The bible stresses the vital role of Mothers in the transmission of the faith.
Not only is motherhood vital in the Old Testament, Paul calls out the mother of Timothy and his grandmother. He honors them for being the ones who gave Timothy a vision of what to believe. “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.” (2 Tim 1:5). If Paul called out moms and grandmothers for meritorious conduct, we should too! Way to go mom!
There is a touching moment in Romans 16 that chokes me up nearly every time I think about it. Paul is sending his personal greeting to his friends in Rome. He says, effectively, “Say hi to Rufus…and to his mother who was a mother to me.” (verse 13) Whoa! What did he just say?
We know who Rufus is. He was the son of Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross of Christ on the last leg of the painful Good Friday journey. This means that Simon (probably) went home from that experience a changed man. And he shared the power of that moment with his wife who then, likely, shared it with her sons, Alexander and Rufus (Mark 15:21).
Are you not moved by imagining that she heard from her husband about his close encounter with Jesus…and that the two boys heard it as well? And then, in a remarkable loving intersection of faith and circumstance, she might have shared it with Paul. (How they met, where they met, and under what circumstances this remarkable coincidence occurred, we will never know.)
But imagine this: she was like a mother to the Great Apostle Paul. Paul of Tarsus may have learned about the final moments of the life of his new Lord from the wife of the man who carried the Lord’s cross, Simon of Cyrene. She was like a mother to him. Whatever that meant for Paul, we should be thankful for her.
And her care and love of Saul of Tarsus, the terrorist-turned-missionary, should inspire us all. Think about it. Without knowing who he would become, she was a mother to the most significant convert in the history of the church. Glory to God for her!
The womb is God’s great tool for the salvation of the human race. God had to ‘borrow’ one to accomplish his plan. He fulfilled the promise through a borrowed womb (Gal. 4:4).
God used Motherhood to save us. He did honor pregnancy and motherhood in a way that our culture does not today. God bypassed what our culture ‘worships’ today (sex) and used what our culture dismisses as unimportant (motherhood). Moms should be honored by us…God honored them all with the Incarnation.
Of course, there are women who do not have children or who cannot have children. And there are many mothers have had lost children to early death or misfortune. We must always be sensitive to that fact. But we all have needed mothers in our own lives. And those moms, living or dead, good or bad, provided life for us…or to us. We should give thanks for our mothers…all of our mothers.
Mother’s Day is a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us at so many levels.