They’ve exaggerated the role of the mother, as though she must express that mother view in appealing to Christ, because they have forgotten that God didn’t need Mary to be a mother.  He had that quality in Himself. 

I wanna look at Mary not as divine but as human.  I wanna look at her as the New Testament reveals her—one who did not understand her Son, one who simply viewed, in spite of the prophecy that was given, viewed him through fleshly eyes all too often.  I wanna view her from inside her own human feelings of rejection, not understanding her Son at all, seeing her own fears realized as He hung bleeding and dying on that Cross.  And yet John 19:25 says “There stood by his cross his mother, There stood by his cross, There stood by his cross his mother”—and she will symbolize love for the rejected.  As Moses in this message is seen in his earliest position helpless—those that feel helpless can identify—Jesus in this particular frame at this particular moment, seen from the earthly-mother side rather than the divine-with-prophetic-understanding side, was rejected, to quote Isaiah, by all men: “He came to his own and they received him not.” 

She had watched Him led through the streets, screamed at, spat on, bearing His Cross.  She stood and watched her Son that she had held as a baby in her arms, that in spite of all that He might teach, just couldn’t seem to rise to the level of understanding that He really was not hers and that she had been honored above all women to bear the Incarnate Son of God.  To her, He was her child.  You can feel her frustration when He was 12 years old, missing him, leaving Jerusalem, crying it out, “My father and I were looking for you— your father and I.”  He rebukes her even then with a mysterious statement, I’m sure, to her: “I must be about my Father’s business,” meaning His heavenly Father. 

          Shortly before writing this book I’d sat on a moonlit night on top of Mount Tabor in Israel for about an hour looking across at the lights of Nazareth, and the little rising hill that marks its landmark, and reflected on the events at Nazareth when He began to preach and His family—sensing the resentment of the citizens of the town by the claims that Jesus was making about Himself and hearing them say with a sneer “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?”—to rescue Him from what they knew was a fermenting mob riot, they sought to lay hands on Him to stop Him from saying some of the things He was saying about Himself—to be coldly rebuked as Jesus looked at them when they said “Your, your mother and brethren seek you,” and He said “Who is my mother?  Who is my brother?  These that do the will of the Father that sent me.  These are my family.”  Still not understanding in this passage I repeat, seeing Him bleeding, dying, and rejected of all men, she was not fainting, she wasn’t fleeing, and she wasn’t falling.  She stood by His Cross as life ebbed away.  Love for the rejected.

I’m quite sure there’s never been anybody on the face of this earth as rejected for unjust reasons as Jesus of Nazareth.  And I do not bring the Cross in front of us with its theological meaning; I bring it in front of us, with her mother’s limited understanding, from the earthly frame.  To her, her Son hung there between two thieves, the object of revulsion, the object of hate, the object of rejection.  She didn’t reject Him.  Her love did not waver.  She stood—I’m sure every mother knows feeling the pain—only second to Jesus Himself or the heavenly Father Himself who saw His Son treated that way.  She certainly stood third in line, but she stood there.  She wouldn’t reject Him though the whole world rejected Him.

As Jochebed can give you the comfort—“As a mother comforteth, so will I comfort”—as Jochebed can comfort you that no