Scriptures:
25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother,“Woman, behold your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)
Message:
Today’s scripture is the third saying spoken by Jesus on the cross. We will dive into its precious meaning from two angles.
A) It fully expresses the beautiful humanity of Jesus
After Jesus, who is the Word, became flesh, not only did He obey God’s will in His human body and thus fulfill what God had entrusted to Him, but His life speaks to glorifying God in the flesh. In His everyday life and speech, we see the most glorious of humanity. As John testifies, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). The author of Hebrews states, “[Christ] being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). The Bible has a great number of depictions of Jesus’ kindness, gentleness, humility, love and empathy; all of them illustrate His perfect humanness. Here, as Christ is about to endure the cruelest of trials and the deepest of sufferings, He still thinks of His mother’s pain and needs, and He entrusts her to His beloved disciple. In this account, it is as if the Holy Spirit cracked open a small window for us to peer through, and we witness His most attentive love and perfect humanity. Not only is He the true God but also the true human. He is the only one that can live out perfect humanity, and He alone is able to understand all of our weaknesses and needs - “for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).
Meditation:
Try to recall and meditate on every description of Jesus’ beautiful humanity in Scripture. Give praise and give thanks to God for each of them.
What we can do:
Imitate Christ. Please spend two to three minutes and pray for your parents or your closest family. Write down your prayer.
B) “We are a family” in Christ
Not only did the blood of Christ show His great love for us, but through these words, we see that in Christ, through His glorious life and love, we have become His family. The cross not only abolished all enmity, but it also removed all dividing walls (Ephesians 2:14-15). We “are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). This is just as Jesus reminded us when He was on earth, “For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50).
Meditation:
Why is the cross of Jesus Christ necessary for us to become a member of the household of God?
What we can do:
In this week, as a member of God’s household, please express your love to one member in church as you would express such love to your own parents or own child.
Song: H291 O, To Be Like Thee
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