Introduction: Max Lucado writes in his book God Came Near of twenty five questions he would like to have asked Mary, the mother of Jesus. Some of them are:

• What was it like watching him pray:
• When he saw a rainbow did he ever mention a flood?
• Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he created the world?
• Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under your own roof?
• Did you ever try to count the stars with him…and succeed?
• Did you ever scold him?
• Did you ever think, "That’s God eating my soup"? (God Came Near, p. 43-44)

I suppose of all the questions I have for Mary one would occupy my mind the most: "What did the words, ‘And a sword will pierce your very soul’(Luke 2:38) mean to you?" To be told when your child was only six weeks old that your relationship with this child would bring you pain, pain as deep, sharp, cutting and piercing as a sword slicing into the very innermost recesses of your self—your very soul. This statement has always fascinated me and made we wonder, "What were the pains Mary felt as Jesus’ mother?" We honestly cannot know. Obviously the statement makes reference to the death of Jesus on the cross. Yet is that the only time that Mary felt or sensed this sharp pain in her soul? I don’t think so.

I believe that for Mary the sword pierced her soul a long time before the events of the cross. I believe that for Mary, as for all who would be parents, that the sword in her soul was the pain she experienced being the parent of a child, especially when that child is the Son of God. Her story of pain involved in parenting Jesus is unimaginable. Yet it also is a model for us as we seek to parent those whom God has given to us.

This morning I want us to hear Mary’s voice and see this portion of the Christmas story through her eyes. I have approached this with the deep awareness that the emotions a mother feels in being a parent are different from those a father feels. I trust, however, you will join with me to listen to the story and her voice as she reflects back on what it meant to see the fulfillment that "a sword will pierce your very soul."

"Good morning, Luke. It is good to see you again this morning. I’m sorry I could not continue our conversation yesterday. As I near my 80^th year my mind and my body grow weary more quickly. So you are here in Ephesus with Paul. I have heard him tell the story of the Son, my Son. He is gifted and powerful, especially when he stands to speak in the synagogue.

"You like our city, do you? Well, it is not the same as Nazareth where my husband Joseph and I lived. It was there we raised our sons and daughters. It was there Joseph died. I came here with the disciple, John, almost twenty years ago. We tried to stay in Judea and Galilee but as the numbers of disciples of my Son grew so did the number of those who hated us. John brought me to Ephesus when he began to be the shepherd of the church here.

Why am I with John and his wife and family? Because it is what my Son said. When my Son was dying he looked at me from the cross and looked at John and said that I should think of John as my son and that John should think of me as his mother. (John 19:25-27) John has cared for me ever since that day just as he would his very own mother. My tears? No, they come each time I remember that day. For it was on that day that I felt most fully the pain that had been promised to me. Pain that few can understand.

"You have asked many questions, Luke. I hope that I have helped you understand the events of his birth. I have long thought of those hours. Those moments of time have rehearsed themselves in my memory over and over again. You asked what happened after that night of the Messiah’s birth. Well, eventually we came back to Nazareth but for more than two months we stayed there in Bethlehem.

My husband Joseph loved God with such a passion. It was his desire to obey all the laws of our Jewish tradition. So after eight days we had my son circumcised and gave him the name that was given to us by the angel. We named him Jesus. Since we were so close to Jerusalem Joseph decided that we should also present him to the Lord there in the Temple. Our law requires that the first son is to be dedicated to God and offered with him was to be two doves.

"As we made our way into the Temple courts I saw a very old man looking at us. His eyes seemed to be fixed upon us, almost refusing to look away. He came toward us with such excitement that I thought he was going to harm us. I naturally tried to turn away from him with the baby in my arms. When he approached us I could see in his eyes that he meant no harm but had something to say to us. His eyes had about them a glow like the sun when it shines upon the Temple’s gold. His face was radiant with expectation and with joy. His hair, white as the clouds, seemed to be like a crown upon his head.

"He told us his name was Simeon and that he had for many years waited for this day. He told us how that God had promised him that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah of God. I tell you, Luke, only God could have spoken to this man. Joseph and I had learned to tell no one for when we had tried to tell the story we were mocked and shamed. But this man knew! He asked to hold my son and I carefully placed my son in his waiting, trembling arms. He held him to his chest and as he did the tears began to flow from his eyes. His eyes, my friend, were ignited by a joyful fire.

"With his arms outstretched, holding my son upward to heaven, he said loudly, ‘Lord, now I can die in peace! As you promised me, I have seen the Savior you have given to all people. He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!’(Luke 2:29-32) Joseph and I were stunned. Both of us had seen angels. Both of us had heard God speaking to us but now to have this aged servant of God announce this to all who would hear was beyond our understanding. We inwardly thrilled at this promise that our Son would be the promised hope for not just all Israel but for all the world.

"It was what he said next that brought confusion to both Joseph and me. There we were marveling at the statement and the moment and then Simeon turned to me. I looked into his eyes and where once there was light now it seemed a shadow had come over them. Maybe it was a cloud that had covered the sun. Maybe it was nothing. He looked at me and it was as if he looked through me. His eyes again filled with tears but this time they were not tears of joy but of pain. His lips trembled but they spoke clearly. ‘Mary, This child will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will be their undoing. But he will be the greatest joy to many others. Thus, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. Then he said the words I shall always remember, ‘And a sword shall pierce your very soul.’ (Luke 2:34-35)

"He placed the child back into my arms, turned and walked back into the crowd shouting praise to God. I had no time to ask what he could mean that a sword would pierce my very soul. For another voice began to shout its praise to God. This voice was the voice of a woman. Her name was Anna and she was a prophet of God. She was then as old as I am now and had lived for over sixty years in the Temple. She spent her time in worship before God day and night.

"She placed her weathered, wrinkled hands upon my son’s tiny face and began thanking God in song and shouting her praise to heaven. She looked at me and said, ‘Mother, I have waited for this day all my life. I have seen the Messiah of God.’ She asked so quietly, ‘May I hold him?’ I placed him into her fragile arms and it was as though years had been taken away from her. Her face was now bright as the sun. Her voice was like a song that those who harvest the grain sing. Her eyes reflected a brilliance that found its source from some other world. Then she placed him back into my arms and turned away to shout to all nearby that the redemption of the people of Jerusalem had finally come.

"When I received Jesus back into my arms something was different. When I held him that first night it was as though he were my son. I was his mother. This one had come from my womb and my flesh. He was part of me. This time, this time when I held him I realized what I did not want to admit—he was not my son. Suddenly the words of Simeon rang in my soul, ‘A sword will pierce your very soul.’ Luke, the shock, the sorrow, the pain of the years ahead came pouring in at that moment. I suddenly felt weak, my knees began to lose their strength so much that Joseph reached out to steady the baby and me.

Why did I feel such pain? Well, at that moment I understood that God was going to guide the unimaginable fate of my son, His Son. I began to see that for all that was promised about this child, all that had been spoken to us, all the hopes of ours as well as the people of Israel, for all of this to happen that it would cost my Son. I did not know how it would happen nor did I know when but I knew the moment when the baby came back into my arms that this child would give to me my greatest joy but he would as well be the reason for my greatest pain. Children, all children, Luke, are the reason for a parents’ most wonderful joy but they, as well, are the source of our deepest agony. When the child you hold in your arms must be given up to give you life it is a sorrow that cuts deep into the soul. That’s what I felt that moment, Luke, all the joy and all the hurt, all in a moment.

"There was something else, Luke, that gripped me at that moment. It was as if the child was suddenly distant, taken, no longer mine. No, all was still the same for when I held him he sought my breast as he had always done. It was as though he belonged to another, that while he would rest in my arms and sleep in our house, his home was somewhere else. Nothing had changed, yet all was not the same. The sword, Luke, not only cuts, it divides. There was a separation begun that day that would show itself many times over in the next thirty-three years.

"The times? You mean the moments when this was true? The first was when he was twelve. We had gone to the Temple to celebrate the Passover. We were returning home and realized he was not with us because all of Nazareth it seemed was with us. We looked and looked for him. For three days we searched. On the third day we found him in the Temple with the teachers of our law. I could see the level of conversation was one of depth and interest to all of them but I was exasperated. I said to him, ‘Son! Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.’ (Luke 2:48) Then he turned to me and said so calmly, ‘But why did you need to search? You should have known that I would be in my Father's house.’ (Luke 2:49) I said, ‘Your Father’s house? Your Father’s house? What do you mean your Father’s house?’ I felt Joseph squeeze my arm and as he did the words rang again, ‘A sword shall pierce your very soul.’ The child was no longer mine and it hurt.

"The next came eighteen years later. We had settled in Nazareth and he was all a mother could ask. He became the head of our home after Joseph died and was known for his skill as a carpenter in all Galilee. Then one day, just as the wind blows from the north, something turned. He told me he was leaving. ‘Leaving,’ I said. ‘Jesus, what will I do?’ ‘Mother, James will care for you but I must obey my Father.’ With that he left, left without any place to lay his head or food to keep him alive. I tried to hold him but he gently pushed my arms away and again, Luke, the sword, the sword had pierced deep into my soul.

"After that day he really never came home again. Oh, we saw him from time to time but he was always gathering a crowd. The things that were being said about him troubled me. The religious officials began to despise him and the outcasts of our villages began to follow him. I heard that he was in the city of Capernaum performing miracles. I told his brothers that we needed to bring him home and let him rest. When we got to the home where he was teaching it was so crowded that we couldn’t go inside. I sent James to tell him we were outside waiting to see him. James came out without Jesus and said Jesus had a message for us. I asked what he said and James said, ‘My mother and my brothers are all those who hear the message of God and obey it.’ (Luke 8:21) I was stunned. This was my son and to be rejected by him was agony to me. Then in my soul the words of Simeon came back, ‘A sword will pierce your very soul.’

"Oh, Luke, I struggled to understand the unimaginable. I wanted so to not see what I knew was His purpose. Each time I felt the distance God’s love would comfort my heartache. The deepest pain, Luke, happened two years later. I had joined others in Jerusalem for Passover. I had hoped to see him but once again the crowds were so large. You know how he was betrayed and arrested. John found me in the night to tell me. By dawn His sentence had been given by Pilate and the crowds began to shout, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ When he came out of the Roman court I could hardly recognize him. His face was beaten bloody, a ring of thorns caused blood to fall like drops of rain down his cheeks and upon his back was the beam of the cross. He staggered and stumbled up the street and out of the city toward the place of crucifixion. I plead for someone to help him but they only laughed and mocked my cries.

"The minutes became hours. The nails were driven into my son’s hands and feet and with each fall of the hammer I felt the sword once again. I fell at the foot of the cross, his blood, my blood, fell upon my cloak. I wept, deep, deep cries of pain. I began to wonder how the God who had called me highly favored could allow something so unimaginable. What was the blessing in this? All I could say was, ‘My Son, my son…." Through the shouts of those who mocked him I heard him say, ‘Mother.’ I looked into his eyes and in that moment all the distance that had been between us vanished. Those eyes were the same that had peered into mine in the stable thirty-three years before. He said, ‘Here is your son,’ and turning ever so slightly he said to John, ‘Here is your mother.’

" Mother. He called me ‘mother.’ The sword could not have gone any deeper. When he called me mother the sword no longer mattered. He was my son and I was his mother. I could not understand what happened in that moment. For suddenly the words from his lips pierced the noise and the darkness and the shouted, ‘It is finished.’ The thunder shook the earth as if the earth itself would open. Yet there in that moment, with the earth wet from my tears and his blood I believed what was before unimaginable to me—my son had become my Savior. His life, the sword, the pain all now became clear. For all that I didn’t understand I did understand that even as Jesus’ mother I needed a Savior. I understood that I could never have found my Savior without first losing him as my son.

Luke, you must do the same with your daughters Julia and Aquila. Perhaps you already know they will be your greatest joy but you cannot keep them, my son. No, you must let them go. You must lose them, not lose them to your heart but place them in God’s arms. For when they are there the sword will still pierce when they say goodbye but the pain will not be as sharp. They will be for you unimaginable joy. They will be for you a reminder that we cannot keep them until we have given them away. I stopped fearing what I could not control. You cannot control them. Luke, don’t be afraid to lose them to the hands of the Father.

"I’m sorry, I am tired. May we talk again? Oh, there is more, so much more. Luke, never forget, though, that your greatest joy may sometimes be your greatest pain. I know that is unimaginable but a sword through your soul is simply part of God’s plan. Goodbye, Luke. We’ll talk again tomorrow."

Sunday, December 16, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org

(The model for this monologue came from "A Sword Through Her Soul" by Wendy Murray Zoba, Christianity Today, Dec. 11, 1995, p. 21-24. The text of the monologue is original.)