Honor thy mother this Mother’s Day
I remember a childhood rhyme that went like this — rain, rain, go away; come again some other day. A month ago we witnessed a tsunami in Japan that caused billions of dollars in damage. We saw man, with all his wisdom and ingenuity, standing helpless in the face of natural disasters.
The last few weeks we have witnessed uncontrolled fires in Texas burning up thousands of acres going up in smoke, including some wheat fields. In our southern states a record number of tornadoes broke out killing over 300 people and doing incalculable damage to homes, businesses and people’s lives. In the Midwest floods are driving people from their homes and businesses and flooding farm lands damaging wheat fields and delaying planting of new crops.
Here in Ohio it has been raining about every day keeping the farmers out of the fields. The forecast for the next 10 days doesn’t look much better.
What are we to think about the “climate change” that is happening all over the world. According to the Bible these are all part of the “birth pains” nature is going to go through as it awaits its deliverance from corruption and death (See Romans 8:20-23).
The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 148:8 (New International Version), “lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding.” In Psalm 147:18 (New King James Version) we read, “…He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.”
In Matthew 8:23-26 we have an account of Jesus and his disciples out on the Sea of Galilee. Suddenly a storm came up scaring the daylights out of the disciples. Jesus was asleep. They woke Jesus up crying — help us, we’re going to drown. Jesus rebuked the wind and the sea waves. A great calm came about them.
Jesus did this to show that he, God, has power over nature. He can stir the wind and the rain; he can calm the wind and the rain.
There were tree huggers and animal rights people around in Jesus’ day. Paul wrote about them in Romans 1:21-25. The shortened New Elton Version of these verses reads like this — when they rejected God as creator they conjured up futile thoughts (their reasoning’s are nonsense) about nature. Claiming to have great understanding of the natural order, they began acting like fools, (Greek — morons). They became tree huggers and animal rights advocates. They worship the things God created more than God who created all things.(See Colossians 1:16-17). These people have been around forever and will be here till Jesus comes again. As for me, I believe — In the beginning God created. Nothing has changed.
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. A day set aside to especially honor our mother. God commanded us to honor our father and mother. What would home be like without a mother? I don’t know.
Years ago a cartoon in the Saturday Evening Post expressed it best. It showed a young boy about five or six years old talking on the telephone, saying, “Mom is in the hospital, the twins and Roxie and Billie and Sally and the dog and me and dad are all home alone.”
Rejected love — her mother and daddy disowned her. She did all she could do. When Elizabeth Barrett married the famous poet Robert Browning, her parents were so upset they disowned her. She and her husband settled far from home in Florence, Italy. Elizabeth loved her mother and father and did everything she could to be reconciled with them. Several times a month she wrote expressive, loving letters.
After 10 years without any response, finally, a package came from her parents. It was a happy moment for Elizabeth as she opened it. But inside she found all of the letters she had sent unopened. Like her husband, Elizabeth was a poet and her letters of reconciliation were eloquent.
They have been called “some of the most beautiful and expressive in all English literature.” But her parents never read them. Jesus Christ, like Elizabeth, went to extreme measures in a reconciliation attempt. He died so sinful men could be reconciled to God. It breaks His heart that many refuse to even read the letter of Calvary’s love.
Giving years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny baby in her arms, when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination and when the blizzard had subsided her body was found by searchers beneath a mound of snow. But they discovered that before her death, she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby.
When they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had mounded her body over his and given her life for her child, proving the depths of her mother love. Years later that child, David Lloyd George, grown to manhood, became prime minister of Great Britain, and, without a doubt, one of England’s greatest statesmen.
I can’t say it any better than what Theodore Roosevelt did when he wrote the following: “When all is said, it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of the national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.”
God has given mothers a special nurturing, caring, protective heart for her children. I have seen firsthand the sacrifices of a mother for the sake of her children and grandchildren. The heart of a godly mother is the closest thing we have on earth that exemplifies the heart of God.
Those of us who have been privileged to have had a godly mother (and father) have much to thank God for and honor mother for. To not give honor would be a sin against God and our mother.
Top all our godly mothers who have raised their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as did Timothy’s mother and grandmother (See 2Timothy 1:5), and to all our godly mothering mothers today, may God bless, strengthen, and keep you in his loving, tender care. I thank God for you all, Amen.
May you have a good week unless you have other plans.
Maranatha. (Maranatha means, “Our Lord Cometh.”)
The Rev. Elton Yutzy is the associate pastor of the Maranatha Community Fellowship Church in Plain City. He can be reached by e-mail at revelton@gmail.com.
