Editor’s Note: In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8), Women’s History Month in the United States, and the Lenten season, we will be publishing devotions written by women about the women who Jesus ministered to during his time on earth. This series will be called, “The Women Jesus Loved.”
We hope you will return each week to see how Jesus loves all of us, including women. This is the eighth in the series. Read the other entries here.
High-Expectations Parent
Which item will the infant pick? The pen, the money, or the ball? “Wow, look how fast she runs! I think she’s going to be sporty, like her mother.”
We are naturally curious about what children will grow up to be like. For Mary, it was pretty clear who Jesus would be before he was born. The angel Gabriel told her:
“He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Mary’s child would be the long-awaited Messiah, eternal King, and “God’s salvation” (Luke 2:28-32). Talk about having high expectations as a parent! (Luke 2:33)
There would have been quite a difference in expectation raising Jesus compared with her other (at least) 6 children. He was sinless after all, and people took a liking to the young boy (Luke 2:52).
Mary was involved with Jesus’s first public miracle. She had brought her concern about the lack of wine to Jesus, quietly confident that he could resolve the issue. I can imagine her, glowing with inner pride as she witnesses others finally experiencing what she has known all along – Jesus’s true potential. The prophecies seemed to be coming true at last.
A Parents Anguish: The Spiritual vs. the Physical
However, Jesus’s journey wasn’t one Mary would truly comprehend, as spiritual and physical (familial) concerns would feel at odds with each other. As Simeon prophesized, Jesus would cause Mary’s soul to feel pierced by a sword (Luke 2:35). As a pre-teen, Jesus would choose being at his “true” Father’s house over returning to theirs (Luke 2:50).
Even as Jesus does his first miracle, he initially resists his mother’s concern as not his own. Later, the family considers Jesus “out of his mind” (Mark 3:21) for ministering to crowds without eating. She arrives with the family to talk with him privately (Mark 2:31-35), but Jesus uses this situation as a teaching point to highlight that his true family was of a spiritual nature.
As Jesus’s ministry continues, she would have experienced more anguish: witnessing the sudden ascent of her son with his miraculous abilities and amazing teaching, while being fearful for him when he spoke against the religious leaders. The once numerous and adoring crowds would become a bloodthirsty mob, demanding her son’s death. Her promising child became a lifeless body.
Like the rest of Jesus’s followers, her once high expectations would not have worked out as she had envisioned. The misalignment of her expectations with God’s plan caused anguish.
Parent and Disciple: The Spiritual and Physical integrate
Mary takes time to process (Luke 2:19, 51b), and grows in her understanding. She learns to be Jesus’s disciple, as well as his mother 1. The pre-teen that was obedient to her (Luke 2:51-52) would be one to whom she would obey. Despite the anguish, she is among the faithful aunties and women who left their homes in Galilee to support, minister and follow Jesus, even to the foot of the cross. 2
In the last recorded instance of Mary (Acts 1:14), she is listed with the 11 disciples, praying and waiting for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She has grown from being Jesus’s mother to a disciple who comprehends her son’s calling. Though Jesus is now physically absent, he promises to be spiritually present, in her and the other followers as they are empowered to continue her son’s work.
As we lay our lives at the cross, we will agonize our parents who love us. At the cross, Jesus is fulfilling spiritual priorities but does not completely abandon physical priorities. He is still able to love his mother by ensuring that she will be cared for after his death and ascension by John. Likewise, we and the church community can love our parents as we patiently wait for them to understand our calling. Like Mary, parents can have a posture of obedience and be lovers of Jesus, yet need time to grow and process what obedience looks like and how it differs from their initial expectations.
As we reflect on Mary, those who are parents can consider how we may need to release our children from expectations and support them to be obedient to God’s calling, even when it gets risky and dangerous. Our role expands as we grow from parent to fellow believer and ministry supporter. As we do this, we may find that our children’s calling might become ours too.