Short Bulletin Article
12 May 2015

A Tribute to Mothers

Source/Author: Dr Michael Dalseno

What can compare to the love of a mother? Who can take from her unique position, her moral authority? Mothers stand out as God’s gifts to all mankind. Though the heavenly kingdom is apparently genderless (Mk.12.25), God knew in His wisdom that this world needs her.

A Tribute to Mothers

Dr D

There was one very unique person for whom Jesus made special provision, despite the agonies, suffering, and physical finality of the Cross. That person was His mother Mary. Let John pick up the story; “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Dear woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19.26-27).

What can compare to the love of a mother? Who can take from her unique position, her moral authority? Mothers stand out as God’s gifts to all mankind. Though the heavenly kingdom is apparently genderless (Mk.12.25), God knew in His wisdom that this world needs her.

Although nothing can compare with the love of God (Jn.3.16), many have surmised over the centuries that next in line must surely be mothers. Jesus knew this when He drew on the metaphor of a mother hen covering her chicks under her wings (Matt.23.37) in describing His love for His people. A lesser person, though mankind’s wisest, Solomon, knew that the surest and most guaranteed way of finding out who was the real parent of the disputed child was to appeal to the real mother’s instinct (1 Kings 3.16-27); “the king gave his ruling: ‘Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother’” (v.27).

Here are a just a few qualities buried deep in the hearts and minds of mothers: mothers are steadfast in their love for children no matter what; mothers will draw near to you even when you draw away from them; mother will sacrifice where necessary to the point that is beyond human limit; mothers continue to believe in you and hope for you when others think there is no future; mothers are sincere of what is in your best interests even if you disagree with her; mothers will say the hard things when others are too polite to say so; and mothers will never give up on you when others have.

And this divine design, called motherhood, calls for special honour, as reflected in the first mention of the ‘horizontal relationships’ mentioned in the 10 Commandments (Exodus Ch 20), ruling “honour your father and your mother” (v.12). Though the father is positionally head of the house, the mother is not excluded.

When I gaze down the corridors of time and place, through the number of years I have lived, especially in times of turbulence, disarray and shadows, I see a figure in the dim far distance. She is always there. I might not be able to physically reach her or touch her, but there she is. I focus my eyes and squint to see who this perennial, almost omnipresent, figure is … and then I realize she is my mother.