Near The Cross

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:59:14 +0100

John 19:25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26 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,"
27 and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
You know most of the time I don’t really think about Mary the mother of Jesus. There has been so much said about her and some of tried to make her into a god by worshipping her.
Mary was significantly involved in bringing into this world the savior of mankind – Jesus.
The question though I think is on my mind this morning is simply, “Why is she near the cross?” Why would she stand by and allow the crowd to kill her son and not try to rise and defend Him?
I think it was more than just her mothering instinct that kept her at the cross.
I also look at what Jesus says to her from the cross, “Dear woman here is your son” and I wonder what is happening here.
I want to try and put yourself in Mary’s shoes. She had given birth (just like any other woman) to this little boy.
She had watched Him grow up. She saw Him working with His earthly father Joseph in the trade of a carpenter.
She had kissed Him when He went to sleep. Bandaged Him when He scraped His knees and nursed Him at her breast. She was His mother.
Don’t you think she should have been trying to make the guards let Him go? Should she not have gathered together the rest of the family and tried to break Him out?
After all that’s what any mother in this place would do if they knew their son was absolutely innocent but was being put to death anyway.
Let’s take a little time this morning to look back – before the cross – and see the events that led up to this point…
Here is what we know about Mary:
·    She is virgin (has never had sexual intercourse).
·    She is “pledged” or engaged to a man named Joseph who is a descendant of David (the King).
·    An angel visited her and tells her she is, favored by the Lord.
Then the Angel tells her what will happen to her because she is favored of the Lord.
·    She will be with child and she is to name Him Jesus
·    This child will become a great King and ruler
Then Mary (quite understandably) is a little confused.
·    How can this be – I am a virgin – I have never been with a man.
·    The Angel explains that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will become pregnant.
This is the really cool part of Mary’s story – look at how she responds.
·    "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said.”
·    All the questioning had ceased and she accepted God’s word and God’s will for her life.
History tells us that Mary was young and poor. You would think that God would have chosen someone with some power or a politician or a king but He did not.
He chose to use just a common girl who was greatly dedicated. We know she was a student of the scriptures because when she begins to sing her beautiful song of praise in Luke 1:47-55 she quotes a host of Old Testament verses.
Most of us know the Christmas story (travel to Bethlehem, no room in the Inn, manger, swaddling clothes, etc.) so let’s jump ahead in history to the time after Jesus was born and Joseph and Mary take Him to the temple to be circumcised.
There at the temple is a man named Simeon who was a devout Jew and had been promised by God that he would see with his own eyes the savior.
When Mary and Joseph entered the temple Simeon took the child in his arms and began to sing a song because he knew this child would become the salvation of mankind. Then he gives a prophecy to Mary…listen closely…
Luke 2: 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."
WOW! Here is all this great news and blessing then BAM-BAM comes this 9 word bombshell - And a sword will pierce your own soul too."
If you read the book of Luke you will discover that up until this point in the book everything is wonderful and happy – but this marks the first point of sorrow.
So what pierced the soul of this young lady named Mary? Again put yourself in her shoes today and think about what she had to suffer in order to be “the mother of Jesus.”
·    She suffered physically when she gave birth the Jesus.
·    She suffered shame and was the gossip when the people in her village found out she was pregnant and not married.
o    It’s not like it is today. In Mary’s day of the man refused to marry her she would become an outcast. If her own father rejected her she might have been forced into a life of begging or prostitution.
·    She suffered because people may have thought she was crazy. After all what would you think if your daughter told you she was with child of the Holy Spirit?
·    She fled to Egypt to save her child, but countless innocent children died because of her child. How do you think she felt about that?
·    As the years go by and Jesus grows up she would have suffered emotionally. There was a growing separation between her and Jesus when Jesus declared to her one day, “Don’t you know that I must be about my fathers business?”
·    She must have suffered terrible pain as she watched her son be tried, beaten, made fun of, rejected, pierced, shed blood and be placed on the cross – event though He was innocent and without sin.
·    Mary suffered but she endured that suffering because she understood whom it was that she called son.
That day as she stood near the cross her suffering must have came to its highest point. As she stood and watched the blood of her son stain the soil below.
As she watched Him slowly die the words of Simeon must have echoed in her mind - And a sword will pierce your own soul too.
Her heart must have been broken beyond measure but she stayed faithful to what she knew – this is the Son of God and He is the Lamb that would take away the sin of the world!
She knew this is what must happen in order for the world to be saved.
Then something amazing happens! Jesus looks down from the cross and speaks to His mother. Maybe He could see the anguish in her eyes – He could feel her heart being pierced – and so he says to her…"Dear woman, here is your son," Who is Jesus talking about? It is John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Think about this - at her moment of greatest agony! At the moment when her heart is being pierced Jesus rewards her IN THIS LIFE for all she has had to endure! He gave her a son who would care for her, love her and take her in. The scripture tells us, “From that time on, this disciple [John] took her into his home.”
By this time in Mary’s life her husband had died and now her oldest son was dying as well. But there were other natural sons – Jesus’ brothers – who could have taken her in. Jesus did not choose to put her in the care of his brother. Instead Jesus put her in the care of someone who was willing to follow Him all the way to the cross!
How do you handle suffering?
What is your response to suffering? Do you immediately begin to complain? Do you turn away from God in anger and say, “How could you let this happen to me?”
Do you allow the emotional or physical pain you are going through cause you to run away from Jesus?
There is no doubt that in this life you will suffer! Just because you have been born again does not get you a free pass from suffering.
Modern TV preaching has told you that you “deserve your best life now” and that if you suffer you must have “sinned” or “not had enough faith.”
Despite all of this false teaching you must recognize that in this life we will have persecution – we will suffer for the Name of Christ.
The good news is this: in our suffering we can be assured of reward. Just as Mary understood Jesus was rewarding her for her endurance of suffering we too can hope in the fact that, “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:17).
The real question is not, “Will I suffer?” You will suffer; there will be sickness, pain, defeat and more in this life.
The question you should be asking is, “Will I be faithful to Christ when I have to suffer?”
You have all heard of the Apostle Paul and you know he was man mightily used of God. He was a man who suffered terribly.
Now if you listen to the “faith” and “health and wealth” preachers you might have a problem with Paul because he doesn’t fit into that theology.
Paul was a man who suffered greatly but he was faithful in his suffering. Look at what Paul had to endure because he was a follower of Jesus…
Consider what Paul endured: five times beaten with 39 stripes, three times beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked three times, a night and a day floating in the sea, danger of all kinds, weary and in pain, hungry and thirsty, naked and cold. And to add insult to injury God refused to answer his prayer for healing from whatever was ailing him—a thorn in his flesh.
What would you have done if God allowed you to suffer all of these things? Most would simply give up but look at how Paul responds to suffering:
How could Paul have rejoiced and given God glory for shipwrecks and beatings? How could he have suffered everything he suffered?
You can find a hint in 2 Timothy 4:8 - henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.
Paul understood his faithfulness to Christ in suffering there would be a reward.
You may not be thinking about rewards while you are trying to figure out how to handle HIV or a sick child.
You may not be thinking about rewards when your family rejects you because you have chosen to follow after Christ and not their traditions.
Now understand, God doesn’t want us go looking for suffering or ways to suffer to make us more like Jesus.
Suffering will come all by itself. You must also understand that suffering is NOT PROOF THAT YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG!
Actually the opposite is often true: sometimes suffering comes as proof that you have been faithful in your walk with God.
Suffering takes your eyes off of earthly things, it separates the faithful from the unfaithful, suffering makes us stronger as we endure and learn and your faithfulness in suffering is an example to those around you that God rewards faithfulness.
The question we are confronted with today, as we look at Mary the mother of Jesus is, “Will we be faithful to the Lord even when we suffer, even when we are persecuted, even when we are misunderstood?”
Will we follow Jesus all the way to the Cross even when it means that our families and friends do not understand.
Suffering will come – that you can count on. When it does we have to determine to take that suffering with patience knowing that the One who began the work in you is able to see it through and that if we will commit ourselves into the hands of the Lord He will carry us through.

near-the-cross

Near The Cross