Lenten Meditation
March 11,2009
Third word
John 19.26, “Woman, here is your son.”
At birth, the midwife hands the baby to the mother with a gentle whisper, “Here is your son.” At graduation, the neighbor leans over, remembering the rehearsals and games, the late nights and early mornings, points at the stage and says, “There’s your boy.” At the wedding, you walk her down the aisle, place her hand in another man’s hand—a boy really—and the pastor says, “Who gives this woman to be married?” And you say to yourself, “Woman? No, please God, not yet, she’s my daughter.”
Generations pass, and we take pride in our children, joy and anguish, too. Their successes are ours, and their failures. Hands off or hands-on, we live our lives through them. And when, as occasionally and tragically happens, we lose them all too soon, we live our own death through them. This is something larger than sacrifice.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ mother remains anonymous. Yet watching Jesus die, if she really is his mother and not mainly a symbol, she must remember him in the manger as in Luke, the mysterious strangers bearing gifts as in Matthew; lost and found in the temple with the elders (Luke again); beside himself outside her door in the crowds, herself thinking him possessed; then the dangerous journey to Jerusalem; tables overturned; prison; this. Now her child on the cross with strangers on either side, and his best friend standing with her, she hears what no mother or father can bear: her son making arrangements for his death and her survival.
John gives us something more than a casual exchange. We experience the anonymity of mother and disciple (who really knows another human being?) in the carefully-constructed scene on the cross. Jesus places us in each other’s hands, commits us to each other’s care. His unnamed mother can represent the church, while his unnamed disciple can represent each of us who remain faithful and devoted. On the cross, Jesus constitutes between them the community we are to become—according to John, it is it at the cross and not at Pentecost that the church is formed. “Where are my mother and brothers?” he once asked. And he answered, “All those who do the will of God.” At the cross, the will of God is that mother and disciple become mother and son, that the church become not just a classroom or a cafeteria but a family, a community of mutuality and equal regard.
When we stand at the foot of the cross, we become one faithful people. We may come as beloved disciples, followers, students; we may come as fathers or mothers; but we become something more. At the foot of the cross, we behold in each other a deeper relatedness, for we are all children of God. When Jesus entrusts us to each other, we become related not by our blood but by his spirit. Then, when we come away from the cross, we come away changed, bound by deeper ties. Empowered and encouraged by Jesus’ word, we take each other in.
