Woman behold your son…. Son, behold your mother.

Third in a series on the Seven Last Words of Jesus

by Pastor Paul Wolff 

 

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

---

Jesus said, to Mary and John “Woman, behold your son.” “Son, behold your mother.”

The work of Jesus to win salvation and pay for the sins of the world wasn’t done in a day. Good Friday was the most important day, but it was the completion of a lifetime of work. Jesus lived about 12,000 days from His birth to His death, and every day was a test. Would He love the Lord God with all His heart, mind, soul, and strength – even when it was the Lord’s will that He endure God’s wrath for sinners? Would He love His neighbor as Himself – even when those people sinned against Him, and hated Him and plotted to kill Him and took great satisfaction in doing so? If Jesus had failed just once in 12,000 days it would be all over, and our hope for salvation would have been lost.

As we consider the work of God for our salvation we ought to think about the work of Jesus in two aspects: active and passive obedience to God. The passive obedience of Christ was that He let sinners falsely accuse Him of sin and hang Him on a cross to die, and He also passively endured God’s wrath over the sins of the world, so that He could take the punishment meant for sinners, and rescue them from the righteous wrath of God. This is what Jesus was doing hanging on the cross, but His work of active obedience was not done.

The active obedience of Christ was that He actively obeyed all the commandments of God. In all of His 12,000 days, Jesus always did the good things that He ought to have done, and He never did any of the evil things that were forbidden by God’s commandments. This had to be done for our salvation so that Jesus could be the perfect obedient man who obeyed all God’s commandments, and the perfect unblemished sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. The Active obedience of Christ is why God said of Him, “This is my beloved son. In Him I am well pleased.” 

In this third word that Jesus gives from the cross we see again that He is still thinking of others, and not himself. Jesus sees His mother, and the disciple who is not named in John’s Gospel, which is John himself. By saying to Mary, “Woman, behold your son” and to John, “Behold, your mother” Jesus is telling Mary to consider John to be her son and He is telling John to consider Mary to be his mother. In doing this, Jesus is keeping the Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.”

Jesus was honoring His mother by seeing that she was provided for in her old age. Assuming Mary was in her early to middle twenties when Jesus was born, she would have been in her middle to late fifties when Jesus was crucified, and could have lived many more years before her death. Jesus would not be around bodily to take care of her, and none of her other children were there with her at the cross of Christ, but John was there. It was the duty of the children to take care of their parents in their old age. As the firstborn son, Jesus was most responsible to take care of His mother. However, that was not His calling. Just as He was not called to take a wife and raise a family, so He would not live to see His mother grow old before He died. Jesus could have left the care of His mother to His brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, but where were they? They were not there at the cross with Mary. Likewise, none of Jesus’ disciples were there except John. Jesus had the responsibility to see that Mary not only was provided with material needs, but also Spiritual needs. John could be considered the most faithful of the disciples.

John had run away with all the other disciples when Jesus was arrested, as Jesus had told them beforehand that this would happen, quoting Zechariah 13:7 saying, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’” John did enter into the house of the High Priest with Peter during the trial of Jesus, yet John did not deny Jesus as Peter did. John also was there at Golgotha to witness the death of Jesus. So Jesus knew He could trust John to provide for Mary’s needs of body and soul as she grew older and moved toward her death. 

Mary’s needs were not only physical, because although she had remained faithful while Jesus was with her, the evil one would surely still try to lure her away from her salvation, and get her to deny that she needed the forgiveness of Jesus to save her from her sins. John would be her pastor to call Mary to repentance when necessary, and to frequently assure her of the redemption and forgiveness of Jesus so that she would remain faithful to her end trusting in Him to save her.

Jesus was also changing His relationship as son with Mary for a couple other reasons. Jesus was the one chosen by the Father to suffer and die for the sins of the world. Jesus had to do this alone. He could not share His suffering with anyone else, especially a sinner. He had to endure the full wrath of God for all the sins of the world, so that we would be rescued from all our sin. Mary surely mourned that the son she bore and gave birth to was the one chosen by God to suffer for the sins of the world, but nothing that Mary suffered had any effect for the salvation of anyone, including herself. Mary could be comforted by the Apostle John, whom Jesus gave to be her adopted son.

These words of Jesus also point out the false teaching of those who pray to Mary in heaven because they reason that Mary’s Son must listen to His mother and obey her. The resurrected Jesus is exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords, and that includes His mother. Jesus is not obligated to obey His mother, or anyone except God the Father and the Holy Spirit, though He is in perfect agreement and unity with God in all things. Mary’s role in our salvation is nothing more than we confess in the creed. She was the faithful virgin who believed God’s Word when the angel spoke it to her, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God was miraculously conceived in her and she gave birth to Him so that He could live and die as a man to redeem all mankind from our sins.

Jesus was honoring His Father by remaining obedient to God, the Father, and offering His life as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, but He does not do this at the expense of His mother. Jesus was again thinking of others while He was suffering and dying on the cross. He did not want to lose His mother, just as He did not want to lose even the thief who was crucified alongside of Him (see the previous word from Jesus on the cross).

---

Articles in this series:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.
Woman behold your son. Son, behold your mother.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
I thirst.
It is finished.
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

---

Blinded by Sin

by Pastor Paul Wolff

The transfiguration of Jesus is one of the great mysteries of the Bible. However, the mystery is NOT that we don’t really know what happened. On the contrary, three of the Gospels recount the events of the transfiguration so we know well what happened. The mystery is: what does the transfiguration mean?

What happened was that Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain and the appearance of Jesus was transfigured so that he shone with a bright light. The ancient prophets, Moses and Elijah, appeared talking with Jesus about his upcoming “departure” in Jerusalem. Then a voice from a cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Needless to say, this doesn’t happen every day, and that is part of the mystery, but it was not unprecedented in the history of the world. In the exodus from Egypt, Moses was talking with God on Mt. Sinai, receiving the law for God’s people, and when he came down the mountain his face was shining because he had been in the presence of God. Moses’ presence at the transfiguration of Jesus gives us a clue about the meaning of this mysterious event. The shining light was the glorious holiness of God. The difference is that in the case of Moses the light was residual from God’s glory and it eventually faded away. In Jesus’ case, the light came from within Him. He was the source of the light.

When God created light on the first day of creation he did not create any “natural” sources for the light until day four so we must conclude that God, Himself, was the source of the daylight for the first three days of creation. Also, in the Revelation that Jesus gave to John on Patmos later in his life, John writes of the heavenly paradise, “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Revelation 22:5)

The question is, if Jesus was the source of the glorious light on the mount of transfiguration, why didn’t anyone see it in His life before then? Again, we can look back to Moses for a clue. When the Israelites saw Moses reflecting the holiness of God they could not bear to look at him. Sinners cannot bear the holiness of God, even the greatly diminished reflected glory in the face of Moses. Scripture tells us that “no one can see the face of God and live.” (Exodus 33:20) Moses received special grace from God to be in His presence, but even Moses was not permitted to see the full glory of the face of God.

Like everything that Jesus did in His life, it was out of love for us that Jesus hid His glorious holiness except for this brief time on the mountain with Peter, James, John, Moses, and Elijah. Sinners cannot bear holiness because it shows us just how corrupt we are because of our sin. We are all blinded by our sin. We see everything through corrupt, sinful eyes. This is a twisted view of reality. We are so used to sin and comfortable with it that we imagine that we aren’t so bad and that some of the things we do are actually so good that even God Himself must be pleased. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Sin corrupts us totally. Everything that we are and do is tainted by sin so that even our righteous deeds are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) in God’s holy sight. For sinners to stand in the presence of God’s holiness would make us so aware of the corruption of our sin that we would die. Even to get a glimpse of God’s holiness (as the Israelites saw in Moses) would be unbearable. This is a function of the Law of God – to show us our sin. However, as Jesus tells us, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:17) So Jesus hid His holiness and lived an ordinary life no different from any other man, except that He was without sin – but even this He did quietly without drawing attention to Himself.

The glory of God’s holiness revealed in Jesus in the transfiguration is set in sharp contrast to the grotesque horror of the crucifixion, and yet, both events reveal the same glory of God. The holiness of God is not a pure abstraction, and it is not only made tangible by an unbearable light. The holiness of God is, more than anything else, expressed in a love that moved God to become incarnate as Jesus Christ as one of His created people to bear the sins of the world and to suffer and die to pay the price for our sin to redeem us. As Jesus hung dying on the cross He not only continued to hide His glory, but He endured God’s wrath over our sin to spare us from the punishment that we deserve. Jesus did not make us endure the guilt of our sin, but He endured the punishment of the sins of the whole world.

The hiddenness of Christ’s glorious holiness is a mystery that is only partially revealed in the event of the transfiguration. However, this is how God works in the world. Out of love for us, God does not blast us with His glory. God does not force us to love Him, nor does He force us to endure the unbearable reality of our sin. Instead, God is merciful to us and works through the means of His Word and Sacraments to show us our sin and our savior. The “weakness” of these “Means of Grace” is that they can be rejected by people. The strength of these Means of Grace is that God works through them to bring us the salvation won for us by Jesus on the Cross.

All people on earth live under the grace of God, and part of this grace is that we are blind to the full reality of our sinful corruption, just as we are blind to the glorious holiness of God. We should not attempt to perceive the holiness of God because in our sinful condition we are likely to be led astray by the lies of the devil. We may think we see a divine revelation, but it is most likely to be our own sinful desires within us. Yet God has given us His Holy Scriptures to show us our true savior, Jesus Christ, so that all who believe in Jesus are saved from their sins and will share in the glorious holiness of God, of which we see a brief glimpse in the Transfiguration.