Thought for the day – Sunday 3rd May 2020

Mary, the mother of Jesus

Even though it was now three weeks since that dreadful day when she’d seen her son die, this didn’t get any easier for Mary, would the pain ever go away?  People kept talking about time being the great healer, but it didn’t feel that way for her, the pain was physical, it felt as though somebody had ripped her heart out the day she saw him carrying that cross, the pain in his face and the marks of their anger ripped into his back, who could do something like that to another human being, who could do that to her boy? She’d cleaned the house from top to bottom day after day until there was no cleaning left to be done, she’d feel tired and sit down, but how could she relax, she felt as though she should be doing something, anything that might take this feel better, would it ever feel any better.

Time after time over these last days she’d been transported back to that day all those years ago when the Angel had told her she would bear a child, he told her that she had been chosen by God, what an honour that had been, her just an ordinary girl blessed in such a way.  She touched her stomach, she remembered feeling his tiny body moving and growing within her, how she’d looked forward to seeing, she never had figured out why God had chosen her, but the day he was born and she looked into his eyes for the first time, touched his beautiful, perfect little hands and feet, she loved him more than she could have ever imagined and she felt blessed indeed. How many times had she reflected on his birth over the years, it was hardly conventional and certainly not what she had anticipated but had been one of the most special days in her life, it helped remembering happier times.

She thought back to the little boy growing up in Nazareth, how he’d enjoyed helping his dad in the carpenters shop, he was a keen learner and she could see him now, standing and asking questions, poor Joseph, he was such a patient man and delighted in explaining what he was doing so that his boy might have a trade.  Jesus was a good boy, so caring, he was her first born, so perhaps she felt different about him, but how he’d loved his brothers and sisters, he’d really cared for them.  She’d really come to rely on him when Joseph fell ill, they relied on the money he made from the little carpenters shop, she wondered how they would cope, particularly after Joseph had died, she need not have worried because Jesus had stepped up, he was a handsome young man and committed himself to looking after her and his younger brothers and sisters, always putting others before his own needs and desires, yes he was a good boy and the more he grew, the deeper her love for him had grown.

She’d assumed that he would continue to work in the business, but then something happened around his thirtieth birthday, he suddenly started to pursue a different path, his younger brothers were now helping with the business, it was as though the time was right, as though he was now doing what he was always meant to be doing.  She saw much less of him now as he worked tirelessly, she’d been amazed the day they attended a wedding, how embarrassing for the host when the wine ran out, but he just took the jars laid aside for ritual washing and when the host drew water out it was wine, she smiled, that was typical of him, not just enough to save face for the host, but the best quality wine and far more than they could have ever drunk, that was Jesus, he’d always been the kind of person to go the extra mile for people.

She’d sat and listened to him address crowds, she hung on his every word, where did he ever get that wisdom from? It was most certainly not from either her or Joseph, he spoke about the world as though he had been there from the very start.  He made her cringe, when he started to take on the Jewish authorities, tell them that they were getting things wrong, he wasn’t some kind of big head who thought he knew better than others, it was as though he knew the truth. She feared for his safety when he headed to Jerusalem for the Passover, it was a journey they’d made often as a family, she remembered the time when they’d lost him when he was still a little lad, they were panicking and even today she remembered feeling sick with anguish that she might have lost him for good, but there he was, bold as brass sitting with the elders discussing issues she didn’t understand, she perhaps knew that day that the time would come when he’d get himself in hot water.

This was so painful, she couldn’t get the image of the cross out of her mind and his limp, broken body, now just a shell, would this pain ever leave her? some of the others had talked about seeing him, there was a buzz in the place that her Jesus was not dead after all but was alive.  Peter and the others had seen him apparently, why had she not seen him? Why did he come back to her? he was her boy, she’d carried him in her womb, she’d picked him up when he fell, bathed his wounds when he was little, oh if she could spend one more minute of her life with him, if only she could see him again, how she longed to believe that he was alive. She went back to the very beginning to the words of the angel, if he was God, then maybe he was still around, maybe he was no more than a prayer away.  While some prayed to their friend now, others to an unknown God, she prayed to her boy, her precious boy.