Not Only for Mothers

This morning I just want to take a few minutes to focus on what we are doing and remember that this is a day we choose to honor our mothers, and I hope it is not the only day on which we honor our mothers. We have to express affection and appreciation and value our mothers every day of the year, and our wives, showing them love and appreciation for everything they do.

And when I think about our mothers, I think that they exemplify the choicest feelings that humanity can reflect, especially the love of God. The Bible compares a mother’s love to God’s love again and again, and many times the Word uses a mother’s love to illustrate the love of God. In fact, I have always believed that God—not in the sense that God is both man and woman—but I believe that those two energies are contained in God: the masculine energy that we associate with men, and the energy that we associate with women. With men we associate that aggressive, forward-moving energy, that watchful energy, and many things like that, right, which we associate in general terms, because they are all generalizations.

A woman, that tender, tolerant being, that compassionate being, that being who has that sixth sense because she is attuned to her surroundings, attuned to the emotions of others, and sees many things that we men do not see because she has that sixth sense her femininity lends her—and God brings together in his person all those different energies. That is why I believe that when God created man and woman, it says that he created them in his image and likeness; he created both man and woman, and both man and woman reflect elements of God’s personality.

God himself includes all the different energies that men and women express, but in a more concentrated form, and I believe, of course, that every man also needs a woman’s tenderness, and every woman also needs a man’s aggressiveness and drive. How many say amen to that? Because we are not saying that women are soft and men are hard—nothing like that—but there is, as it were, a more pronounced quality that men exemplify and another that women exemplify, and together we reflect the complexity and breadth of the personality of God, who is both things. God is judge, and he is lawgiver, and he is just, and he is aggressive, but he is also a warrior; yet he is also loving and compassionate, and he has mercy on us, and has mercy even to the fourth generation, and is patient. And in Christ, I believe, there is a reflection of that energy of God which we might call, ever so slightly, feminine. Christ Jesus, again reflecting the fact that everything is included in him.

Because of a verse that came to me in meditation this morning, that I was reminded of—it is in Isaiah chapter 66, verse 13, where it says: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” What a beautiful verse. “As a mother comforts her child, I am going to comfort you.” Again, when the Lord wants to express how he is going to deal with us, how he is going to protect us, keep us, comfort us, and affirm us in life, he says: Remember how, when your mother—when you fell and scraped your knee, or when they laughed at you and made fun of you at school—you would come to her, and she would comfort you and stroke your head, and soothe you, and inspire hope and confidence in you. What is more, how many of us, even after we have grown older and have had problems of different kinds—financial problems, health problems—

I don’t know about you, but until my mother passed away, she had that gift of calming me with just a look, a smile, and with her mere presence I felt safe. It is something instinctive, because with mothers, one spends months inside her womb, in a relationship of intimacy unlike any other that can ever exist, feeding from her and breathing through her and listening to the sounds of her body in there—the heartbeats, the flowing of the waters, and all these things inside the womb of a woman who is made uncomfortable and suffers for us and sometimes is even disfigured so that we can come forth into life.

And while we are the most fragile beings on the entire earth, there inside our mother’s womb, God shapes us and weaves us together and prepares us for life, and she communicates her life to us, and she will never be the same again, because after a woman gives birth she is never the same—not physically, not emotionally, not in any way. Her life has been irrevocably changed. Motherhood is the ultimate sacrifice; if we drink deeply from it, it is truly the most beautiful gift that can be given in life: to serve as a mediator so that someone may come forth into life. And just as Christ Jesus gave himself for us and sacrificed himself, so a mother gives herself for her children—not only while she is carrying them in her womb, but afterward, when the hard work begins, when we suffer because of them, right, when you suffer because of us and see us go through everything and commit all the reckless acts that sons and daughters commit in life, and suffer with us in our marriages, in our finances, in our health, in our human relationships, and through life’s stumbles. And the mother is there, watching over all of it and suffering with us and for us and giving us those words of affection and affirmation. Listen, it is the greatest mystery of all.

That is why, when God wants to illustrate his love—because that is also everything God does—even though he is there on his throne, inviolable, and he is the infinite, almighty God, and no one can harm him, even so, he suffers for us too. The Word says that as a father has compassion on his children, so Jehovah has compassion. And when people ask me, “Well, where was God when this happened to me? Where is God when a child dies prematurely, or a young person dies of cancer, or a noble person suffers a tragedy? Where is God?” Watching from his heaven and suffering with you. Suffering with that person. Because God allows himself to be affected by what we experience here in life, you know.

He is incredibly tender and merciful and generous toward us, and for a moment he makes himself vulnerable. Do not ask me how to explain that theologically, because he is mother and father toward us. As the hen covers her chicks with her wings, right? the Bible says. All those are images of motherhood, of God’s maternal character.

Yesterday, when I was in New York, I took a moment during an intermission in the conference we were holding, and I had promised some photocopies to the brothers and sisters from the workshop I had taught, and with all the hustle and bustle we had not been able to make them. So I went—a young man named Moses took me—to Staples, and we got there and I got out, went into the Staples store to make the photocopies, and they were very busy, and they told me, “Look, if you want us to make the photocopies for you, you are going to have to wait two or three hours.” I did not have the time. “If you want, you can do it yourself.” There were some self-service machines, and so, well, the whole thing was quite complicated. They give you a special card, and I looked a little confused about what I was supposed to do.

And an African American woman came over, tall and slender, wearing African-style clothing, dressed in an outfit honoring her cultural heritage, though she was African American, and she approached me. She had two children, two little boys; one was about seven or eight years old, or nine, and the other was a couple of years younger. They were both skinny, dressed like American soldiers in fatigues; they had their little jackets, their pants, their boots, like soldiers, but tiny ones, in miniature, very cute. You could tell that this mother had taken the time to buy those little outfits for these children, and the children were adorable. They wore glasses; even though they were little, it seemed that they both needed glasses. They looked very cute, well cared for, and well behaved. But like restless children, they were running around because the space was large, while the mother went about her business, making her photocopies, and she would look at them from time to time, the way we animals look at our offspring, at our babies when they are too far away from us, in order to watch over and protect them so that no one will hurt them. A faithful mother, keeping watch over her children.

And from time to time she would shout at them to sit down and tell them that otherwise she was going to pull their ears, threatening them, but what I saw in her was a mother’s tenderness. She was a woman who, I am sure, had had a difficult life, for reasons that would take too long to explain, and I imagine that she must have made her mistakes in life. I wondered—Meche tells me that I am the most contentious person she has ever known in her life—and I wondered about this woman’s possible past. I suspect that she had had her children at a rather advanced age, and perhaps it was the romantic in me, making up novels about people there, but I think that this woman, as I say, perhaps made her mistakes in life when she was young, and then had these two children, and they were her love.

And I watched as she once again made her photocopies, going back and forth across that large space, but always keeping an eye on those two boys. And I could see that the children had been well cared for, well treated, and brought up well. And in all of that I thought about a mother’s love, how this woman, even in her toughness and her evident aggressive strength, exemplified tenderness and care toward her children. And I said, wow, whoever tries to come sell drugs to these little boys or harm them in any way is going to come up against a lioness who will pounce on them and tear them apart, easily, because this woman is not going to tolerate these children being harmed in any way.

And I thought of so many African American and Hispanic mothers in our neighborhoods, in our cities in the United States—Chicago, New York, Boston. Our children are like fragile little animals in a jungle where there are dinosaurs that want to tear them apart. We are living in a very dangerous time for humanity, when our children are an endangered species; they are fragile. And there are so many single mothers, for example, in Rocksper, and in Spanish Harlem, and in Harlem, and in so many ghettos in the United States, fighting for their children, afraid that their children will be snatched away from them, that they will fall into drugs, that they will grow up being sexually abused, that teachers in the schools, sometimes with their strange ideas, will fill them with improper ideas, that some pervert out there will touch them in a harmful way. And those mothers are like lionesses, trying, doing everything they can. Sometimes they fail; sometimes they do not know how to do things, because motherhood and fatherhood were not modeled well for them when they were children. But they do what they can, and they are there battling for their children, to protect them and keep them safe from the predators who want to harm them.

And afterward I approached that woman, because she helped me. In fact, she came over to me and said, “Hey, what do you need? Do you need me to help you with something?” She told me, “Oh yes, look, this is the card; you take it over there, insert it, and then you put yours in afterward.” She showed me how to do the thing, right? while she ran around, looked after her children, and did twenty thousand things. And then, when I saw her there arguing with the little boys, telling them to sit down and stay still, I said to her, “You know, I want to tell you that you are doing a good job. You are doing a great job with your kids. You’re doing a good job, and you can tell that they are good little boys and that they are well cared for, and I congratulate you on your efforts.” She softened for a moment and said, “Yes, but if they bother me too much, I’ll tear their heads off. That’s what they need.”

But the children, you could see it, right? They knew it was their mother’s love. They knew she was a lioness and that lionesses sometimes grab their cubs by the neck and carry them; that is part of it. And we talked for a moment. Then she said to me, “Look, you know what? What I’m doing right now is preparing a workshop for teenagers, because teenagers need help. At this time there are so many bad things affecting them, and something has to be done for them.” I said to her, “Amen, I believe that, and we need to—” She tells me, “Because no one is looking after them,” and that is true.

And one of the things the Lord spoke to me through that, brothers and sisters, is that as a church—and you know that there is a move of God taking place in our congregation—to sponsor them and give them even more than we have given them. I thank God for what Miguel Prieto and so many brothers and sisters have done over the years for our teenagers. Glory to God for that, amen?

And we have to do much more because the need and the burden are great. We need mothers and we need fathers for our children, and I have made a commitment to the Lord. I give thanks for Sara Gautier, for Wilson, and for Sandi, and for this beautiful retreat we had last Saturday, where the glory of the Lord was manifested among one hundred young girls—teenagers—who came and were blessed and marked by that event. And I am committed to our doing many more things and, with the Lord’s help and for his glory, to having the best ministry for teenagers in many areas, in the name of Jesus. We are committed, and we are going to pray for that, because our young people certainly need support and mothers who will cover them with their wings and fight for them.

The last thing I will say is this, brothers and sisters: Rizpah came to mind this morning. I spent about half an hour looking for that blessed Rizpah, and I finally found her. Rizpah—please do not name a daughter Rizpah, just in case. But the fact is that I searched Google, and finally, not knowing what else to do, I typed in “dead mother takes care of the body of their dead sons,” or “mother takes care of the body of their dead sons,” and Rizpah finally came up on Google, because I had the story more or less in my mind, the story of this woman. I am not going to read the passage, but look it up later in 2 Samuel, chapter 21. Rizpah was a mother, and that is why I associated her with this African American woman in Spanish Harlem.

Rizpah was a woman who, during a tragic moment in the history of Israel—David had to hand them over—she was Saul’s concubine and had two sons. There was a great famine in Israel because of a serious sin Saul had committed against the Gibeonites, a nation, a people who had affiliated themselves with Israel. Saul violated a covenant promise that had been made to the Gibeonites not to destroy them, and he tried to do so and killed many of them. And it seems that God was angered by the breaking of the covenant. There was famine in Israel, and David learned through revelation that it was because of what had happened with the Gibeonites. There is a great deal to discuss there, so we will leave that for another day.

The point is that Saul—excuse me, David—goes to the Gibeonites and says to them, “Well, what do we have to do to satisfy you so that this famine in the country will end?” And the Gibeonites tell him, “Well, the only thing we want”—as though they did not want anything—“is seven of Saul’s sons, so they may be hanged and executed, and we will be satisfied with that. Seven of Saul’s sons, and we will be satisfied with that.” And in order to put an end to this great loss of life in Israel, David took five sons of Michal, who was one of Saul’s wives, and two sons of this concubine of Saul, this woman named Rizpah. All seven were hanged and left out in the open to be consumed by the elements.

Rizpah loved her sons so much—and look at what this says about a mother’s love; that is why I thought of her this morning. Rizpah spread a cloth over the rock and sat in front of her dead sons for days and days so that the birds of prey would not come and eat their bodies. Every time the birds of prey came, she drove them away so that her sons would not suffer the final indignity of being eaten by birds of prey. Day after day after day passed. Rizpah spent many days there. I imagine this mother, the pain of that mother, seeing the bodies of her sons decomposing, yet remaining faithful to their memory—a lioness protecting the bodies of her sons. That is a mother’s love. To me, nothing exemplifies it more clearly. She could do nothing for those dead young men, but at least she could defend the dignity of their bodies.

This woman sat outdoors twenty-four hours a day, protecting the bodies of her sons, until David heard about it. It shocked the whole region, and they went to David and said, “Look at what this woman is doing.” David was so moved that he ordered the bodies of these young men to be removed from the open air and given an honorable burial—a mother’s love. And I think that many mothers in Roxbury and Dorchester, Villa Victoria, Spanish Harlem, Harlem, Chicago, and different cities in the southwestern United States are like Rizpah. The birds of prey want to devour their children. The devil is raging against children and adolescents, and there are the mothers with their cloths, shooing away the birds of prey so they will not devour their children. That is a mother.

And I encourage you, brothers and sisters: let us never stop doing what Rizpah did. When the devil tries to come and take control of our children’s lives, the church of Christ must rise up like a lioness and tell him, “You are not getting past here.” Amen? We are going to do whatever is necessary to prevent the devil from ruling over the souls of our children. The church of Christ always has the final say. The devil occupies the place we allow him to occupy. When the church of Christ says no, it means no, because we have the authority of God with us.

So let us fight the battle in the name of Jesus. Let us all take hold of that mother’s love—fierce love, the love of a lioness—and let us never stop fighting for our children. We take our hats off to those mothers. Many of them are not here: young women, single mothers, wherever they may be. We bless them in the name of the Lord. They are in Brazil, they are in Colombia, in Mexico, likewise fighting for their children, fighting for the souls of their children—that drugs may not devour them, that the devil may not enter their hearts, that the culture may not poison their souls. And let us ask the Lord to give us the heart of lions—of lionesses, in this case—to fight for our own. And God is mighty.

Let us stand once more. Let us bless those adolescents wherever they may be. Let us bless those mothers who are fighting for their children. And in the name of Jesus, we declare the Lord’s grace, grace upon grace, in the name of Jesus. Father, in the streets, in the neighborhoods, in the favelas of Latin America, Lord, in the ghettos of the United States, Lord, and of so many other countries, we bless those women, Lord, who are fighting with all their might for their children, and we declare victory. We bind the works of the devil and declare his defeat, in the name of Jesus. And we declare that the church of Christ is rising in power to carry out its task. Thank You, Lord. We worship You; we bless You, Lord. Hallelujah. To You be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen, amen. Give the Lord a great round of applause. Hallelujah. Glory to God.