Little Hands

A Mother’s View from the Feet of the Cross

I sat in worship on Sunday and during the time of communion, which my beloved happened to be leading, I found myself holding my son’s little hands. He’s not so little anymore I noticed. He’s 8 1/2 and quite tall for his age. He has long fingers, slender. I noticed this on Sunday because over the course of his life I have quietly measured his growth by how his hand fits in mine. 

As I sat holding his hand and listening to my beloved reading from Luke 23 about the crucifixion of my Lord, my mind went to Mary His mother at the foot of the cross.
As I held my boys little hands I wondered if Mary saw the man that Jesus was hanging on the cross or if perhaps in her minds eye she saw her sweet little boy with arms outstretched running with laughter toward her to give her a hug. I pondered the sorrow in her heart as reality kept pushing it’s way back into her vision of her grown little boy, who was perfect, with arms outstretched for crimes that were not His own.

Whenever my little one falls down and gets a boo boo, I try to do everything I can to heal his wound. From ointment to mama’s kisses. Don’t you think Mary longed to take His nail pierced hands and gently kiss them and salve them? Don’t you think she wanted to stand there at His feet and ever so lovingly remove the “thorn” from His flesh.

When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, see Matthew 26, Mark 14, & Luke 22, He tells us to remember His Body and His Blood. For those of us who were not witness to the Body and Blood of Christ in a physical sense that can be difficult because we are easily distracted. If we as mothers look upon the cross with the eyes of His mother we see it come into greater focus. 

Simeon the prophet who came to the temple when Jesus was a baby, Luke 2:35, warned Mary that “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,” Oh how her soul must have been pierced as she watched the suffering of her son. We know in fact that she was there. John tells us that from the cross Jesus made provisions for His mother when He saw her there. He instructed her to take John as her son, and John to take her as his mother, John 19:26,27.

I can only imagine her confusion. He was God’s own Son. She knew that more than anyone! He was a righteous man, never had he committed a crime let alone a sin, yet He her very own beautiful boy was hanging on a cross, His flesh pierced, struggling to take a breath. Worse yet, the mockery and ridicule being hurled His way from the crowd. Think of the horrific night He had endured being beaten and tried in courts that were no where near just.

Do you think she prayed? Oh I do! I think she begged the LORD to put a stop to this thing. I think she cried to HIM in a way that only the mother of God’s Son could. I think she was completely and utterly bereft of soul.

As I held my son’s hand remembering my Lord’s hand, I wept for Mary’s sorrow that I caused by my own sins. I am so grateful that God sent His Son. That Mary was willing to bear Him life and the He Himself was willing to lay down His life for my sin, John 10:18.

I am in awe that He resurrected on the third day! And with anxious heart I await His return and the resurrection of the saints. So now it is my time to raise up the son that God has blessed me with. 

It is my time to teach him about Jesus, His sacrifice, His death, burial and resurrection. I pray daily for my son to come to understand these things so that he will, when he reaches the age of understanding, choose to obey Jesus Christ by dying to sin, be buried with Him in baptism and rise to walk in a new life, Romans 6:1-11, anxiously awaiting the return of the Lord, Revelation 22:20, so he can be raised up into Heaven to be with God.

 
An excellent study for women: Sanctified, set apart for a Purpose by Kristy Huntsman and Kaio Publications.