The Meaning of Mothers’ Day

 One ungrateful brat writes these words about his mother: 

   I had the meanest mother in the world. While other kids had candy and chips for breakfast, I had to eat eggs and toast. While other kids had cakes and candy for lunch, I had a sandwich. My supper was different too.  We had to sit down at the table and eat with the rest of the family.  My mother was so mean that we had to report our whereabouts at all times. She insisted on knowing who our friends were.  You'd think we were in prison.

  My Mother broke the child labor laws. She made us work. We had to wash dishes, make beds and cook and clean. My mother stayed awake nights thinking of things for us to do. And she insisted that we tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth or we’d get our faces slapped. She never let us get away with anything.

   By the time we were teenagers my mother made our lives unbearable. She’d embarrass us by insisting that our friends come to the door. We had to be home early on school nights and she’s never let us stay out late on weekends with all our friends. We had to go with her to Sunday School and Church every weekend.  We missed out on so much fun.

   Mother was so mean she wouldn’t let us date until we were 17. She kept telling us that there was a lot of time - and that we needed to grow up first. Mother raised a bunch of squares. None of us has been arrested for shoplifting or dope. None of us smoke cigarettes or pot.  That horrid, mean old mother.

   Our fondest memories of mother aren’t her cooking and cleaning, but her constant questioning: "Did you wash your face? Did you brush your teeth? Did you put on clean underwear? When you comin’ home?  Did you say thank you?"  The list goes on and on.  Now we as parents and grandparents ask the same questions and get the same dumb expressions. What we know as parents but didn’t quite get as kids is that all these questions are not an inquisition, but a parent’s way of expressing love. And love is the key factor in good parenting, just as it’s the key factor in living the Believer's life successfully.

 

The Invention of Mothers Day

   The woman who invented Mother's Day is Anna Jarvis. Her Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, is called "the Mother's Day Church." Her home is a national landmark. Her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, organized “Mothers’ Work Day Clubs” in the 1850s. These clubs provided medicines and nursing for the poor, inspected milk and established shelters for children with tuberculosis. When the Civil War broke out, Mrs. Jarvis called together her clubs from both sides of the Mason Dixon line, imploring members to pledge that friendship and good will would not be a casualty of the war. Her women from both sides worked together to nurse soldiers and save many lives. Following the war, Mrs. Jarvis organized "Mothers' Friendship Days" to bring families that had been torn apart by the war together.

   Anna Jarvis, the daughter, was born in 1850, and was an impressionable teenager when her mother was at the peak of her courageous work. In 1907, two years after her mother's death, Anna Jr. organized the first "Mothers' Day" there in Grafton to honor her mother.  But as time went on, Mothers’ Day became a national event. In 1915, President Wilson officially proclaimed the 2nd Sunday in May as Mothers' Day.

   One of the earliest promoters of Mothers’ Day was Julia Ward Howe, a militant abolitionist and author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Following the war, Julia Howe focused on two other causes: voting rights for women and world peace. When war broke out between France and Germany, Howe wrote:

"Why don't the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone know and bear the cost? Arise, Christian women of this day!  As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women on this day leave the duties of hearth and home to set out in the work of peace."

   Howe began organizing what she called "Mothers' Peace Day" festivals, which were celebrated annually on June 2. She was convinced that, though the world may be divided by war and conflict, the experience of childbirth could bind the mothers of the world together into one family, a family that could make a difference. So the primary concerns of the original Mothers’ Day were civil liberties, international peace, overcoming poverty and ministering to the poor and infirm. From the beginning this was a day not simply to remember our own mothers, but to express the deepest form of human love, extending outward to family, friend, acquaintance, stranger, foreigner, enemy.  In the truest sense, Mothers’ Day personifies Yahshua’ command to love friend and enemy alike. 

Love as Obedience

   Some might say that the deepest form of love is obedience and discipleship to Messiah. When Yahshua says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments," he isn't trying to force us to love by filling us with guilt. This isn’t the kind of love often expressed by the lovelorn or by children, "Well, if you really loved me, you’d . . . "  No!  Yahshua’ intention isn’t to manipulate, but to arouse expectation in his disciples.  He’s saying, "If you love me . . . then you must prove it so that everyone will know that you do!  Keeping my commandments is the way you’ll witness to your love for me!"  And this is the lesson that both Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe learned and publicly, vocally practiced: love that acts itself out as righteous living.

   Our Gospel lesson teaches us that we should create a certain attitude of love in our homes and churches: an environment of grace, of faith, of security, of justice.   It also teaches us how Yahweh shows his continuing, ever-present love: through the power and presence of his Set-apart Spirit. All we're called to do is to live that love, making love mirrors of ourselves, so the world can behold in us its horribly marred image of lovelessness -- and find repentance.

  Why do we keep his commandments: just so that we can be known as good people or good Nazarenes?  Hardly.  If we become Yahweh’s love mirrors, we will, in turn, be loved more, and if we’re loved more, then we might receive more opportunities to do more loving acts, and thus prove love’s origin in Yahweh.  And we want this kind of love, don’t we?  And we want to do love, don’t we?  Sure we do!  One of the reasons we’re so frustrated is because we’re so lax in reflecting love by doing love.  Yahshua informs us that love builds us up in self-esteem and self-worth. If we value ourselves in Messiah, we will then value others, become love mirrors, and reflect his light.  Such love helps keep our lives centered and focused on selflessness and humility.  As new creations, we may even accomplish great feats like those of the blessed mothers Anna Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe.

 

An Environment of Grace

   Out of love, shouldn’t we also create a grace space within our homes and churches?  By grace space I mean creating a place that isn't judgmental except through the law of love: a place where family and church members are allowed the opportunity to experiment with free will without being loaded down with unwarranted guilt.  A place that allows for mistakes, promotes repentance, and offers forgiveness when mistakes are recognized and repented. 

   A boy was at the mall with his mother.  He ran off, knocked things down, got into things he shouldn’t touch.  As they were driving home, he could tell Mom was mad, so he asked, "When we ask EL to forgive us when we’re bad, He does, doesn't He?"  Mom replied, "Yes, He does."  "And when EL forgives us, EL buries our sins in the deepest sea, doesn't He?"  Mom replied, "Yes, that's what the Bible says."  The boy then said, "I've asked EL to forgive me but I bet when we get home, you're going fishing for those sins, aren't you, Mom?"

   One of the first rules of fair fighting is that we don’t 'go fishing' for sins Yahweh has buried in the sea. Our homes and our church need to be like certain diets, "guilt free," by being places of grace and forgiveness rather than hellfire and damnation. To make it so takes a fair amount of faith.  I was gratified this week in that two people came up to me in this church and told me the same story: they both said, “We can come into this church now without feeling like we’re being condemned to hell all the time.”  For those confessions, the people of this church are to be commended.  You have created grace space.

 

An Environment of Faith

  Now we should add faith to grace.  One of the ways we can is through attending both Sunday School and Worship.  It’s fine to send the kids in, but it's essential for you to attend with them. 

   There’s a teenage girl who was disgruntled because she had to go to Sunday School and didn't get to stay home and watch TV with Dad. Dad heard her grumbling, so he told her, "Look, you need to go Sunday School and Church. I went every Sunday when I was your age." The girl turned, shoulders slumped as she headed for the car, and Dad heard her mumble, "Yeah, and I'll bet it won't do me any good either."

Well, both father and daughter are wrong.  Continued exposure to safe, gracious surroundings where the Gospel of Yahshua is proclaimed insures favor, faith and blessing to both generations.  Over my protests, my father insisted I attend church.  One day it so happened that I received Yahshua.  A couple years later it so happened that I received the second blessing.  This can be the case for both you and your children if you make assembly a top priority instead of scribbling church down at the bottom of the list.

  The moral lessons presented in places like this provide opportunities for parents and children to communicate and learn from each other and from the Heavenly Father.  Church also provides godly challenges, examples and mentors.  To be a good example you have to be actively involved in the everyday, every-way life of your child. This includes experiential faith.  And parents must have more than a "do as I say" attitude -- they need to be faithful.  I love to see grandmothers bringing children in here.  It’s difficult for grandparents, but the sacrifice of their time and effort shows just how much these mothers really do care.

 

An Environment of Security

   Finally, we're challenged to create an environment of security. That's something many don't have, even in stable homes. Our kids live in a fragile society where everything is constantly changing. The changes children experience today are far different than the changes you and I experienced growing up.  The only thing that doesn't change is that things change.

   One of the best gifts is the same gift the Father gives us -- the security of His loving faithfulness. Things change, but love need never change. Love and security lead to faith in Yahweh, which is the anchor of one’s soul.  You mothers better give your kids a sure anchor.  Your participation with them in sports is a poor substitute for your participation with them in faith.  They’ll need something to cling to later on that’s more stable than a tee ball bat!  That item will be of little value when trouble comes.

  So give them security by being faithful yourself. Make faith and discipline a priority. Let your family know that no matter what happens, love is still available. We may hate what they’ve done and condemn their actions, but we’ll always love them. We love and we judge through love also.

   One mother tried to put her three-year-old to bed. After several attempts, she laid down next to him, hoping that would put him to sleep.  Mother fell asleep, but the child didn't. When she awoke, she saw the child sitting on a chair at the end of the bed.  "What are you doing?" said mother.  "I'm playing EL -- I'm watching over you while you sleep."

   Yes, our Father in Heaven IS watching over us. Yahshua makes this clear by telling us about the coming of the Set-apart Spirit. Not only will Father watch over us, but through the presence of the Set-apart Spirit, we will be reminded of what it means to "Love Yahshua and keep his commands."  Yours may become a house of love mirrors!  This church should be full of mirrors!  Mother, grandmother – through you our Father will help create such a space for love, grace, faith and security, that we all so need in these insecure and faithless times.  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Set-apart Spirit.  Amen.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
Chorus
 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on."
Chorus
 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Chorus
 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Chorus
 

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Chorus