His mother treasured all these things in her heart – a sermon on Luke 2:51b by Rev. Ralph Adams.
Today is Mother’s Day. Today is that perfect opportunity, once again, to pause for a moment and consider our Mothers, past and present and the impact they have had in our lives.
1. A MOTHER’S INESTIMABLE WORTH:
We should always be mindful to thank our Lord for His incredible grace in bestowing on us in this church family, the devoted mothers who have brought us into the world and nurtured us in life.
May He also forgive us for the way we so often take for granted our mothers’ presence in our lives. Let us also take note of Solomon’s profound observation in writing, ”the rod of [correction] imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself [disgraces] his mother.”
God has given mothers to us… not only to nurture us through our infant years… but also to be our first tutors. Life’s first lessons are given by our mothers rather than by our fathers.
When a mother nurses her baby, something beyond words is communicated. A bond is established by eye contact, by touch, and by nonsense baby talk. A child reads tender and loving protection in a mother’s face. A relationship for life already begins to form, even before words or ideas pass between them.
But then also we must ask, how would we learn to communicate with others if mothers weren’t there to guide us into talking? We have to bear in mind that the ability to talk is the most complex skill we humans ever acquire. Think about that.
How a mother relates to her family is critically important to a world much larger than the one inside her home. This has prompted someone to say, “… the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.”
How can those words be true when relatively few women are in positions of power or influence on the world scene. This is probably due in large part to the fact that few women, especially mothers, aspire to such positions.
Yet the statistics are causing great angst in some circles, leading to the push for equal opportunity and affirmative action and even organized protests. But all this aside, the reality is that “the hand that rocks the cradle [does, in fact], rule the world” in this one sense at least.
If anyone should hold the future of stable government in her hands… it is a mother who teaches her children responsible behaviour while they are still very young.
And what of the Christian faith, if mothers should cease to introduce us to the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. In God’s providence these responsibilities fall largely upon mothers. Mothers really are a very special gift from God.
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