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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading regarding the four people gathered around the cross while Jesus died. You may be seated. All of the other apostles and disciples had fled from Jesus. Fled, really, from their own fears and anxieties, but fled nevertheless. And it wasn’t just his disciples who had deserted him. His family had left him. Any of those brothers or sisters mentioned in the scriptures weren’t there. Nobody was there other than his mother Mary, his mother Mary’s sister who’s also named Mary, which would be Jesus’ aunt, Mary Magdalene, and the disciple whom he loved, which is John who wrote the gospel reading this evening.
Those four are gathered around this cross. And the text has no details whatsoever of what was going through their mind, what they were experiencing as they looked upon him whom they had pierced. And there’s nothing in Jesus’ account there that shows what he was going through or experiencing as he saw them before him.
Let’s take a look at Mary, the Mary who is the sister to the mother of our Lord, Jesus’ aunt Mary, the wife of Clopas. If she really is, and she was, the sister of Mary, then she saw Jesus grow up before her eyes. And in fact, of the four people there, she knew Jesus the best of those four, as far as for the last 33 years of his life. She saw him when he learned how to tie shoes and when he learned how to speak, when he learned how to walk, when he learned how to feed himself. She saw it all.
And yet what was on her mind as she saw the child she had seen grow up, her nephew by birth, and yet her God by divine command and design? Then there is Mary Magdalene. We have a lot in common with Mary Magdalene. For we are our Lord’s whore. And he still marries us. He still claims us. And he doesn’t wash his hands of us. Mary Magdalene knew him the least of these four people. The scriptures talk about her having been a prostitute. Scriptures talk about her in the Gospel of Luke of having had seven demons driven from her. Jesus had turned her life upside down, hadn’t he, with his grace. With his forgiveness and with his cleansing of her conscience. And yet that really wasn’t upside down. It was really right side up.
She now knew she was God’s child. She knew she was claimed by her husband, the Lord Jesus. Then consider John. He was one of the chosen apostles, Peter, James, and John. That trifecta that would always be at various places of importance. He was a fisherman whom Jesus called early on in his calling of the apostles. He was chosen by Jesus to be one of those who would write the gospel of John.
He also was chosen never to die a martyr’s death, but to die of old age and all the memories that accompany old age. All the regrets, all of the sorrows, all of the joys, without all the people with whom you shared them. And then there is one we cannot even begin to comprehend, but you mothers can close, and that is the mother of our Lord Jesus, Mary. She alone had spoken and been spoken to by the angel Gabriel. She knew what it was like to feel God move in her womb. She had seen his body come forth from her womb. She had cuddled God at her breast and nursed him. She knew his cry. She knew his cry. She knew his laughter. She knew a smell like only moms know, the smell of a son or daughter’s head when they bend down to kiss them.
And here she sat and listened to the rejection of her son. You moms know about that. Let someone reject your son or daughter. Let someone reject your son or daughter and you have your hackles up. And the definition of mama bear has your picture of it. And here is Jesus having been rejected and mocked, and silently she endures the pain. Nothing like what her God is enduring on the cross, but nevertheless, the sword shall pierce her own soul also was said to her, and it’s being fulfilled in this text.
Out of his great love for these four, does he give them a beautiful example in that he entrusts his mother’s care to his beloved disciple, John. Amen. Maybe that was why John could not die a martyr’s death. He had responsibilities. Take care of the mother of our Lord. Provide for her. Give her comfort in her old age.
No matter what you could think of, whether you could relate to Mary, the wife of Clopas, who had known Jesus so long, whether you could relate to Mary Magdalene, who knew her sin in a more darker way sometimes than even Mary, the wife of Clopas, knew it. Maybe you can relate to John, and maybe you can relate as a woman who was a mother to Mary. But here they sat and they looked at their crucified Lord, son, nephew, brother in the faith, and Savior and Redeemer.
And where did they hope in their hopelessness? And where did they find a future in their present? Because their present completely collapsed in upon anything and covered any possibility of future. The joy that they could have has been sucked dry and brittle. Nothing but sadness. The bitter of sadness. And life? How could they think of life in the midst of death? The smell of it, the sound of it, the sight of it, right before their eyes. It is the same question you have to ask yourself. Where do I find my hope in my hopelessness? Where do I find my future when my present has overwhelmed it? Where do I find the joy in the midst of sadness and sorrow? And how do you find life when you can see nothing but death before your eyes?
All of you have experienced this. All of you have wrestled with these emotions. And sadly, you will still wrestle with them as time moves forward. But the same place that they went for strength and help is the same place that you have been given for strength and help. Back to the Word. The same place the Holy Spirit led these four, back to the Word. Open up your bulletin again. Look at Psalm 68. I will read the odd-numbered verses, and you will respond with the even-numbered verses. And listen to this psalm again, having considered the Marys and John as they stood around the dying body and life of Christ.
God shall arise. His enemies shall be scattered, and those who hate him shall flee before him.
But the righteous shall be glad. They shall exult before God. They shall be jubilant with joy.
Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
O God, when you went out before your people…
When you march through the wilderness, reign in abundance, O God, you shed abroad.
You restored your inheritance as it languished.
The first three words, God shall arise, not just metaphorically as if he is stepping up off a bench to go to battle, but far more literally in that he shall arise from the dead, this one who is to die for us. And all the enemies and haters of God had gathered around in unity to crucify him. Pilate, Herod, the Pharisees, and Sadducees. And they seemed to be a united front that could not be broken. And God said he will scatter them and they shall flee before him.
And as he scatters and causes these wicked to flee before him, so shall he gather the righteous, the humbled, the needy. Who are his children. He gathers them, those who cling to him. He gathers them, for they are the righteous who shall be glad. Though they may not be glad at that moment, they shall be glad. That time shall come. They shall exalt before God. Though they may not have been exalted at that time, they shall be exalted. The promise of that future that shall come to pass. We shall sing praise to the name we bear, the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit grafted upon us at our baptism. We shall sing praise to Him.
You have been singing praise to Him. Praise that’s been placed on your lips by God. We shall be protected and set in a home. In God’s family there are no homeless. All belong to this house of God, who are his children. The widows are no longer widows. They are joined to the faith, the faith of the people who are gathered around with them. There is no fatherless, for God is always with us.
Yes, we endure that right now in this life, just as our Lord Jesus did. Yet the future, as God has promised in this psalm, dictates to us a different future that is not dictated to us by this world but finished in God’s sight for you. And just as he led those people of Israel through the wilderness, and you know what kind of people they were that God led through the wilderness, just like you and me, a real pain in the rear. And God loved them and did not ever let go of them, though he was leading them through Moses, who himself struggled, who himself needed Jesus for his Savior, though he did not know his name, only as the Anointed One, the Christ in Greek, Messiah in Hebrew.
And just as he provided for them with food and water… So before our very eyes in this text did he provide for a woman who had no one else to provide for her. No one else volunteering to take care of her. And God made sure she had someone to take care of her. Just as he ensures he will take care of you. Though people you thought you could depend upon did not come forward, God will take care of you. Though you did not come forward to take care of them, God will take care of them.
He shall restore us, for we are the needy and the humbled. As we said in the beginning, a bunch of sheep that… Bah, bah, bah. Who know no better but wanting to be fed and watered. And he will not let go of you. All from the cross does he show us this. And three words from that cross… That’s described in this text. It says, from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home. Not after he died, not after he rose from the dead, not a couple of weeks later, then and now. Just as it is with you, God takes care of you here and now. And will continue to care for you through eternity.
Just as he had promised for those who cling to him as these four sinners clung to him, so we are numbered among those sinners as well. And we shall be satisfied.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
