Text: John 19:25-27 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 her, “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.
Society as constructed today is crucifying our children
Society is crucifying our children. The chief priests and Pilate crucified Jesus, the son of Mary, on a cross. Today, they are still crucifying our sons and daughters. The chief priests and Pilate are symbols of those marketers of a violent, consumerist and pornographic civilization in which our children are crucified daily. They are seduced into a world of mass consumerism that convinces them with their sleek ads that they have to look, talk, walk and dress a certain way. Social media has created a fake, unattainable world that has left so many of our youth lonely and depressed. Society has turned sex into a commodity and a pastime. In such a word, our children are turning to alcohol and drugs, dropping out of society, becoming endlessly cynical, rejecting marriage, refusing to have children, and they most frightening of all, they doubt that anything there is such thing as the transcendent, let alone a God, that could possibly exist in their lives. The future is dead to them. God is dead to them.
But then, what else did we expect? In our schools, we banned God from the classroom while introducing courses on gender fluidity to grades schoolers. In our homes, we turned over our kids to screens that introduced them to violence, pornography and the tremendous pressure to conform to a consumerist lifestyle of power, sex and bling. In our churches, we presented the spiritual life as merely following rules or treating religion like a fairy tale. We did not share with them or exemplify before them the reality and power of an almighty, awesome, wondrous God of love who pours into our lives with power, creative force and potential for beauty and joy. And then when our sons and daughters go mad trying to survive in an empty, over-scheduled, corrupt, depraved civilization that they have been offered, when our sons and daughters turn to drugs, sex, power, virtual reality, a pathological love of possessions, when they go on rampage killings, drinking binges, teenage orgies, shoplifting sprees or hang themselves in a closet, the question arises, “What else did we expect?” Look at the society we have given them.
And in community after community, church after church, home after home, I talk to mothers whose children are being ripped out of their arms by this corrupt, depraved, violent society. I see the mothers standing at the foot of the cross, weeping, worrying, worn, anguishing over what society has done to their children. Our violent, consumerist, pornographic society that we have helped create has nailed our children to the cross and is crucifying them.
We gave them over to Moloch. If we were living in Old Testament times, we would say that we our society has given over its children to Moloch. Moloch is the name of an ancient god who was worshipped by the Canaanites, Phoenician and related cultures in North Africa and the Levant. God warned the Israelites not to worship Moloch, because Moloch kills our children. As worship of Moloch, parents would actually throw one of their children into the burning fire. Leviticus 18:21–23 says then, “And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch”. Jesus understood how tentative is the situation of children in each generation when he darkly warns that it would be better for us to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around our neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Luke 17:2). And yet our children are stumbling all around us. They’re falling all around us – depressed, anxious, cynical, and, in many cases, addicted.
Transition: Can our children be saved from the evil grip of Moloch as he seduces into his fire?
Through God’s power and through devotion of mothers, our children can be saved.
Well, praise God that we worship an awesome God, that we have access to a Divine power within that is just waiting for us to open ourselves to Him, and allow this power of God to flow through us, to empower us, to embolden us, to ignite us into action. Especially today, I want to encourage our mothers, to remind you that there is nothing greater than the power of the Divine, there is nothing that can destroy the soul, and that Moloch’s grasp on your children can be broken and your children can live again and find peace and joy.
It seems that if anyone is to save our children from Moloch’s grip, it will be deeply compassionate, tough-as-nails women. Notice the blocking of the actors in our Gospel story this morning. Jesus is at the center of the story, dying on the cross. Next, is a circle of women standing around Jesus. Only women remain. Then one step beyond the circle, nearby, is a man identified as the disciple whom Jesus loved. It was the women who were first at the tomb. It was a woman who first experienced the risen Christ.
And so, on this Mother’s Day, I want to say thank you mothers, grandmothers, aunt, foster mothers, teachers, all of the women who have remained near the cross as a child struggle against a society that was crucifying him or her. Through the struggles, you did not abandon your child. You did not give up hope. You stayed close to the suffering child. Maybe Mary’s story as a mother is not too unlike your story as a mother. You remember the Advent story. The announcement of Mary’s pregnancy came with much excitement and joy. She celebrated her pregnancy with her young cousins and friends. They talked, laughed and shared dreams about their children. In response, babies leaped joyfully in bellies. No doubt Mary had dreams that her child was going to be the good child, the strong child, pious, respected in the community, and would grow older and be a pillar and amount to something. Yet, not we find him hanging on a criminal’s cross, hung their by a violent, selfish, greedy society. Though we see the violent, consumerist, dissolving society taking child after child and giving them over to Moloch, we never think it will be ours, until it is. It happened to Mary. Her son Jesus was attacked and crucified by the same powers that are crucifying our children today.
Transition: So what did Mary do?
Mary demonstrated a way of devotion and love for her son Jesus that all of us can learn from as we seek to protect our children from Moloch, or retrieve a child from Moloch’s searing fires.
First off, Mary prayed for her son. She listened to the divine voice and pondered those things in her heart. Prayer changes things, but most importantly it changes the one who prays. In a devoted prayer life, you can find clarity, you can find power, you can find peace, you can even find joy, even as you struggle with a child whose has been snatched by Moloch. In prayer, divine guidance comes, celestial strength enervates you. Love lifts you up, all in prayer.
Second, Mary took him to the Temple. When he was an infant, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple to consecrate him to God. When Jesus was a boy they permitted him go to the Temple and take in the religious experience of God’s presence. Take your children to Church. Let them experience God’s people worshipping together. Make your home a Temple, where God is proclaimed, but, more than that, where the love of God is lived out and demonstrated. Teach your children that they are the Temple of God, that the living God, the creator of the Universe, dwells with them, that they are a stream whose Source is hidden, that they are pensioners, recipients, of the love and power and wisdom of the living God.
Next, and as a parent we all experienced this one, Mary got into the fray and tried to pull Jesus out of harmful situations. In the third chapter of Mark, Mary and Jesus’ brothers go searching for Jesus to bring him home because Jesus was proclaiming the radical nature of God and to some of his family members, Jesus sounded like he was out of his mind. Sometimes a mother feels like she must go into the fray and save the child. I have seen Michelle do this for our children in certain situations, when my lamb becomes a ferocious lion, and I just stand back and marvel at a mother’s love expressed through such protective power. Do not stand in the way of a provoked mother, that is my advice to you.
Finally, do not abandon your child at the cross. Mary let Jesus be God’s child, but she was always near. Even at his criminal’s cross (John 19:25)
The challenge today is raising God’s child in a violent, fragmented world. Some of you are raising discarded children, the children whose biological parents were destroyed by civilization’s violence and destruction. Raising discarded children is one of the greatest challenges of parents. They are angry children, wondering if they are really loved, and no matter how much you love them, they push the boundaries even more to test just how strong your love really is.
Some of you are raising or have raised children exploited by the seductive lures of drugs, alcohol, sexual promiscuity, violence. They are often defeated children, angry, desolate, and lost. You have done all you can to love them, help them back to a loving place, but they cannot break free from the violence and waste into which they have fallen. But there you stand by the cross, a mother who will not give up on her child of God. You pray and you hope. What’s left of love in the world is held together by the prayers of hopeful mothers. Know that someday that child may open herself to God’s love, everything will change, and your presence at the foot of the cross will yield fruit.
Some of you are raising overachievers, dealing with their own demons of being workaholics, perfectionists, fearing failure, neurotically driving their own children to overachieve. They don’t realize they are children of God if they don’t make straight A’s or make six figure salaries. Yet you stand by the cross, praying and hopeful.
Remember this. No matter what Facebook and Instragram my present, none of you mothers are raising or have raised the perfect child. They evil forces of this world are always pressing up against the lives of our children. But, whatever their choices and mistakes, they are all children of God. Thank you for standing near the cross. You cannot bear their cross for them, but you cannot imagine that hope that you bring by staying near their cross, praying, supporting and advocating.
It is a painful place to be, at the foot of the cross. You view so much anguish, pain and wasting away. You want to climb up there and bear the cross in your child’s place. But, in the end your child must bear his own cross, find his own way to his father’s house. She must find her own way to her father’s house. But you provide the light on the dark path that leads out of the desolation and into the Father’s house. You provide the warm, comforting voice that sustains him, that guides her, as she seeks a way home.
Conclusion: In the end Mary was a mother worthy of God’s child, for Jesus looks to his best friend and says, “I recommend my mother for your mother.” 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “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. – This is a statement indicative of what the kingdom of God finally is. The kingdom of God is a woman standing near the cross of her child and weeping.
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