleeping habits.
Jesus changed Mary’s life in quite profound ways. More than any of her other children.
I want to look this morning at three snap shot of Jesus life, and how they affected Mary.
So let’s start at the beginning, let’s start with his Birth.
Jesus Birth
There is so much that happened around the birth of Jesus, it makes you wonder what Mary thought about it all. There is one thing that happened that left the biggest and most lasting impact on her.
It is not the difficulty that Mary and Joseph had in finding a place for her to give birth. That was a big deal.
I personally found the birth of my children traumatic enough and they were all born in a hospital … although the last one cut it close.
I can’t imagine an animal shelter being the place.
Mind you it was more than that wasn’t it? It also included the traveling of 130km to Bethlehem because of a government census. I know she travels on a Donkey in all the movies, but the Bible doesn’t mention any donkey … so she may well have walked the distance. Or waddled.
It is not those things that leave the biggest impact I think.
The big one I think is mentioned right at the beginning of the story of the birth of Jesus.
This is how Matthew records it.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(Which means, God with us).
This child was conceived miraculously and he was to be called Immanuel which means God with us.
I don’t think Mary fully understood at the start, the child she carried was God. The eternal Son of God was coming into the world.
He was fully God and at the same time became fully man. Every time she fed him, she was feeding the Son of God Every time she kissed him and changed his nappy and rocked him to sleep. She was doing it to the Son of God.
You can’t get your mind around that can you?
That is a big deal isn’t it.
It is hard to get past something as big as that I think. If you have ever doubted that there is a God … here is God in the flesh.
If you have ever asked the question, “How could I know if God is there?” Here is the answer.
He came into the world as a baby, fully God, fully man.
And that is a big deal.
And I think it had a big affect on Mary.
And we ought not to ignore it either.
Well that is the first snap shot. His birth.
The second snap shot comes when he is an Adult
Jesus as an Adult
There are lots of things to say about Jesus as an Adult. One thing that is made clear over and over again is that he is a person of enormous power.
The first part of Mark’s gospel, the passage that was read to us begins with a day in the life of Jesus. It starts in the synagogue at Nazareth where a demon-possessed lunatic man is yelling out, and with a word Jesus commands the demon to leave and heals the man.
I would give anything to be able to do that. I have counselled people with mental disease, and I have seen doctors care for people with mental illness. I know people who despite the best help we can give have committed suicide.
I am enormously impressed with the man who with a word, can restore a person. This man had a demon, which I imagine is worse than a mental illness. Don’t let what Jesus does just pass through your mind as if it is not very impressive.
They go home to Simon’s mother in law, she is sick and he heals her and she feels so different she can serve them. When you’re really sick you can hardly get out of bed from exhaustion
At the end of that day everyone in the village with any illness came and they were all healed, they didn’t need a specialist for each ailments, Jesus appeared to be multi skilled at this work.
When I read the life of Jesus, I find myself thinking, I wish I could have done that, I wish I could have thought to say that, I wish I could do that.
Do you know the story of Jairus, just a few chapters further on?
The little girl Jairus’s daughter is 12, the only child of Jairus and his wife. They would have doted on her. Not like middle child … we just get ignored … if you can help it don’t be a middle child.
She was the only child … she was very precious to them. When she is close to death, in desperation Jairus finds himself at Jesus side saying come down to my little girl, she is at the point of death.
On the way, a messenger comes and say, she is dead it is too late. Jesus says to Jairus, who must have been beside himself at this stage, trust me.
He takes the little girl by the hand sand say, “little girl, I say to you get up” … and dead lives.
I have been with people when their loved ones are dying, and you are so helpless to do anything.
I was at the bed side of a young man with a brain tumour, and his young wife and family … al weeping as he died in front of us.
There is nothing you can do to change it, you wish like mad that you could say something … but there is nothing you can say.
Jesus however reverses the program. He just says trust me.
He is a person of enormous power and he went around telling people to follow after him as their God and King. That is what he tells you to do.
What of his Mother do you think?
What do you think her response to all this was?
Mark gospel in chapter 3 we are told
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
They think he is mad. That is what his family thought, was Mary a part of that? Probably.
His mother and his family believed him to be mad – their response.
Only a mad man would say to people follow me, I am God.
Let me ask, have I got this right … Don’t we all start off by pushing him aside something like that?
For my part I was a complete fist shaker in the face of God. I would have said, I am not going to do what you ask me to do. You are not my God. I am going to run my own life my own way. I was in my full flush of my 14th year. Can you believe that?
I am now 48 and I would think it equally childish for me to tell God how life ought to be lived.
He who made it all. He who tells death what to do.
But I had no difficulty in doing that when I was 14, it was just what I did. My friends around me were exactly the same as me, they were totally careless as to whether God existed or not.
You know what I laboured under the misapprehension that all would be well for me. I had nothing to be concerned about. That was such foolishness don’t you think?
What was I going to say on the Day Jesus returns in judgement and asks we why I had spent my life ignoring him. What was I going to say to him when he said, I made it clear I was the Son of God, why did you ignore me?
Can I just point out something that is worth taking note of at this point?
Although Jesus has enormous power, he is also very good.
Who was it who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I agree, but not with Jesus
Well that is the second snapshot. The life of Jesus as an adult.
The third snap shot comes at the end of his life. His death and resurrection, and it is the one that has the biggest impact of all.
Jesus Death and Resurrection.
Mary was there when Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. Can you imagine that mothers?
We see her at the cross, where Jesus is gasping for his last breath, she was there when he took his first breath and there when he took his last one.
Can you imagine watching that?
But Jesus didn’t just die.
Here is the big thing.
Three days later he rose from the dead.
Now I know there are people who claim to have a near death experience, they are somehow technically dead but they come back to life again … mind you they are not dead for three days … and they all die again later… Jesus resurrection is nothing like that.
Jesus bounced out of the grave the great conquer of death because he is God’s king forever. He has been raised from the dead as the king of this world
King of death, king of you, king of me.
Do you know who was there with the disciples when Jesus died and rose again.
Mary. Whenever it was, she was now convinced that Jesus was God the Son, her King and her saviour.
The picture painted by the artists are of Mary the mother and child.
Have you seen them … always with a little halo … nothing like motherhood?
But the final Mary is not the Mother Mary.
As good as it was to be a Mother that was not the big thing or the final thing.
The final Mary is the Mary who follows Jesus as her God and King. It is a happy ending.
She has misunderstood her own son but not at the end.
What about you?
When Jesus was on earth he continually called on people to stop ignoring him and follow him as their God and king.
Let me tell you something. He is still doing that today. He calls you today to trust him with your life, he says don’t push me aside. Welcome me in.
I can tell you, there is forgiveness for all who do that, even if you have ignored him all your life to this point. There is a right way to treat royalty and a wrong way.
Rico Tice is and Englishman, and he has written a few books I have read. He tells the story of being invited out to lunch one afternoon and because he was a little early he waited on the stair well just outside the main dining room.
Standing opposite him was another man who he vaguely recognised but thought nothing of it, and so as English people often do, they gave each other a sheepish node and stood awkwardly for 5 minutes in total silent.
Eventually a man came from around the corner and said to the other man, William, there you are, we are in the private dining room.
It turns out it was Prince William, I had been standing next to him for 5 whole minutes and we had nothing better to do than talk to each other and I hadn’t uttered a single word.
In the case of Prince William, it is not all that big of a deal, although he had missed out on a once in a life time opportunity. In the case of Jesus … ignoring him is so much more serious.
Is it time to stop pretending that Jesus isn’t immensely powerful?
Is it time to stop pretending that he isn’t God?
Is it time to stop pretending that you won’t stand before him when your die to give an account for what you did with him in this life?
Why not come to him today? Things could be different today.
Let me finish.
Now my guess is that we are all at different stages here this morning in terms of relationship with God.
You might be wondering if God is there or not, and nothing I have said has convinced you today that there is.
You might believe Jesus is the Son of God, and have said yes to that idea and live with him as their king, and have been forgiven.
You might be in the middle … and if you are I want to talk to you now.
I think the midpoint is the person who says.
I think Jesus really is in charge, but I have never done anything about it. I think he is God, and I will give an account to him. It is just you have never done anything about it.
If that is where you are, do you think it might be a good idea do something today?
What might you do?
I am going to pray a prayer now that would be
perfect for you to pray.
I am going to start off by saying
“God I have ignored you as a person and haven’t related to you as my God. I have ignore Jesus right to rule my life. I am sorry about that, but from today onwards I will seek to serve you as God.
Jesus please forgive me and take over the running of my life.
If that is where you are up to, why no pray this pray inside your head to God as I pray it out loud.
You may want to read Mark’s Gospel – part of the Bible about the life of Jesus.
Christianity explored …
Friends it really is too important to do nothing.
Can I urge you this morning to consider who Jesus is?
If he is the Son of God, isn’t it about time you sort his forgives and followed him as your king.
A Son like No other
Mark 1:21-34
Friends, welcome to Trinity Church on Mother’s day.
If you have come particularly this morning because it is Mother’s Day, can I especially welcome you?
There have been some funny stories going around this week as people relate stories about their mother and remember things from the past.
One lady spoke of the day when she bought her mother an iPhone to stay in contact. When she brought it to her mother she said, there is also an application called SIRI. You can ask SIRI anything by saying “Hey SIRI” and your questions and she will answer.
She then demonstrated, she said, “Hey SIRI what is the weather today?” SIRI replied. “It will be warm mostly sunny and 27 degrees”.
Well her mother was impressed and wanted to try and said, “Hey SIRI, how is Aunty Helen feeling today?”
To which SIRI replied, “I’d rather not say”
Another man wrote of the time he and his brother broke one of the blades on the decorative windmill in the backyard, which caused it to be unbalanced and shake violently. When they confessed to their mother, who was busy washing, she stormed outside and snapped off the opposing blade to rebalance the windmill and then when back to washing. The man said his brother turned to him and said, “I hope I never break a leg”.
Mother’s day is such a significant day in many parts of the world so much so that the FBI claim that even the Mafia close for business on mother’s day. Can you believe that?
No vendettas, no breaking of fingers no sub-machinegun slaying allowed on Mother’s Day.
Today is a very safe day if the Mafia is after you.
Now it is important to say I think that Mother’s Day is a day that is mixed isn’t it. It can be full of joy for some and it can be full of sadness for some and it can be a real mix of both for some.
Mother's Day may come as yet another reminder to women everywhere that they don't have something they desire. Another year of miscarriages, infertility or singleness
Whatever the unfulfilled desire, it tugs at your heart on mother’s day in big ways.
Some mothers have lost children, and that will weigh heavy on your heart today, maybe more than other days if that is possible.
Some here will have bad memories of their mother that outweigh any good memories.
Some here will be sadden as they remember how badly they themselves mothered.
Of course mixed in with all of that, there will be many will have wonderful memories and experiences of your mother and of being a mother.
So it is a mixed day and it is important to say that right at the beginning, and I certainly want to be sensitive to that this morning.
What I do want to do this morning is speak about a mother. Not just any mother, but Mary the mother of Jesus Christ.
I want to speak to you about the way in which Jesus changed her life.
Children do change parent’s lives, and I am not just talking about sleeping habits.
Jesus changed Mary’s life in quite profound ways. More than any of her other children.
I want to look this morning at three snap shot of Jesus life, and how they affected Mary.
So let’s start at the beginning, let’s start with his Birth.
Jesus Birth
There is so much that happened around the birth of Jesus, it makes you wonder what Mary thought about it all. There is one thing that happened that left the biggest and most lasting impact on her.
It is not the difficulty that Mary and Joseph had in finding a place for her to give birth. That was a big deal.
I personally found the birth of my children traumatic enough and they were all born in a hospital … although the last one cut it close.
I can’t imagine an animal shelter being the place.
Mind you it was more than that wasn’t it? It also included the traveling of 130km to Bethlehem because of a government census. I know she travels on a Donkey in all the movies, but the Bible doesn’t mention any donkey … so she may well have walked the distance. Or waddled.
It is not those things that leave the biggest impact I think.
The big one I think is mentioned right at the beginning of the story of the birth of Jesus.
This is how Matthew records it.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(Which means, God with us).
This child was conceived miraculously and he was to be called Immanuel which means God with us.
I don’t think Mary fully understood at the start, the child she carried was God. The eternal Son of God was coming into the world.
He was fully God and at the same time became fully man. Every time she fed him, she was feeding the Son of God Every time she kissed him and changed his nappy and rocked him to sleep. She was doing it to the Son of God.
You can’t get your mind around that can you?
That is a big deal isn’t it.
It is hard to get past something as big as that I think. If you have ever doubted that there is a God … here is God in the flesh.
If you have ever asked the question, “How could I know if God is there?” Here is the answer.
He came into the world as a baby, fully God, fully man.
And that is a big deal.
And I think it had a big affect on Mary.
And we ought not to ignore it either.
Well that is the first snap shot. His birth.
The second snap shot comes when he is an Adult
Jesus as an Adult
There are lots of things to say about Jesus as an Adult. One thing that is made clear over and over again is that he is a person of enormous power.
The first part of Mark’s gospel, the passage that was read to us begins with a day in the life of Jesus. It starts in the synagogue at Nazareth where a demon-possessed lunatic man is yelling out, and with a word Jesus commands the demon to leave and heals the man.
I would give anything to be able to do that. I have counselled people with mental disease, and I have seen doctors care for people with mental illness. I know people who despite the best help we can give have committed suicide.
I am enormously impressed with the man who with a word, can restore a person. This man had a demon, which I imagine is worse than a mental illness. Don’t let what Jesus does just pass through your mind as if it is not very impressive.
They go home to Simon’s mother in law, she is sick and he heals her and she feels so different she can serve them. When you’re really sick you can hardly get out of bed from exhaustion
At the end of that day everyone in the village with any illness came and they were all healed, they didn’t need a specialist for each ailments, Jesus appeared to be multi skilled at this work.
When I read the life of Jesus, I find myself thinking, I wish I could have done that, I wish I could have thought to say that, I wish I could do that.
Do you know the story of Jairus, just a few chapters further on?
The little girl Jairus’s daughter is 12, the only child of Jairus and his wife. They would have doted on her. Not like middle child … we just get ignored … if you can help it don’t be a middle child.
She was the only child … she was very precious to them. When she is close to death, in desperation Jairus finds himself at Jesus side saying come down to my little girl, she is at the point of death.
On the way, a messenger comes and say, she is dead it is too late. Jesus says to Jairus, who must have been beside himself at this stage, trust me.
He takes the little girl by the hand sand say, “little girl, I say to you get up” … and dead lives.
I have been with people when their loved ones are dying, and you are so helpless to do anything.
I was at the bed side of a young man with a brain tumour, and his young wife and family … al weeping as he died in front of us.
There is nothing you can do to change it, you wish like mad that you could say something … but there is nothing you can say.
Jesus however reverses the program. He just says trust me.
He is a person of enormous power and he went around telling people to follow after him as their God and King. That is what he tells you to do.
What of his Mother do you think?
What do you think her response to all this was?
Mark gospel in chapter 3 we are told
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
They think he is mad. That is what his family thought, was Mary a part of that? Probably.
His mother and his family believed him to be mad – their response.
Only a mad man would say to people follow me, I am God.
Let me ask, have I got this right … Don’t we all start off by pushing him aside something like that?
For my part I was a complete fist shaker in the face of God. I would have said, I am not going to do what you ask me to do. You are not my God. I am going to run my own life my own way. I was in my full flush of my 14th year. Can you believe that?
I am now 48 and I would think it equally childish for me to tell God how life ought to be lived.
He who made it all. He who tells death what to do.
But I had no difficulty in doing that when I was 14, it was just what I did. My friends around me were exactly the same as me, they were totally careless as to whether God existed or not.
You know what I laboured under the misapprehension that all would be well for me. I had nothing to be concerned about. That was such foolishness don’t you think?
What was I going to say on the Day Jesus returns in judgement and asks we why I had spent my life ignoring him. What was I going to say to him when he said, I made it clear I was the Son of God, why did you ignore me?
Can I just point out something that is worth taking note of at this point?
Although Jesus has enormous power, he is also very good.
Who was it who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I agree, but not with Jesus
Well that is the second snapshot. The life of Jesus as an adult.
The third snap shot comes at the end of his life. His death and resurrection, and it is the one that has the biggest impact of all.
Jesus Death and Resurrection.
Mary was there when Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. Can you imagine that mothers?
We see her at the cross, where Jesus is gasping for his last breath, she was there when he took his first breath and there when he took his last one.
Can you imagine watching that?
But Jesus didn’t just die.
Here is the big thing.
Three days later he rose from the dead.
Now I know there are people who claim to have a near death experience, they are somehow technically dead but they come back to life again … mind you they are not dead for three days … and they all die again later… Jesus resurrection is nothing like that.
Jesus bounced out of the grave the great conquer of death because he is God’s king forever. He has been raised from the dead as the king of this world
King of death, king of you, king of me.
Do you know who was there with the disciples when Jesus died and rose again.
Mary. Whenever it was, she was now convinced that Jesus was God the Son, her King and her saviour.
The picture painted by the artists are of Mary the mother and child.
Have you seen them … always with a little halo … nothing like motherhood?
But the final Mary is not the Mother Mary.
As good as it was to be a Mother that was not the big thing or the final thing.
The final Mary is the Mary who follows Jesus as her God and King. It is a happy ending.
She has misunderstood her own son but not at the end.
What about you?
When Jesus was on earth he continually called on people to stop ignoring him and follow him as their God and king.
Let me tell you something. He is still doing that today. He calls you today to trust him with your life, he says don’t push me aside. Welcome me in.
I can tell you, there is forgiveness for all who do that, even if you have ignored him all your life to this point. There is a right way to treat royalty and a wrong way.
Rico Tice is and Englishman, and he has written a few books I have read. He tells the story of being invited out to lunch one afternoon and because he was a little early he waited on the stair well just outside the main dining room.
Standing opposite him was another man who he vaguely recognised but thought nothing of it, and so as English people often do, they gave each other a sheepish node and stood awkwardly for 5 minutes in total silent.
Eventually a man came from around the corner and said to the other man, William, there you are, we are in the private dining room.
It turns out it was Prince William, I had been standing next to him for 5 whole minutes and we had nothing better to do than talk to each other and I hadn’t uttered a single word.
In the case of Prince William, it is not all that big of a deal, although he had missed out on a once in a life time opportunity. In the case of Jesus … ignoring him is so much more serious.
Is it time to stop pretending that Jesus isn’t immensely powerful?
Is it time to stop pretending that he isn’t God?
Is it time to stop pretending that you won’t stand before him when your die to give an account for what you did with him in this life?
Why not come to him today? Things could be different today.
Let me finish.
Now my guess is that we are all at different stages here this morning in terms of relationship with God.
You might be wondering if God is there or not, and nothing I have said has convinced you today that there is.
You might believe Jesus is the Son of God, and have said yes to that idea and live with him as their king, and have been forgiven.
You might be in the middle … and if you are I want to talk to you now.
I think the midpoint is the person who says.
I think Jesus really is in charge, but I have never done anything about it. I think he is God, and I will give an account to him. It is just you have never done anything about it.
If that is where you are, do you think it might be a good idea do something today?
What might you do?
I am going to pray a prayer now that would be
perfect for you to pray.
I am going to start off by saying
“God I have ignored you as a person and haven’t related to you as my God. I have ignore Jesus right to rule my life. I am sorry about that, but from today onwards I will seek to serve you as God.
Jesus please forgive me and take over the running of my life.
If that is where you are up to, why no pray this pray inside your head to God as I pray it out loud.
You may want to read Mark’s Gospel – part of the Bible about the life of Jesus.
Christianity explored …
Friends it really is too important to do nothing.
Can I urge you this morning to consider who Jesus is?
If he is the Son of God, isn’t it about time you sort his forgives and followed him as your king.